PROGRESS REPORT OF VILLAGER, Feb. 28, 2013

Progress Report A special Villager supplement, pages 13-24

Volume 82, Number 39 $1.00

West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Fashion’s Night Outta here! Cans event for this year By lINCOlN ANDERSON After its New York version was marred by an ugly incident last year, Fashion’s Night Out is “going on hiatus.”

On Wednesday it was announced that the international event started by Anna Wintour — American Vogue’s editor in chief and a Greenwich Village resident — has been canceled for 2013 in New York City, as well as throughout the entire U.S. Last September, Fashion’s

File photo by Elisabeth Robert

The LaGuardia Corner Gardens — seen here in glorious full bloom in a photo from June 2004 — have been flourishing along a strip of city-owned land on LaGuardia Place at Bleecker St. since 1981.

N.Y.U. project foes hail judge’s ruling about strips By lINCOlN ANDERSON Opponents of N.Y.U.’s superblocks mega-development plan claimed a major victory Tuesday, calling it a highly encouraging sign for a community lawsuit against the project.

State Supreme Court Judge Donna Mills allowed plaintiffs to proceed with discovery — accessing archived correspondence — on whether the university and the city colluded over a period of decades to block several open-space strips along Mercer St. and LaGuardia Place from being transferred to the Parks Department.

About 100 area residents and activists packed the Centre St. courtroom, listening to the plaintiffs’ attorney and the city’s and N.Y.U.’s attorneys argue for and against discovery. Among them were

actor Matthew Broderick and his friend screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, as well as members of N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan.

After hearing an hour of back-andforth, Mills ruled discovery could proceed.

She set the next court date for March 12, when, Mills ordered, the Bloomberg administration and N.Y.U. must “show cause” why they think discovery should not be permitted.

The open strips are de facto parkland, the petitioners claim, meaning that the state Legislature would be required to authorize their transfer for any other use.

Removing public parkland from park use is known as “alienation.”

The plaintiffs’ attorney is Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani.

Speaking to a huddle of reporters after Tuesday’s hearing, Mastro said Mills O.K.’d discovery because, “The facts proved that, over a period of decades, the Parks Department managed the properties, had signs on the properties, and one of [the strips] was transferred to Parks — Mercer Playground — for which there was a dedication ceremony in 1999, and then another ceremony in 2010 for a garden within it.

“To give away parks — you have a Public Trust Doctrine,” Mastro said, referring to the concept of alienation. “They’ve been using these tracts for public parks for decades,” he said of local residents.

“If it walks like a park, and talks like a park and looks like a park — it’s a park,”

Night Out was marred by a particularly bizarre and violent incident in Noho. A mob of hyped-up revelers — egged on by an ornery bicyclist with a chip on his shoulder — surrounded a brain surgeon who was driving home from work in his Audi. Some of the crowd jumped up and down on the man’s car, and, as onlookers cheered wildly, finally kicked out its front and back windows

Continued on page 4

C.B. 3 puts brakes on Fung Wah; Too young at Lolita Bar? By lESlEy SuSSmAN The new year got a bit worse this week for the Chinatown-based Fung Wah Bus company when, on Tuesday, Community Board 3 voted to recommend denial of an application by the troubled carrier to create a bus stop in front of 139 Canal St. outside the company’s storefront.

Although Fung Wah has for years been using this location for curbside loading and

Continued on page 4

5 15 C A N A L STREET • N YC 10 013 • C OPYRIG HT © 2013 N YC COMMU NITY M ED IA , LLC

unloading for its intercity route between New York City and Boston, the carrier had wanted the city’s Department of Transportation to make it an officially licensed bus stop and sought C.B. 3 support in its effort to do so.

However, at Tuesday night’s C.B. 3 full board meeting, David Crane, chairperson of the board’s Transportation and Public

Continued on page 6

editoRiAl, letteRS PAGE 10

hoopS: n.y.u. bAttleS bRAndeiS PAGE 35

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

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Twenties mag ran the gamut Dozens of dedicated rare-book vendors and collectors gathered last weekend at P.S. 3 for the school’s 33rd Annual Antiquarian Book Fair. The vendors, from New York and out of state, displayed their finest, oldest and rarest literary treasures, plus art, photos, maps and historical documents. Richard Chalfin, above, owner of The Better Book Getter, at W. 103rd St. and Riverside Drive, brought several issues of The Greenwich Village Quill. Chalfin said the edition above was published in 1927 — and was printed at 76 Elton St. in Brooklyn — and included articles and interviews highlighting the area’s great artists, academics and cultural events of the time, as well as a listing of local bookstores. While flipping through the magazine, Chalfin also spotted an ad for an “Anti-Obscenity Ball” at Webster Hall — a venue now popular for its pop and rock concerts. How ironic, he thought.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013 proposed BID, last November, down at City Hall and was dumbfounded at local residents’ opposition to the plan.

“You don’t want to pay $1 for clean streets?” he asked incredulously. The BID would assess property owners a special tax — just $1 per year for residential co-op buildings and individual condo owners — that would be used to fund the organization and its efforts. Told that residents, however, simply hate how commercial Soho has become and long for the days when it was a sleepy artists’ enclave, he said, “Some things will never go back.

This will never go back. Once you have tourists — forget about it. Plus, this is bringing money,” he added, of the droves of shoppers streaming by. Speaking of big money, while the Soho BID Steering Committee always has publicly stated that the initiative wasn’t being pushed by any single business entity, one of our Soho super-sleuths has uncovered new info showing that Joe Sitt of Thor Equities — the big player in Coney Island’s redevelopment — is now the prime property holder on Broadway in Soho, with real estate investments of nearly $400 million along Broadway over the past few years.

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DORIS IN DISTRESS, PART II: We checked in again with Doris Diether to see how she’s doing, but could barely understand her on the phone due to her severe, ongoing laryngitis, which has already lasted for two months. We think she said her broken shoulder is feeling better. As for her laryngitis, she said she recently saw her doctor, who just told her, “Come back in three months.”

Someone, please get this woman some cough drops! Do something! On Community Board 2 since 1964, Diether, 83, is the longest-serving member of any Manhattan community board, with a citywide reputation as a font of zoning wisdom and a fighter for neighborhood preservation.

Photo by Scoopy

ACE’s Vernon Warren said incredulously of Soho residents, “You don’t want to pay $1 for clean streets?”

SOHO BID SHOWDOWN: Well, the day is finally coming.

The City Council’s Finance Committee will hold a second — and final — public hearing on the proposed Broadway Soho Business Improvement District on Wed., March 13, at 10 a.m., at City Hall, in the Council Committee Room, which is located adjacent to the main Council Chambers.

The next step will then be for the full City Council to vote on the controversial plan, but, as usual, the public won’t be allowed to testify before that vote, so March 13 will be the last chance to do so. Meanwhile, ACE — the recovery and job-training program that formerly helped clean up all the tourist trash — we mean, tourists’ trash — on Broadway — has been progressively pushing west.

Henry Buhl, ACE’s founder, is a strong supporter of the BID, feeling it’s the best way to create a well-funded organization to keep Broadway looking good. As the BID initiative has been being advanced, ACE stopped sweeping Broadway in Soho at the end of June 2011. On Tuesday, we spotted an ACE worker wheeling a garbage barrel along the sidewalk all the way over on Spring St. west of Varick St., and he told us they go as far west as Greenwich St. So, Soho’s loss has been Hudson Square’s gain, at least in terms of supplemental sanitation services.

We did recently spot one ACE worker on Broadway, at Spring St., but he wasn’t cleaning — he was handing out information guides. “Free maps here! Free map and shopping guide!” Vernon Warren was calling out in his mellifluous baritone. Asked about his smooth voice, he said, “I think presentation is important no matter what you do.”

As the logo on his left shoulder said, he’s a “Community Ambassador” for ACE. Asked about his experience with the organization, he said it’s been positive. Due to addiction and other problems, he hasn’t worked since 1991, but now said he is “eager to get back into the workforce.”

He was at the first Finance Committee hearing on the

WHERE’S HOT DOG? Gearing up for his monthlong campout outside New York University, during which he’ll call for N.Y.U. to build or provide a large building for the homeless and low-income people, John Penley phoned us earlier this week about a well-known East Village homeless woman. Raz Drastic, a Mohawked punk musician who does a mean cover of Iggy Pop’s “Search and Destroy,” posted on Facebook that Marlene Bailey, a.k.a. “Hot Dog,” may be feared dead. “There were no details on it,” Penley told us. “He didn’t know for sure.”

Then again, Penley, noted, “These things happen around Tompkins — people disappear and everyone thinks they’re dead, and then they show up.” A pint-sized ball of energy, Bailey is a well-liked figure, but sometimes when she drinks, gets a bit rowdy. Ray of Ray’s Candy Store has felt her wrath, like when he didn’t get her what she wanted fast enough and she slashed his arm with a fluorescent tube, or the time she slammed the Avenue A store’s sidewalk vault doors shut on his head, knocking him out cold. We checked with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and gave Bailey’s name, alias and a description of her. Spokesperson Grace Burgess told us Bailey’s name wasn’t reported to them, and they don’t have anyone fitting that description under “unknowns.”

Similarly, Detective Jaime Hernandez, Ninth Precinct community affairs officer, said he couldn’t find any information about Hot Dog being dead. … Getting back to Penley, speakers have been set for the kickoff of his campout, which starts at 4 p.m. They include performance artist Penny Arcade; mayoral candidate / standup comic Randy Credico; squatter Frank Morales, who works closely with the group Picture the Homeless; and Joan Moossy, who co-hosts WBAI’s “Let Them Talk” with her husband, Paul DeRienzo.

CORRECTION: An article in the Feb. 14 issue of The Villager, “Two plans, many questions: Pier 40 forum coming up,” incorrectly gave the name of the vice chairperson of the Friends of Hudson River Park Trust as Scott Lawton. His name is Scott Lawin, and he is the managing director of Moore Capital Management, as well as a Tribeca resident. We apologize for the error.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

N.Y.U. project foes hail judge’s ruling on strips Continued from page 1 Mastro asserted.

Broderick grew up in the Village and still lives here, with his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, and their three children. Lonergan, who wrote the screenplays for “Gangs of New York” and “Analyze This,” and Broderick met while students at the progressive but now-defunct Walden High School, which used to be on the Upper West Side.

“N.Y.U. has taken more and more of what’s unique about the Village,” Broderick said.

“Parks make the city livable.”

“The university doesn’t own Greenwich Village, and the part they do own they’re destroying,” Lonergan said. “And it’s not for the students, it’s for money.”

But an N.Y.U. spokesperson, in a statement released after the hearing, downplayed the judge’s ruling as just “procedural.”

“Nothing changes as a result of today’s hearing,” said Philip Lentz. “The decision to sign the order to show cause was merely a procedural move. As the case proceeds, the well-documented history of this site will demonstrate that the properties in question have long been recognized as Department of Transportation strips, not parkland. The court proceeding today was an attempt to delay the scheduled judicial process and it did not succeed.”

Under N.Y.U.’s plan, it would purchase from the city one of the strips, along Mercer St.

between Houston and Bleecker Sts. This strip is critical for N.Y.U.’s plan, because the university intends to use part of it for the new footprint of its “Zipper Building,” which would replace Coles gym.

Although N.Y.U. has pledged to support the transfer to the Parks Department of two other strips — on Mercer and LaGuardia between Bleecker and W. Third Sts. — the university wants to maintain easement rights on these properties. N.Y.U. says this is needed to help the construction of planned new infill buildings on the Washington Square Village block.

Further bolstering the plaintiffs’ case in a big way, former longtime Parks Commissioner Henry Stern recently provided a bombshell affidavit supporting the community lawsuit.

Stern was Parks commissioner from 1983 to 1990 and then again from 1994 to 2000 — one of the longest-serving Parks commissioners in the city’s history. According to him, there is no question the strips are, in fact, parkland.

“In my opinion, all four of these sites have been dedicated as public parks, either expressly or impliedly, and therefore cannot be alienated by the city without the state Legislature’s prior approval under the Public Trust Doctrine,” Stern stated in his affidavit. “It was always the city’s intent in continuously making these sites available to the public for recreational use over many years to treat them as dedicated parkland.”

Stern pointed out that Central Park has not even been mapped as parkland — and that N.Y.U. couldn’t build there, either, without

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approval by the state Legislature.

Stern slammed N.Y.U. the “800-pound gorilla in the room…solely responsible for blocking the formal mapping of these sites as parks.

“It is an outrage for N.Y.U. now to argue its own actions and machinations in blocking formal mapping somehow evidence an intent on the city’s part not to dedicate these sites as parkland,” he added. “Through its longtime actions, maintenance and treatment of these parkland parcels, the city clearly manifested its intent to impliedly dedicate these four superblocks sites as parks. These four open spaces have been considered as parkland by generations of children. These are parks, plain and simple.”

Assemblymember Deborah Glick also submitted an affidavit, calling the approval of the N.Y.U. plan an illegal giveaway of public land.

“The issue of parkland alienation is central to this case,” Glick declared. “Greenwich Village possesses among the least amount of open space in New York City, the dearth of which is so acute, that every strip of open space — down to the smallest traffic island — is closely guarded… . [The City Council] chose here...to bypass the state Legislature and purport to act on its own authority. In doing so, it has violated state law embodying the Public Trust Doctrine.”

Continued on page 24

Fashion’s Night Out cans event in New York for ’13 Continued from page 1 before police arrived to quell the mayhem.

The incident prompted neighborhood residents — particularly in Soho — to demand that the annual event be better regulated, or move to another neighborhood. Free alcohol given out by fashion boutiques fuels a volatile situation, the event’s critics say.

A statement posted this week on the Fashion’s Night Out’s Web site, stated, “Launched in New York City at the height of the 2009 recession, Fashion’s Night Out was a celebration of shopping during a time when it was sorely needed. By 2012, F.N.O. had expanded to stores in over 500 cities nationwide and 30 cities around the globe.

“After four exciting and successful years, Fashion’s Night Out will go on hiatus in the United States in 2013, in order to enable retailers to channel their resources toward strategies more in keeping with their current priorities.

The event will still be held in select international cities.”

The Web site noted that Fashion’s Night Out has raised more than $1.5 million for the New York City AIDS Fund in the New York Community Trust.

The Soho Alliance was quick to take credit for the event’s cancellation, not just in New York, but all across America.

“Fashion’s Night Out, the international promotional event started by Anna “The Devil Wears Prada” Wintour, announced today that it was canceling the event throughout the U.S. next year, in what most view as a reaction to our complaints that the event had become a zoo in Soho and an embarrassment to Wintour,” Sean Sweeney, the Alliance’s director, said in an e-mail blast.

“For the past several years, the event deteriorated in Soho as crowds of underage kids showed up to grab the booze that the retailers freely doled out, roamed the streets well past midnight, carousing half-drunk, urinating in our doorways, screaming, trashing and creating general disorder, including the attack on

a motorist on Broadway and Bleecker St. last year.

“Our calls to Vogue for a meeting to try to work things out were never returned.

“Disgusted that Wintour showed such contempt toward our neighborhood, the Soho Alliance reached out to the community board, the Mayor’s Office, the N.Y.P.D., the Sanitation Department and the media for help — and to embarrass the fashionistas.

“Our efforts paid off,” Sweeney declared.

“Apparently, it would have been too humiliating for Wintour to admit yielding to our pressure and to cancel the event only in New York.

So she threw the baby out with the bathwater, canceling it nationwide — yet still maintaining the event internationally.

“It’s gratifying to have our neighborhood back for ourselves for that night!” Sweeney crowed. “The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”

Sweeney added that in an e-mail blast after last year’s Fashion’s Night Out, the Soho Alliance had promised to demonstrate in front of Wintour’s Village home, “to see how she’d like to see it trashed the way she trashed ours.”

However, Kelly Magee, communications director for Councilmember Margaret Chin, said Sweeney neglected to mention that it was Chin who, after last year’s incident, actually sat down with Mayor’s Office to talk about comprehensive reforms of the event. Chin also wrote a letter to Bloomberg right after last year’s event, to express her “extreme concern,” declaring that Fashion’s Night Out, “as currently managed, is inappropriate for the Soho community.”

Responding to the announcement that the sartorial extravaganza is taking a year off in New York, Chin said, “Last year’s Fashion’s Night Out showed our city at its worst. The event, which is meant to promote the fashion industry, was blighted by violence and shockingly disturbing behavior by some individuals patronizing F.N.O. events in Soho. I am glad to see that F.N.O. is taking a hiatus to refocus their efforts. I hope that in the future, F.N.O. is more responsive to the needs of the communities in which it is held.”

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Dear City Council Speaker Christine Quinn: Only YOU can protect our neighborhood.

PLEASE vote NO on the proposed Hudson Square Rezoning UNLESS the City keeps its promise to landmark the South Village.

Sincerely, Andrew Berman Executive Director, Greenwich VIllage Society For Historic Preservation Simeon Bankoff Executive Director, Historic Districts Council Howard Negrin Washington Place Block Association Sylvia Rackow Chair, Committee to Preserve Our Neighborhood Richard Blodgett President, Charlton Street Block Association Arthur Schwartz Democratic State Committeemember, 66th A.D. Judith Callet Former Resident Chair, Bleecker Area Merchants and Residents Association

Jeanne Wilcke President, Downtown Independent Democrats*, Former Chair, Community Board #2 Zoning Committee Katy Bordonaro and Zack Winestine Co-Chairs, Greenwich Village Community Task Force Lora Tenenbaum Former Chair, Community Board #2 Zoning Committee Gerald Banu President, Perry Street Block Association Silvia Beam Van Dam Street Block Association Lois Rakoff Community Board #2 member and former Resident Chair, Bleecker Area Merchants and Residents Association Bob Trentlyon Chelsea Waterside Park Association*

f

Tobi Bergman Chair, Community Board #2 Land Use Committee Margaret Halsey Gardiner Executive Director, Merchant’s House Museum Micki McGee South Village Neighbors Lesley Doyel Co-Chair, Save Chelsea Martin Tessler & Terri Cude Co-Chairs, Community Action Alliance on NYU 2031 Constance Dondore Coordinator, 15 Washington Place Tenants Committee Mary Ann Arisman Co-Chair, St. Luke’s Place Block Association *For Identication Purposes Only

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The City Council will vote soon on a developer-requested rezoning of Hudson Square, which will greatly increase development pressure on the adjacent, low-rise, historic South Village.

More than four years ago, the City promised to consider the entire South Village for landmark designation. It has not, and as a result more and more buildings are being demolished, with towers up to 18 stories planned in their place. Demolitions have increased in anticipation of a possible rezoning. If the rezoning passes without landmark protections for the South Village, this neighborhood will suffer irreversible damage.

The rezoning must be approved by the City Council. Speaker Quinn has the power to tell the City that she will not approve it unless long-promised landmark protections are granted to the South Village.

Call Speaker Quinn at (212) 564-7757 or e-mail speakerquinn@council.nyc.ny.us For more information, go to gvshp.org/southvillage Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation ● www.gvshp.org ● 232 East 11th Street, NY, NY 10003 ● (212) 475-9585

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Fung Wah Bus denied; Does Lolita have an age issue?

Continued from page 1 Safety/Environment Committee, told board members that a vote on the application would be delayed.

“Based on what has happened to the company recently, this needs to go back to the committee,” he said. “We won’t act on this application until we can discuss these recent developments.”

The previous day, Massachusetts regulators had ordered Fung Wah to remove threequarters of its 28-bus fleet from service after inspectors found cracks in the frames of many of the company’s aging buses.

State officials also asked federal regulators to intervene and remove the remaining seven buses in Fung Wah’s fleet from service. That action came from the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Tuesday afternoon when the entire fleet of buses was suspended. However, the F.M.C.S.A. stopped short of shutting down Fung Wah completely, allowing the company to continue to provide passenger services with buses it is chartering from other providers.

In other C.B. 3 business, several local political leaders spoke out strongly against any hasty action by the New York City Housing Authority to build luxury housing on parking lots and other open space surrounding public housing projects.

The financially strapped NYCHA recently

announced its infill-development plan as a way to produce more revenue for the agency.

Patricia Olan, a spokesperson for City Councilmember Margaret Chin, said the community must be included in the loop on the discussions of the new initiative.

“While we are aware of NYCHA’s financial troubles,” she said, “a robust community engagement process must be taken prior to any new development on NYCHA land.

Residents must have meaningful opportunities to provide input and recommendations.”

Also speaking out against any hasty action

by NYCHA regarding the infill plan was Linda Jones, vice chairperson of C.B.3. ’s Land Use Subcommittee.

“We want to slow down this process and make sure that tenant associations have ample time to give input into the plan,” she said.

At the meeting, attended by about 100 local residents, a brief debate broke out among board members regarding the approval of a full on-premise liquor license for the new owner of Lolita Bar, at 266 Broome St. The bar was closed on Valentine’s Day after undercover auxiliary police officers allegedly discovered underage drinking at the popular Lower East Side hangout.

New C.B. 3 board member Chad Marlow wanted an amendment added to the board’s S.L.A. and D.C.A. (State Liquor Authority and Department of Consumer Affairs) Licensing Committee’s list of stipulations

that were recently presented to Lolita’s new owner, Matthew Kelly, before the board would approve the liquor license transfer and send its recommendation to the S.L.A. Kelly also owns the Marshall Stack bar on Rivington St. The stipulations include that Lolita operate as a tavern, serving small plates during all hours of operation, have a 4 a.m. closing time, play background music only and have no live bands.

Marlow’s amendment would have added new information about the “illegal sale of alcoholic beverages” to minors, which prompted the bar’s recent closing and the city’s civil lawsuit against Lolita Bar alleging that the bar served alcohol to minors.

Marlow withdrew his amendment after several board members — as well as the board’s district manager, Susan Stetzer — objected to it, arguing that it would be unfair to add such language without proof that the charges were true.

“We don’t want to put in writing any language whose facts we can’t verify yet,” said board Chairperson Gigi Li. Li added that the application for the new liquor license would continue to be denied unless the new owner agrees to C.B. 3’s original list of stipulations.

New state Senator Brad Hoylman, former chairperson of Community Board 2, made his first appearance before C.B. 3, and told the full board that one of his top priorities was

to make the S.L.A.’s methods of operation clearer to the public.

“This is an issue I’m spearheading,” he said. “We want them to get more userfriendly. We want them to post online their procedures. This will make it easier for liquor license holders and the public.”

Also appearing at the board meeting was Joyce Mendelsohn. The author of “The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited,” she urged landmark designation for the Seward Park Branch Public Library, at 192 East Broadway.

“One hundred years after it was built this library is still going strong as a place where ordinary people can come, free of charge, for knowledge, inspiration, instruction and enjoyment to be found on the printed page of online,” she said.

She asked C.B. 3 to support landmark designation for the library for its “architectural excellence and its historic and cultural importance to the Lower East Side community.”

On another matter, a spokesman for state Senator Daniel Squadron told the board that a section of the Pier 42 waterfront park, between Jackson and Montgomery Sts., will open for interim recreational use starting May 4.

Reading a statement from Squadron, Mauricio Pazmino said that “along with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and the Parks Department, the planning for the redevelopment of the pier into a full park proceeds.”

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Police BLOTTER Fake cash failed

A wily teen thought she could trick a Union Square clothing store cashier into taking two fake $100 bills, but she had another thing coming.

A manager at the Burlington Coat Factory, at 40 E. 14th St., told police that around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 22, Shaquanna Rhem, 18, walked up to the register to purchase her items. Rhem allegedly handed the counterfeit bills over to the clerk, who clearly wasn’t fooled for a second. The clerk reportedly told Rhem that he needed to go and get change for the big bills, but instead he walked straight to management and informed them of the ruse.

The manager said she then approached Rhem, informed her that she’d been found out, reported the crime, and held her in the store’s security office until officers arrived to arrest her. Rhem was charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Jealous Catch co-worker Police arrested a supremely jealous boyfriend a week after he reportedly punched one of his co-workers in retaliation for “checking out” his girlfriend.

The 23-year-old victim told cops that, around 1 a.m. on Feb. 11, while he was hanging out on the sidewalk on W. 14th St. after working at the Catch restaurant and club, at 21 Ninth Ave., he was eyeing a female co-worker who turned out to be the girlfriend of Rayquan Drew, 25, another Catch employee. Drew apparently didn’t take too kindly to that once-over, and allegedly socked the other man in the nose.

The victim told cops that, after punching him, Drew fled the scene on foot.

The alleged aggressor couldn’t be found during a canvass that night, but officers picked him up on Feb. 19, and charged him with assault.

Man assaults woman

This guy reportedly thought it was O.K. to rough up a woman, and now he’s going to pay the price.

The victim, 26, said Jesse Sosa, 28, attacked her while the two were walking on E. 13th St., between Broadway and University Place, around 7 p.m. on Feb. 22. She told police that Sosa — who apparently had some prior relationship with her — threw her to the ground, and then punched her in the face. The woman also said that, as a result of the alleged beating, she broke three nails and left with pain in her shoulder. Paramedics treated her at the scene, but police said she refused further medical attention.

Sosa was arrested shortly afterward, and was charged with assault. The victim also told cops that she hopes to obtain a restraining order against him.

From arguing to blows

A heated argument just outside Washington Square Park early on Fri., Feb. 22, left one man with a bloody nose, and another behind bars.

The victim, 32, told police that he and Joseph Doria, 30 got into a dispute around 1:30 a.m. on Waverly Place, near Washington Square West, when Doria suddenly punched him, knocking him to the ground. He further claimed that Doria followed up by kicking him while he was down, leaving him with cuts to his face and nose.

The incident was quickly reported by a bystander who had witnessed the fight, and officers apprehended Doria after arriving on the scene. Along with charging him with assault, the police slapped Doria with unlawful possession of marijuana, since they found drug paraphernalia in one of his pockets, which contained alleged pot residue.

Meatpacking cab rage

You know you have some social issues when you can’t even get into a taxi without screaming bloody murder. And for this guy, a reckless rant against two cabbies landed him in handcuffs.

Police said that around 2 a.m. on Sat., Feb. 23, Mathieu Dublanc, 29, hailed a cab near the corner of W. 14th St. and Ninth Ave., but was apparently in such a frenzied state that he refused to give the driver his address and soon had to be removed from the car. Officers then saw him stumble into traffic and jump into a second taxi, from which he also had to be removed. After that, Dublanc reportedly began screaming at the second driver, and walked up to him with fists clenched, yelling, “Do you have a problem with me?”

After that final outburst, officers at the scene apprehended Dublanc. He was charged with menacing.

Sam Spokony

Occupy

Community News

7

8

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Stringer plants idea for wetlands along East River

By T. Schoen Borough President Scott Stringer recently gave his State of the Borough address, but maybe it should have been called the State of the East River Shoreline, since that was one of its major points.

The speech’s most prevalent topic was Hurricane Sandy, the so-called superstorm that disrupted many of the city’s services, and left thousands of New Yorkers homeless, hungry and destitute for four to five days and, in some cases, far longer. In response to the hurricane, Stringer announced a plan called the East River Blueway Plan.

Composed jointly by Stringer and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, the proposal is an outline of methods to help prevent future storms from causing destruction on the level of Sandy again. Among the methods proposed is the construction of artificial wetlands along the East River shore.

Wetlands like this naturally act as a buffer against powerful storms and the dangerous surges they produce. Using marshlands for this purpose is not a new concept: In New Orleans the restoration of protective wetlands around the city has become a significant aspect of hurricane-based disaster prevention. Stringer’s description of the idea suggests a future renovation of the shoreline beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, converting it into “an active waterfront destination that also fortifies the shoreline.” This area could

Under the Blueway plan, an existing beach area under the Brooklyn Bridge would be enhanced for public access.

be a popular spot accessible by kayakers, for example, Stringer offers.

Additionally, Stringer proposed an installation, a “new, green pedestrian bridge that can also serve as a sturdy flood barrier,” which would be built along the shoreline by the 14th St. Con Ed facility. Con Ed’s East

Village power plant was severely damaged by powerful storm surges during the hurricane, plunging Manhattan south of the 30s into darkness for over a week. The bridge / barrier structure would help prevent the same type of extensive blackout from occurring a second time. Stringer hopes that

the Blueway plan will ultimately serve as a “model for regional planning and engagement” against such violent storms.

The borough president also mentioned his deep concern over the state of the city’s middle class, which struggles more and more to survive, and which, according to Stringer, is an essential part of ensuring the success and well-being of the city.

“Without a strong middle class, New York ceases to be New York,” he stated.

Stringer suggested that a possible solution to the middle class’s decline lies in the ever-growing tech industry.

“Starting salaries in the new tech-economy can begin at $65,000 a year and rise quickly from there,” he said. “It should be the ladder up for so many of our residents.”

He also mentioned his concern for the state of early education in New York, citing concerns over the lack of attention given to what he considers a highly relevant program.

“We know that children up to 3 years old enrolled in programs like Early Head Start are much more likely to stay ahead,” he said.

“And yet, we invest almost nothing in these early years.”

To help such programs, he suggested that the use of a system called “Social Impact Bonds,” which would “allow private investors to fund public programs.”

Also on the topic of education, he stated that there must be an increase in “efforts to link schools to the workplace.”

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

9

Take a bite out of gentrification, eat at El Sombrero CLAYTON

let’s do something together at TRINITY WALL STREET

TRINITY CHURCH Broadway at Wall Street 74 TRINITY PLACE is located in the office building behind Trinity Church

ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL Broadway and Fulton Street CHARLOTTE’S PLACE 107 Greenwich Street btwn Rector & Carlisle Streets The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, Rector The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, Vicar

Photo by Clayton Patterson

At El Sombrero, from left, Chico — the husband of Josephina Diaz, who co-owns the restaurant with her brother, Palmerio Fabian — Chico’s niece Stephane Fabian and Regina Bartkoff.

Starting with, “What are you looking at?” it could quickly slide from there.

By 1987 El Sombrero’s clientele started to change and Jose cleverly hired Casandra Mele. Casandra lived on Clinton St., was one of Nick Zedd’s and Richard Kern’s “Films Of Transgression” actresses and went by

music

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 & 13, 1pm Pipes at One March 6: Bogna McGarrigle, Music Director and Organist, Church of the Epiphany, NYC; March 13: Daniel Kirk-Foster, Director of Music and Organist, St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, Bronx St. Paul’s Chapel THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28 & MARCH 7, 1pm Concerts at One Feb. 28: Contemporary American Art Song/Joy in Singing; March 7: New York City Master Chorale.

Trinity Church SUNDAY, MARCH 3 & 10, 5pm TENEbrae: A Lenten Early Music Series Featuring TENET. Tickets $25 at trinityearlymusic.com Trinity Church

All Are Welcome All events are free, unless noted.

212.602.0800 an Episcopal parish in the city of New York

trinitywallstreet.org

Casandra Stark. Having a streetwise artist/ waitress who spoke a little Spanish turned out to be a workable idea. Six months later, Jose hired Regina Bartkoff. To get the job, Regina dyed her hair back, faked a little laughable Spanglish and she got the job. Regina has been working there ever since.

community

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 & 10, 1pm Writing God: Spiritual Journaling Come and further your own spiritual pilgrimage through this writing art.

Meets every Sunday.

74 Trinity Pl, 3rd Fl, Room 2 TUESDAY, MARCH 5 & 12, 6:30pm The Blessing Group Learn how to bless your way through every day through a combination of prayer, meditation, and contemplation.

74 Trinity Pl, 3rd Fl, Library SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 1:30-4pm Pie Club Learn how to make traditional or healthy versions of favorites while baking extra pies for those in need in our community.

74 Trinity Pl, Parish Kitchen

worship SUNDAY, 8am & 10am St. Paul’s Chapel · Holy Eucharist SUNDAY, 8pm St. Paul’s Chapel · Compline – Music & Prayers SUNDAY, 9am & 11:15am Trinity Church · Preaching, music, and Eucharist · Sunday school and child care available MONDAY – FRIDAY, 12:05pm Trinity Church · Holy Eucharist MONDAY – FRIDAY, 5:15pm All Saints’ Chapel, in Trinity Church Evening Prayer, Evensong (Thurs.)

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SUNDAY, MARCH 3 & 10, 10am Discovery Lenten Dialogues: Economic Repentance Look with theological and social justice perspectives on hot-button issues that require self-examination and discernment.

74 Trinity Pl, 2nd Fl, Parish Hall

Leah Reddy

By Clayton Patterson What is the smartest, easiest, most pleasant way to stop a 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, or another cookie-cutter corporate business from renting the 108 Stanton St. location? Easy. Eat there. Support the business.

El Sombrero (The Hat) is on the verge of extinction, simply because the ever-increasing cost of living on the Lower East Side has purged the community of local long-term residents, and the tourists, students and trendy visitors do not seem to have a taste for an authentic L.E.S. Hispanic restaurant.

In the mid-1980s Jose Suriel opened El Sombrero. Jose, Dominican, thought he could attract more customers with a Mexican menu rather than serve home-cooked Dominican.

He hired a qualified Mexican cook and he was ready to go. The customers were divided between local Hispanics and creative types who could safely navigate the area.

In those days the territory between Houston and Stanton Sts. was an open-air drug market.

But if you minded your own business and kept the focus on where you were going, you were fine. Once in the restaurant, you had to maintain the same attitude: You’re there to eat, to enjoy yourself, and keep your concentration on your food, otherwise your nosy vibe and wandering eye could be picked up on the radar of one of the ever-present gangsters.

In 1990 Jose sold the business to Palmerio Fabian, his nephew, and Josephina Diaz, his niece, and moved back to D.R. The same family has owned the restaurant since that time. Over the years Regina has waited on Jim Jarmusch, Kate Moss, Liv Taylor, Dr. John, Joe Coleman, Julian Schnabel, Lady Gaga, Diane Sawyer, Rosie Perez and Larry “Ratso” Sloman. But it was mostly neighborhood people. Since she lived and worked in the area, Regina knew the drug dealers, their mothers and grandmothers, and the artists. For the most part, everyone mixed and got along.

She does remember one time one frat boy came in and tried to play one of the local dealers. Big mistake. Regina realized what was happening, scolded the guy, and then walked him out of the neighborhood. The homeboys asked her what was up with that, but let the slight slide.

By 2001 gentrification had eaten away much of El Sombrero’s customer base. On just their Ludlow block alone gone is Amy Downs Hats, Mary Adams’s dress shop, The Alleged Gallery, Aaron Beall’s Toda Con Nada theater, the bodega, the pillow man.

All priced out of business.

Yes, it is easy to save this business: No protests, no camping out — just eat there.

Simple. Safe. Fun. Good, inexpensive food.

Classic Lower East Side flavor. And saving the community. What more do you want from the L.E.S.?

10

February 28 - March 6, 2013

editorial

Not strips — but parks Judge Donna Mills’s ruling this week that N.Y.U. and the Bloomberg administration must make available their correspondence relating to the open-space strips along the university’s two South Village superblocks marks a very interesting development — and is being seen as a positive sign for a community lawsuit against N.Y.U. The four strips are about 50 feet wide and run down the eastern edge of LaGuardia Place and the western edge of Mercer St. between Houston and W. Third Sts. They’re leftover remnants from a failed Robert Moses streetwidening project more than 50 years ago. Since then, these parcels have grown into treasured community amenities — and the plaintiffs contend, bona fide parkland.

Contrarily, N.Y.U. and the city say that, because the strips were never formally transferred from the Department of Transportation to the Parks Department, they are not actually mapped as parkland, and thus not parks. So, their argument goes, N.Y.U. should be allowed to purchase the strip on Mercer St. between Houston and Bleecker Sts. so that it can build its new “Zipper Building” on part of it, as planned, and as overwhelmingly approved by the City Council last July, with only Charles Barron voting no.

And, N.Y.U. and the city similarly contend, N.Y.U. should be granted an easement on the strips on Mercer and LaGuardia between Bleecker and W. Third to facilitate the university’s construction of new infill buildings on the northern superblock.

However, Community Board 2 has — going back over not just a few years, but decades — repeatedly requested that these strips be designated formally as parkland, precisely because of the fear that N.Y.U. would someday try to claim them. Making the situation more urgent is the fact that in park-starved Greenwich Village, every acre — really, every inch! — of greenery counts.

The fact is, it’s an open secret that N.Y.U. has simply stood in the way of this transfer. Even more egregious, while blocking the strips’ transfer, N.Y.U. also failed to even maintain the strip along Mercer St. north of the dog run, allowing the children’s playground there to become a condemned, unsightly sinkhole.

And yet, even though the strips are all owned by D.O.T., Parks has maintained, for example, the Mercer Playground, on Mercer St. on the northern superblock. And, above all, the parcels have been used as parks for decades. This usage, the plaintiffs maintain, makes them de facto parks.

Plus, not all parks are mapped as parkland, they note: There’s Soho Square and Father Fagan Square, for example, and even Central Park is reportedly not mapped as parkland; obviously, N.Y.U. would never try to build there.

The Villager did an in-depth report on this perplexing situation in a June 23, 2004, article, “Strip poker on the superblocks; Does N.Y.U. hold the cards?” In 1995, the article reported, D.O.T. “indicated they would be agreeable” to the transfer. But, then the process suddenly stalled.

Former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern filed a forceful affidavit on behalf of the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, asserting that the strips are, in his view, parkland.

“Those things should get protected,” he told The Villager back in 2004. “We’ve always tried to get that from D.O.T. N.Y.U. wants to make sure they have complete access to them.

“If it’s parkland, it can’t be sold,” Stern told The Villager.

“If it’s [under the jurisdiction of D.O.T.], it can be purchased without any legislative review. If it’s under Parks, the state Legislature would need to approve the sale.”

So, the court must determine: Did N.Y.U. repeatedly stymie the transfer of these properties to Parks? And, what’s more, aren’t these parcels, by the very nature of their use over decades, not just open strips — but genuine parks? We think they definitely are, but it remains for the court to decide.

letters to the editor Misleading statement by N.Y.U. To The Editor: Re “In vino veritas: Liquor store must leave N.Y.U. strip” (news article, Feb. 21): The last line of this article, in which an N.Y.U. spokesperson states, “Finally, last summer N.Y.U. signed an in-perpetuity lease to provide very affordable housing on its property at 505 LaGuardia Place,” is rather misleading and requires some correction.

First, what was signed was the reset of a ground-rent lease.

New York University owns the land on which 505 LaGuardia Place (Washington Square Southeast Apartments), a MitchellLama co-operative, is built, not the building itself.

Second, the affordability of the lease did not arise from N.Y.U.’s spontaneous generosity and civic-mindedness. It was the result of hard-fought, skillful negotiations and considerable concessions on the part of the 505 LaGuardia negotiation team, as well as support and pressure from many elected officials, Community Board 2 and several local groups and organizations, such as Community Action Alliance on N.Y.U. 2031 and Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Moreover, the “affordable housing” outcome, while extremely beneficial to the residents of 505 LaGuardia, and I think the neighborhood in general, also provided N.Y.U. with extensive legal and political cover for an extremely controversial and unpopular policy of development and expansion in Greenwich Village.

Pat Albin Albin is president, board of directors, 505 LaGuardia Place

Quinn’s middle-class makeover? Ha! To The Editor: Re “Quinn’s middle way” (editorial, Feb. 21): We live in a country in which the rapidly widening disparity in wealth is greater than in any other country in the world.

And we furthermore live in Manhattan, which contains the highest concentration of individuals in the top 1 percent and top one-tenth of 1 percent in wealth: The financial industry and big real estate rule; the rest of us merely serve.

Economists, including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, have demonstrated a direct correlation between extreme concentration of wealth in the upper percentile and deprivation and poverty among the rest. We all know where outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg fits into this equation. For nearly 12 years we have endured the devastating effects of Mr. Bloomberg’s rarefied crassness, and painfully, the results of his cronies

EVAN FORSCH

having been appointed to head city agencies that should be regulating conditions for all New Yorkers.

Our neighborhoods have been destroyed for all but those wealthy enough to insulate themselves from diminishing public services on the ground by occupying the towers rising into the skies. Is The Villager to have us believe that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not been doing the bidding of these powerful interests, that these interests will not extend themselves in order to see her elected as Bloomberg 2.0, and that she will not reward her sponsors handsomely?

Let us focus for a moment on the history that precedes Speaker Quinn’s middle-class “pledge,” her performance on one of the biggest development schemes of the decade, N.Y.U. 2031, also known as the Sexton plan (for N.Y.U. President John Sexton). The Villager did an excellent job of covering Quinn’s July 25, 2012, martinet-like ejection from City Hall of protesters trying to defend their homes and precious public parkland from N.Y.U.’s development arm. How much did Speaker Quinn value the affordable housing of middle-class residents of Washington Square Village and its surrounds?

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Politically ambitious, Quinn acts expediently but, never as far as I have seen, out of conviction. And it is flat-out naive or disingenuous of The Villager to see as otherwise her recently issued statements designed to refashion herself as a champion of the middle class. As with Mayor Bloomberg, we have had almost 12 years to observe Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn in action. Her record indicates that her political ambitions are strong, her commitment to public service weak.

Georgette Fleischer Fleischer is founder, Friends of Petrosino Square

Durst: I do have some experience To The Editor: Re “A new vision for Pier 40 and for a truly public park” (talking point, by Tobi Bergman, Feb. 21): I have been in the visioning business for more than 40 years, so Tobi is right: It is time for me to let others do the visioning. However, I have gained some practical knowledge over the last 40 years. That knowledge led me to believe that building new structures on Pier 40 was impractical, and now Tobi and Friends of Hudson River Park agree, as they no longer are visioning high-rise buildings on Pier 40.

Their new vision is to tear down a part of the pier and build high-rises in the Hudson River Park upland. My experience tells me this also will prove impractical. It will be very expensive,

Continued on page 33

February 28 - March 6, 2013

11

In Loisaida, we keep the faith, and never give up notebook

By ElIZABETH Ruf-mAlDONADO About a decade ago, a friend who was leaving his apartment here in Loisaida for an apartment in Brooklyn rationalized: “In five years you won’t want to live here, either.”

Though I knew he was wrong, I understood where he was coming from — the pub crawl of young nonresidents with their attitudes of entitlement, the rising rents, the demolition of many gardens, the closing of beloved community spaces and mom-and-pop businesses, and the encroaching chain stores threatened to erode many of the pleasures of living in our countercultural and diverse neighborhood.

But this past Jan. 27, the joyous throngs squeezing into St. Brigid’s Church at the grand reopening reasserted a collective trait of this community that keeps me here: We never give up.

As I waited in the crowd to set foot once again in the church building that had become like an old friend, I had time to reflect on the many successes we’ve had in our changing neighborhood, even as life here has become sometimes culturally alienating and difficult to afford. St. Brigid being a patron saint of Ireland and guardian of students, poets, midwives and even dairy maids, I can think of many ways I can personally connect with her patronage and relate it to the almost miraculous effectiveness of our community’s homespun rituals of caring vigilance. I share those reflections here.

Last month’s joy contrasts sharply with the anguish of July 28, 2006, when I stepped out of my building a little after 7 a.m. for the early-bird lap swim at the Pitt St. pool and was greeted by the sight of a wrecking ball dangling from a crane parked alongside the northern face of St. Brigid’s.

At that early hour, the block was still pretty much deserted, except for the demolition workers who ambled about the scaffolding surrounding St. Brigid’s waiting for the order to do their worst.

The plans for the swim vanished and I took action as if a loved one were crying out for help. The bond I feel with St. Brigid has been growing since I came to live in Loisaida in 1979. I got to know her church in passing during frequent runs around Tompkins Park or en route to the East River promenade. Since 1992 I’ve been living across the street from the church.

Though not a Catholic, I had stopped in at holiday Mass, and had sung and woven crosses of palm at interdenominational Palm Sunday outdoor services attended by congregants of St. Brigid’s, Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish and others, in Tompkins Square Park’s central oval. One year, drawn by the music of the brass band that accompanied the annual procession of San Martin de Porres — a 16th-century Peruvian-born doctor and patron of interracial harmony — I joined the ranks of the Peruvian women of St. Brigid’s Parish bearing on their shoulders the massive, velvet-covered wooden beams that held the altar and life-sized sculpture of the black saint. I was easily a head taller than a good number

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year as the project manager of the East Village Community Coalition (whose headquarters was often shared with other community groups), I had helped facilitate the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s use of the space, as well as assisting with press and outreach, and I had the numbers of the neighborhood committee members saved in my cell phone. With one eye on the wrecking ball, I began calling people that morning, and within half an hour the sidewalk was filling with distraught neighbors and committee members. (The names and testimonies of many of those intrepid neighbors are well documented in the August 2, 2006, edition of The Villager.)

We were all crying out, shouting out historical facts to the workers about the incalculable worth of the 1848 structure built by Irish shipwrights, pleading with them to spare the

One worker, with a sarcastic grin, looking directly at the protesters, answered each of our pleas by smashing yet another pane of the ancient windows.

File photo by Clayton Patterson

A shaken-up Elizabeth Ruf-Maldonado was consoled by Barry Allen as she called the Department of Environmental Protection to try to stop the destruction of St. Brigid Church’s painted-glass windows on July 28, 2006.

of the other altar-bearers, and so I made the slow, swaying pilgrimage around the alphabet avenues with bent knees and flexed thighs that ached for the rest of the week!

“Mommy, look at the crack in the church.” Around the turn of the millennium, my then preschool-aged daughter noticed the church’s structural problems before I did. We watched over the months as the crack gradually widened and the eastern wall threatened to pull away from the rest of the church. The archdiocese closed the parish in 2001. In the ensuing years, parishioners and community members formed the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s Church, valiantly organizing to stave off disaster and to get the church reopened for the community.

But though the committee was vigilant and broadened the outreach of the coalition through high-profile fundraisers and events, nobody could predict if or when the archdiocese might decide to demolish the church. In other words, the sudden appearance of the wrecking ball that July morning took us by surprise.

At that time, having just finished a stint of nearly a

church — to no avail. Around 8 a.m., one of the workers, looking directly at the protesting crowd gathered below, with a sarcastic grin on his face, answered each of our pleas, each of our groans, as it seemed, by swinging the crowbar and smashing yet another pane of the ancient, hand-painted windows on the Eighth St. side where the people were standing.

It maddened us that the worker would have demolished the most ancient windows, hand-painted by artisans, first rather than starting with the less remarkable windows on the south side of the sanctuary. The Villager informs in its January 31, 2013, issue that St. Brigid’s new windows are actual stained, not painted, glass and therefore of higher quality than the destroyed windows. Yet our neighborhood can also find value in the humble history of the working families that settled here and their artifacts, even if their church windows were painted rather than stained glass, even if the decorative cornices on their tenement dwellings and public spaces were made of molded terra cotta or concrete rather than carved marble.

It seemed when the crowbar dramatically smashed the church windows that morning that all may have been lost.

But we had also reached the coalition’s lawyer, Harry Kresky.

By midmorning, the Department of Buildings had issued a stop-work order, and Kresky and the attorney for the archdiocese were in court before Judge Barbara Kapnick, who

Continued on page 33

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

NID will help protect a valuable community resource tAlkinG point

By A.J. PIETRANTONE Re “Is NID really needed, and who asked for it anyway?” (talking point, by Eileen Stukane, Feb. 21): The main priority of Friends of Hudson River Park and the Hudson River Park Neighborhood Improvement District Steering Committee is to find a means to help the park and its numerous challenges.

The park is not generating enough revenue to support its operations; this reality requires us to think and act creatively to save this unique part of New York.

We and many other property owners believe that the neighborhood improvement district, or NID, is an element of the future success of Hudson River Park. Without any dedicated government resources to help finance the park’s operation, Friends of Hudson River Park has worked with the Hudson River Park Trust to identify new ways to bring additional resources needed to keep the park going. In addition to this work, many property owners, individual home owners, community groups, business associations and others have joined the NID Steering Committee because they value Hudson River Park and this effort to support it from within the community.

We do not expect or want our neighbors to bear the full burden of park maintenance and operations. The park is facing a crippling funding shortage. Our park is beautiful and, like any park built in the waterfront, is expensive to maintain. This is an ongoing conversation, but that cannot substitute the need to take action. The current funding challenges have already resulted in the closure of some park elements. In the end, we believe the NID is a practical solution that

goes a long way toward meeting some urgent needs while not being the absolute panacea.

Our outreach included numerous presentations to committees of Community Boards 1, 2 and 4, meetings with community groups, block associations and property owners, as well as tabling in and around the park. We have made a concerted effort specifically to meet with residential properties

Nearly 50 percent of Hudson River Park users, a recent survey found, are in fact local residents. owners throughout the district to explain the proposal and get their feedback. This feedback, both positive and negative, has been taken seriously and has shaped the plan as it currently stands. In addition, we have held seven large, advertised public meetings in a variety of neighborhoods in order to make the process open to all who want to make comments.

Our initial mailing was sent to all property owners in the district (close to 8,000).

The second mailing was sent to every known address in the district (32,000 individuals).

The media regularly covers the NID’s progress and more than 20 articles have already appeared in local and community press. We also ran a significant paid advertising campaign, including in The Villager, to further the outreach and communication efforts.

While the Park is certainly a popular destination for visitors, nearly 50 per-

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cent of park users, according to a recent survey, are in fact local residents. With community-focused elements, such as playing fields, dog runs, playgrounds and water activities, the park was designed and is operated to serve its neighbors — the H.R.P. NID will help to protect this neighborhood resource.

It is critical to understand that the NID is not just about the park; it is also about the neighborhood. The NID will address community residents’ concerns regarding safer and better connections with the park.

To effectively do this, we must address conditions outside park boundaries. At this moment, the Hudson River Park Trust is barred by law from spending resources

outside of its boundaries, which includes the bikeway, median and sidewalks along Route 9A that need to be improved and better maintained for both safety and aesthetic reasons.

The simple truth is, something must be done now and we must do it together for the future of Hudson River Park and the enhancement of our neighborhoods. For more information and to sign our petition please visit: www.HRPNID.org .

Pietrantone is executive director, Friends of Hudson River Park and a member, Hudson River Park NID Steering Committee. This talking point is submitted on behalf of the NID Steering Committee

City’s waterfront parks need partnerships like this NID tAlkinG point

By H. ClAuDE SHOSTAl Re “Is NID really needed, and who asked for it anyway?” (talking point, by Eileen Stukane, Feb. 21): As a residential property owner within the boundaries of the proposed Hudson River Park Neighborhood Improvement District, I fully support the formation of the NID. Hudson River Park and the other waterfront parks that have been developed over the past few years have brought us back to our harbor roots, improved our quality of life and vastly upgraded nearby neighborhoods and their property values.

I have had the good fortune to be involved in many of these efforts.

Beginning as the general manager of the State Park Commission for New York City, I helped start the planning and construction of Riverbank State Park and opened Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx, the first state park in New York City. In that role and then working for the city, we helped to bring the South Street Seaport into being. Then as president of the Regional Plan Association, I served on the board of Riverside South with the creation of that waterfront park space as our highest priority. At R.P.A., we also led the efforts to create Governors Island as a great public open space and helped in the advocacy for Brooklyn Bridge Park and the evolution of its conservancy, on whose board I still serve. I also served on the steering committee with Al Butzel that spearheaded the creation of the Hudson River Park Trust.

The lessons from this experience are clear. First, the value of these parks to neighbors, users and the city as a whole is immense. Second, since the new state park investments of the early 1970s, all

of the new waterfront parks came into being only as the result of a new model of public/private partnership. In this model, state and city government have come up with all or most of the capital funding, and private revenue streams account for most or all of the operating funds. These parks would not have happened if government had been looked at to bear the ongoing maintenance costs.

Third, waterfront parks are uniquely costly to maintain. The upkeep of bulkheads and piers built out into the water combined with exposure to waterfront weather, which is growing ever more severe, requires ongoing costly capital maintenance to keep these investments from crumbling in their difficult environments. Finally, looking to government to be responsible for this capital maintenance sentences these great new parks to a life of deterioration and decay.

The budget shortfalls facing Hudson River Park have been well documented and are alarming. Filling the gaps will require a variety of new revenue sources and probably state legislation to permit some of them. The proposed neighborhood improvement district takes a proven tool that has served many commercial and residential areas extremely well and adopts it imaginatively to the needs of Hudson River Park. It is a tool that other parks would be wise to investigate.

The Hudson River Park NID proposal has been diligently researched and exhaustively vetted. It is reasonable, it is prudent and it is necessary. Government has done its part. It is now time for us — local residents and businesses — to do our part and support the creation of the Hudson River Park NID. Shostal is a residential property owner within the boundaries of the proposed Hudson River Park NID

February 28 - March 6, 2013

ALBANY REFORM

PRESERVATION

FRACKING

75 MORTON SCHOOL

PIER 40

CHELSEA MARKET PLAN

COMMUNITY BOARDS

POLITICS

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Progress Report A special Villager supplement • Pages 13 to 24 UNION SQUARE TECH

NEW M12 BUS

8TH STREET RETAIL

EAST VILLAGE VIGILANCE

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

New leadership, new challenges and also a new home boARd 2

By DAVID GRuBER This past year we have seen many changes at Community Board 2.

In June our then Chairperson Brad Hoylman chose not to stand for a second term and instead run for the vacated state Senate seat of Tom Duane, which he did successfully.

I was honored to be elected chairperson after that.

I said to folks before I became chairperson, that one of my main goals was to prepare Board 2 for a new generation of leadership moving forward, and we are on our way. More than 25 percent of the current board members have been on C.B. 2 less than 18 months.

All but two of our committees have new chairpersons or co-chairpersons. Two newly created task forces have brought other faces into leadership positions.

We are truly a battle-tested, experienced board, having gone through the massive St. Vincent’s/Rudin, N.Y.U. and Hudson Square ULURPs in the past 18 months — more than some neighborhoods do in years and years, or forever for that matter.

We have learned much about both the technical and political processes of large, complex zoning and land-use projects.

I cannot say that much of our community was happy with the New York University outcomes, but it was a great learning experi-

David Gruber — keeping things cool on the waterfront.

ence on how the process really works in the final, endgame stages.

What has happened is that many, many board members have stepped forward and become more active and involved. All boards tend to have just a handful of its members run it, but we have really worked hard to open

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spaces up for others to be more fully engaged in the issues facing our board.

Of course, that also means that the experienced veterans need to be in place to mentor the new board appointees — by having them write resolutions and then critiquing them, by bringing a wider base of the board to meetings with community groups and elected officials, so they are exposed to the inner workings of the planning and decisionmaking process.

Two committees — Parks and Waterfront, along with Sidewalks and Street Activities/ Film Permits —have been created by merging committees, so that we have fuller agendas throughout the year, rather than seasonal peak periods, and thus a more meaningful experience for our members.

We have created two very effective and focused task forces, including the 75 Morton Street Task Force, jointly run with Community Education Council District 2, which combines appointed and public members to ensure that our promised new school at the currently state-owned facility doesn’t get stalled by bureaucratic delays and inertia.

This task force has reached out to a crosssection of stakeholders for creative ideas and suggestions on what kind of school we should have there.

The other task force concentrates on beaming a spotlight on our nonprofit theaters and performing-arts organizations in the district.

Many theater companies and actual brickand-mortar theaters have had to fold their tents the past few years due to rising rents, as well as the general economic downturn.

Last year we had a variation of a pub crawl: We opened four local theaters and had owners, directors, actors, stage designers and lighting experts on hand to explain how plays are produced and staged. About 100 people went from theater to theater, weaving through West Village and Soho streets, accompanied by local tour guides who spoke about interesting buildings and Village folklore.

We are currently at the final stages of the massive Hudson Square rezoning. This special zoning will transform the character of much of our district’s southwestern section.

We are fighting hard to make sure that the proper amenities, such as sufficient open, active-recreation space, required by law are, in fact, created to accommodate the expected increase of 7,000 to 8,000 new residents in a formerly manufacturing zone.

This will be our third major land-use project in C.B. 2 in under two years and it is the last one that is in the pipeline for the foreseeable future.

So we turn our attention to the Hudson River Park, and our beloved Pier 40, the main open space and active recreational center for our community. Both the pier and park are in desperate need of an immediate influx of cash, not only for ongoing operations, but for basic structural maintenance and repairs, most urgently, for Pier 40’s aging support piles, which are quickly coming to the end of their useful life. This requires a massive amount of capital.

Everybody agrees that something needs to be done quickly and the debate of just what course of action is best for the long-term health of this precious resource is being hotly discussed, with many different approaches being put on the table. The active financial involvement of the city and state is fundamental to this process, and all of our elected officials are truly engaged in the process.

We are a battle-tested board, having gone through three massive ULURPs in the past 18 months.

We are looking forward to and very excited about the opening in the next few years of the new Whitney Museum, now under construction in the Gansevoort Historic District (Meatpacking District). Many feel that the Whitney will be a neighborhood-changing building, with other, smaller museums, galleries and art-related businesses to follow.

After St. Vincent’s — where we used to meet —— closed we were kind of a nomadic community board, moving from one gracious host to another for the last two years. Finally, Scholastic has generously allowed us to use their state-of-the-art, large, comfortable auditorium for our monthly full board meeting.

This has been a real lifesaver for us and, as I have said repeatedly, we do important work for our community and we need a space commensurate with that work.

So we have had a full, overflowing plate this year, but this board has met the challenges and will continue to do so moving forward.

Gruber is chairperson, Community Board 2

February 28 - March 6, 2013

With new M12 bus, plaza redesign, we’re on a roll boARd 4

By COREy JOHNSON I want to thank The Villager once again for allowing us the space to report on what Community Board 4 continues to advocate for on behalf of residents and business in the Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and Clinton neighborhoods.

To start, we applaud the M.T.A.’s proposed new bus route on the Far West Side of Manhattan from W. 59th St. to Spring St., referred to as the M12. Board 4 has long been on record asking for such a route to service the thousands of new residents that have settled in this corridor since the 2005 Hudson Yards and West Chelsea rezoning.

The M12 would run between W. 59th and W. 24th Sts. on 11th and 12th Aves. From W. 24th to W. 14th Sts., buses would use West St. (the West Side Highway) for both northbound and southbound services. From W. 14th to Spring St. the buses would use Washington and Greenwich Sts. The buses would run every 30 minutes, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The stops would be spaced and provide easy transfer to other major cross-town buses and subway connections.

The buses should be hybrid-electric or C.N.G. All the stops need shelters.

However, there are a few issues that should be addressed. First, bus shelters are critical because of the long wait between buses and the windy conditions on 11th and 12th Aves.

Shelters should be installed at all bus stops along the route in C.B. 4.

Second, C.B. 4 is disappointed that the service will be limited to every 30 minutes. We have requested — without changing the overall number of buses — that the service be every 15 minutes in the morning and evening peak hours and less frequent in between. We also recommend that the service be extended to 1 a.m. in the morning to accommodate cultural events on the piers.

Most important, we strongly requested that all the M12 buses be hybrid-electric or C.N.G. (compressed natural gas) vehicles with a lower floor, for easy access.

On another issue, C.B. 4 was asked to review and respond to the Manhattan borough president’s Good Jobs and Responsible Development Resolution. Board 4 has always required that all developers, property owners, and employers allow all workers the right to seek fair and just compensation for their services —including family-sustaining wages with affordable healthcare and retirement ben-

Corey Johnson.

efits — and allow all workers the right to collectively bargain with employers to seek such compensation, without fear of reprisals.

In connection with these principles, C.B. 4 will require that developers, among other things, support a community jobs program for their projects and work with the community board to implement the program. C.B. 4 also requests that developers and/or property owners hold periodic job fairs in coordination with the community board, place a link to job openings on our Web site, and work with current and future commercial tenants to identify and hire employees from within the local community.

Board 4 also supports the Department of Transportation’s efforts to redesign the Gansevoort Plaza - Chelsea Triangle (a.k.a.

Chelsea Plaza) to improve access and safety for pedestrians and bicyclists in order to create a more rational traffic pattern.

There are several elements of D.O.T.’s initial proposal we found appealing and hope can be pursued. These include the extension of the Chelsea Triangle along W. 14th St., and the proposal — which I understand C.B. 2 endorses too — to ban right turns onto W. 14th St. from northbound Ninth Ave. There are several other recommendations we asked D.O.T. to integrate into the new design, such as, planting as many trees and greenery on the Chelsea Triangle as feasible.

We also support including some fixed, city benches, though maintaining a majority of space for movable chairs and tables. We also called for “No Honking” signs along Ninth Ave. near W. 15th St. to encourage increased ticketing and enforcement. Finally, all intersections should include accessible, audible street signals for handicapped accessibility.

Board 4 looks forward to engaging with residents, community groups, small businesses and our local elected officials on these and other important issues in 2013.

Feel free to send us your concerns at negonzalez@cb.nyc.gov. We look forward to hearing from you.

Johnson is chairperson, Community Board 4

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Feeling hot, hot, hot! Union Sq. hotter than ever!

Business

By Jennifer E. Falk Union Square continues to be one of the hottest neighborhoods in New York City. Working with our neighborhood partners, the Union Square Partnership continues our dedication and commitment to one of the city’s most vibrant, 24-hour communities.

Anyone who lives, shops or even passes through the Union Square district knows there is always something to do, see or visit. Union Square is home to more than 70,000 residents, 142,000 workers and 40,000 students. U.S.P. recently commissioned a pedestrian study that found an astonishing 349,311 pedestrians walking through Union Square on a Greenmarket weekday — the highest since our organization began keeping records.

The Union Square Partnership is working harder than ever to keep the district clean and in tip-top shape. In 2012 our dedicated Clean Team spent more than 45,000 hours scrubbing and painting, plus removing more than 124,000 bags of trash.

And business here has never been better. The Union Square neighborhood has one of the city’s smallest ground-floor vacancy rates and consistently comes in below the city’s average. Our latest “Biz & Broker Quarterly” newsletter found groundfloor vacancy at a mere 2 percent. On average, the citywide annual vacancy rate is 5 percent.

The low vacancy rate just proves what many shoppers already know: Union Square is one of

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

The New School’s University Center, at 14th St. and Fifth Ave., will see its student dorm open this August. Its academic part will be finished by next fall or winter. “Looks like ants,” passersby have been known to remark of the building’s glass-sheathed stairways.

the most eclectic shopping districts in the city.

Just in the last year, Union Square welcomed 49 new retailers to the district, with the largest store opening being Burlington Coat Factory, a 92,000-square-foot flagship store located on Union Square South. Burlington Coat Factory

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recruited more than 500 employees from the area, with help from U.S.P. and the city’s Department of Small Business Services.

In addition to growing retail opportunities at every price point, the neighborhood has also been a magnet for the city’s emerging tech sector. Our estimates show 630,000 square feet is dedicated to technology companies, employing nearly 3,000 people. Among the largest office leases signed last year was Spotify, with 63,285 square feet on the east side of Sixth Ave. and 18th St. — an expansion from its former 11,000 square feet in Google’s building in Chelsea.

To ensure the growth of the tech sector and strengthen the opportunities for our large student body, the neighborhood welcomed the city’s first high school dedicated to the new tech economy, the Academy for Software Engineering, housed in the Washington Irving Educational Campus. Its curriculum is guided by tech titan Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures.

The neighborhood is also home to The New School’s fabulous new University Center — currently under construction at 65 Fifth Ave. Students are slated to start moving into the building this August.

In addition, the New York School Construction Authority has began construction at 10 E. 15th St. on I.S./H.S. 868, a building that will feature cutting-edge sustainable technology allowing it to produce all the energy it consumes. This school is scheduled to open in September 2015.

The neighborhood’s soaring popularity has also grabbed the attention of the hospitality industry. In 2013, the number of hotel rooms will nearly double, with two new hotels scheduled to open in early spring. The Art Deco-style Jade Hotel on W. 13th St. off Sixth Ave. will welcome its first guests in March, while the 178-room Hyatt Union Square on 13th St. at the corner of Fourth Ave. is projected to open in April.

Not to be outdone, the W New York-Union Square on E. 17th St. is undergoing the final phase of its $100 million gut renovation this spring with the completion of the Living Room,

the popular high-end lounge adjacent to the hotel’s lobby. The new space will feature the sharp new aesthetic that can already be seen in the hotel’s 270 renovated guestrooms, famed nightlife venue Lilium (formerly Underbar) and Olives, the hotel’s popular Todd English restaurant.

Meanwhile, the most recent additions to the district’s boutique restaurant scene are Beyond Sushi on 14th St. and (coming soon!) Pizza Vinoteca on 15th St. These great restaurants join other restaurants with critically acclaimed celebrity chefs, such as Union Square Cafe, Casa Mono and Craft.

Star restaurateurs Jo-Ann Makovitzky and Marco A. Moreira, renowned for restaurants Tocqueville and 15 East, will be opening Hyatt Union Square’s signature hotel restaurants this spring.

Of course, one would be remiss not to sample the delicious food by participating in U.S.P.’s annual Harvest in the Square fundraiser for Union Square Park. Last fall marked the food event’s 17th year and featured more than 50 local restaurants, the Greenmarket and nearly 20 wineries. Last year’s event was one of the most successful to date, with more than 1,200 foodies enjoying the mouthwatering offerings.

Harvest in the Square allows the Union Square Partnership to continue to make substantial investments in Union Square Park, the neighborhood’s crown jewel and anchor for the district’s success. Last year, we continued our annual landscaping efforts, planting more than 1,000 annuals, 900 perennials and 75 ornamental shrubs in the park and surrounding pedestrian plazas. Extending out of the park, U.S.P. enhanced the gateway to the park by landscaping and caring for the 100 neighborhood street trees that line 14th St. and surround the park.

To activate the park during the warm summer months, Union Square Partnership continued our popular free programs that make the neighborhood an exciting place to live, work, and play. Last summer, more than 3,500 people joined U.S.P. for Summer in the Square, a nineweek series of fitness and entertainment. U.S.P. worked with our community partners to bring free classes in yoga, running, cardio boot camp, hip-hop, zumba, face-painting, modern dance and music to the park each week.

To keep up with the success of our programs and the neighborhood’s growth, U.S.P. is reinforcing our commitment this year by bolstering the free Wi-Fi we offer park visitors.

All of Union Square’s growth and success would not be possible without the continued support of our anchor institutions, such as Con Edison, The New School, New York University and Beth Israel Medical Center. These prestigious institutions are in good company with other prominent businesses that contribute to the neighborhood, such as Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, Whole Foods Market Union Square and Barnes & Noble.

The formula for the neighborhood’s growing success and revitalization also includes your help and voice. We urge you to join the conversation and connect with the Union Square Partnership.

Subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter, “On the Square,” read our blog, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to seeing you around the Square!

Falk is executive director, Union Square Partnership

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

It’s time to reform Albany’s campaign finance system STATE POLITICS

By Brad Hoylman I heard a lot about Albany’s “pay-to-play” culture before I took office as a state Senator last month. Still, it was a culture shock to see it in action. For example, there is a practice that allows lobbyists to call senators off the Senate floor during session for face-to-face meetings about bills. Talk about being at the beck and call of special interests.

On the other hand, lobbyists can sometimes provide invaluable information. Plus, recent ethics reforms have imposed disclosure requirements and limited gifts to legislators.

No more three-course steak dinners. Today a lobbyist is restricted to buying a legislator a cup of coffee.

Even with new ethics guidelines, however, Albany’s pay-to-play culture won’t change until we reform our campaign finance laws.

New York’s contribution limits are among the highest in the nation, permitting individuals to contribute up to $60,800 to a statewide candidate in New York — about 12 times the national median and more than 10 times the limit for a presidential candidate.

Also, corporate contributions, while banned in nearly half of all states, are permitted in New York.

In addition, a loophole allows unlimited donations to political party “housekeeping accounts” from individuals and corporations,

accounting for $53.2 million in contributions between 1999 and 2006.

Fortunately, we have a widely celebrated model of a fair and functional campaign finance law right here in New York City. Under the jurisdiction of the independent and nonpartisan Campaign Finance Board, candidates for any elective office in the city may qualify for significant public financing — in part by relying on relatively small donors. Contribution limits are similar to those of federal elections.

The city’s law strictly prohibits donations from corporations. Contributors of $100 or more are required to disclose certain information that would reveal any potential conflicts of interest and/or business with the city. Elected officials are beholden to their constituents, not to big-money donors.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, it’s no wonder Albany has the best politicians money can buy. What’s more, the out-of-control campaign spending in Albany has a corrosive effect on public confidence and participation in government.

The high contribution limits are seen as the cause of low donor participation rates in New York State, particularly among small donors. In the 2010 elections, only 6 percent of candidates’ money came from donors who gave $250 or less. In contrast, 78 percent came from nonparty organizations (such as PACs) and individuals who gave $1,000 or more. Less than one half of 1 percent of the population contributed at any level.

Brad Hoylman at his swearing-in ceremony at F.I.T. on Jan. 13.

Contrast this level of involvement with that in New York City’s system. City residents’ participation rate in the campaign finance system at the local level is more than three times that of state residents. It has been predicted that the number of small donors under a state system similar to New York City’s would increase from the current 6 percent to 54 percent.

I am confident that, were New York State to implement a system similar to New York City’s, the state Legislature would finally begin to move forward with many long-over-

due progressive initiatives, including expanding rent regulations, enacting a universal, single-payer healthcare system for the state, and ending the enormously destructive prison industrial complex.

Yet, we are making progress on this front. In his 2013 State of the State address, Governor Cuomo committed to passing legislation requiring broader disclosure of political expenditures, lower contribution limits and public financing of state elections based on New York City’s program.

Two of the state Senate’s three conference leaders have pledged their support, and together our conferences can provide the necessary votes for victory.

And Cecilia Tkaczyk, a Democrat, was just elected to the state Senate on a platform of public campaign financing. She joins me and my Democratic Senate colleagues, including Daniel Squadron, in this fight.

It won’t be easy. Without these reforms, those who would lose power will continue to wield undue influence. That is why I am asking you to add your voice to this crucial issue. Sign up to support campaign finance reform with public financing of elections at www.citizenactionny.org and ask your friends and family from around the state to do the same. Let’s make it so Albany has the best politicians money can’t buy.

Hoylman is state senator for the 27th District

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

What a year it was! The wins just kept on coming District Leader

By Keen Berger Victory! Victory! Victory! It was a very good year, with three great victories, all many years in the making.

The most astonishing one is the new public middle school at 75 Morton St. Six years ago, local parents and Assemblymember Deborah Glick spotted it — a building belonging to New York State, about to be empty and sold. We rallied, begged and lobbied, but the city’s Department of Education did not bid, claiming neighborhood schools were not overcrowded.

Then came years of disappointments: long wait lists; the state took 75 Morton off the market; we lost our only middle school (on top of P.S. 3), only to have those rooms filled with younger children; politicians told a community board meeting to forget 75 Morton because it was “dead in the water.” But we didn’t forget.

And in March 2012 the state and the city — City Council Speaker Chris Quinn, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott — miraculously agreed that 75 Morton would be a city school.

Much more must be done: contracts, lawyers, plans, budget, construction. But parents and the community are pushing

hard. (I chair the 75 Morton Street Task Force, co-sponsored by Community Board 2 and the Community Education Council for District 2). Our new 75 Morton school will open by September 2015.

The second victory is national. We will never have to say, “President Romney.”

More crucial is the victory in the U.S. Senate. We all knew Kirsten Gillibrand would win (hurrah!). But my favorite prognosticator, Nate Silver, predicted that three Senate candidates I worked for (Tester, Heitkamp and Carmona — that’s Montana, North Dakota and Arizona) would lose. Yet two of them won: I am proud.

I also cheered for my birth state, Minnesota. I knew Senator Klobuchar would win, but I told my daughter — Rachel Stassen-Berger, political reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune — that marriage equality needed to win in Minnesota and that their rigid voter ID proposal should lose. She said, “Mom, I am a journalist, not an advocate. I must be fair.” I answered, “Just report the facts, the voters will do the rest.” She did and they did.

The final victory is also the most personal. Brad Hoylman has been my codistrict leader for seven years. Together, we judged judges; we debated issues and candidates; we advocated progressive causes; we attended dozens of events

IMPACT DRIVEN ADVOCACY

with the Village Independent Democrats, the Village Reform Democratic Club, the Manhattan Democrats, and so on.

I listened when Brad first thought about becoming a father. I admired a sonogram on his iPhone (only a speck, but he thought it was beautiful). I was thrilled at Sylvia’s birth; I enjoy her now, as a toddler.

When Brad decided to run for state Senate, I cheered and worried. I went to his headquarters to give campaign advice and I saw that he was brilliant and dedicated — as usual. No more worries. His victory was no surprise, just another joy. I also am happy that County Committee voted 55-4-2 for Jonathan Geballe as Brad’s replacement as district leader.

So — three victories. I hope for more. We need better Election Day procedures. (Those lines in September were terrible.) We need paid sick leave and a living wage for workers. We need Hudson River Park to thrive without threat of luxury housing or pier collapse. We need to re-elect Jonathan Geballe in the upcoming primary election. But all those past victories make me realize that more are possible. Last year was good. Onward!

File photo by Jefferson Siegel

Keen Berger.

Berger is the female Democratic district leader for the 66th Assembly District, Part A

Village Activist Arthur Schwartz named one of New York City’s Top Lawyers in the December Issue of New York Magazine.

We salute Arthur Z. Schwartz, rated as an AV Preeminent® Attorney by Martindale-Hubbell for 15 years, one of New York’s leading plaintiff’s employment, civil rights, civil liberties and union-side labor lawyers.

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Fighting for Workplace Justice, Community Justice, Environmental Justice, & Economic Justice

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Fracking, Spectra, Pier 40 District Leader

By Jonathan Geballe As a newly elected Democratic district leader for the 66th Assembly District, Part A, I am thankful and honored to be serving this community.

I am going to address three subjects.

For starters, I am thinking about water, water that gives us life, and water that can threaten us. And the question on my mind is whether we are going to allow questionable short-term fixes that endanger, and potentially sacrifice the future, long-term health of this community, this state and this planet. What are we leaving for the next generation, and the several after that?

We know that we are mostly water, and that the earth’s surface is mostly water. As the exploiters of our planet’s resources, we must be the stewards of that precious life source and life-sustainer.

Immediately before us is a crucial decision: Whether this state will allow hydrofracking, a drilling process to be used on the Marcellus Shale in our rural Upstate areas to tap natural gas, but which carries risk and danger. The drilling — which uses a toxic stew of chemicals pumped underground to tap the trapped gas — will poison natural mountain water that quenches the city’s thirst, along with the pure well water that grows our organic produce and livestock Upstate.

We are well aware of the need for development, jobs and business Upstate — although how much of this much-touted benefit would actually help our Upstate cousins is itself questionable.

We are waiting on a state health study and proposed hydrofracking regulations from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, both of which are questionable for lack of public review and comment. Ultimately, the governor will decide.

The Upstate communities that will be first affected by drilling are deeply divided by this questionable industrial practice — not only the invasive drilling, but also the intensive rumble of truck traffic on narrow country roads, the overlay of pools of toxic discharge and the resultant air, noise and visual pollution.

Much of our Greenwich Village community has stood united against any hydrofracking in New York State. If, like me and like the Village Independent Democrats, many of our electeds and a multitude of water protection and other environmental groups, you feel our water is too important a resource to risk, contact the governor and ask him to ban hydrofracking in New York.

Over the past decade or so, our community has been blessed with a new treasure: the Hudson River Park. The Hudson River Park Act engendered the novel idea that the park would be self-funding, and it was envisioned that one of the chief funding producers would be Pier 40, the 15-acre former Holland-America pier at West Houston St. Pier 40 now serves as

a parking lot and sports field, but is not generating the anticipated fees and has become a funding drain because of needed maintenance and repair. What to do?

The community has been stymied, with various redevelopment schemes (such as big-box stores) being rejected. But the current proposal to amend the park act to allow tower residential housing — which would be sited in the park, next to Pier 40 — is misconceived. It is the classic lure of short-term infusion of cash with long-term hazard.

Fortunately, Deborah Glick and other elected officials, and many citizens stand against this wrongly conceived proposal.

First, residential on the waterfront ignores the evidence of climate change, rising seas and extreme weather. Two hurricanes in two years is a message from Mother Nature, and we are foolish to ignore it by putting more housing in harm’s way.

Second, if dwellings are built on Pier 40 the park’s resources will necessarily be drawn to protecting and serving that one piece of property, even more so if it is the dominant funding source for the park.

Also, once residential is permitted on parkland, each future funding need will bring another call for more luxury residential in the park as the answer.

More promising is the Durst plan for adaptive commercial reuse of the current pier structure, which preserves sports-field space for children and adults, and which will bring in a mixed use of business and entrepreneurial activities. The capital cost is far lower. Together with other funding sources — such as the proposed neighborhood improvement district, or NID — this will spread the obligations and reduce the impact.

I am one of the attorneys on the lawsuit to stop the proposed Spectra 30-inchdiameter, natural-gas pipeline, currently aimed at the Gansevoort Peninsula, the surrounding park and the adjoining residential neighborhood. The lower court decided against the suit and the decision to appeal is currently being considered. I am writing this less as a litigating attorney, and more as a Greenwich Village resident, which I have been for 35 years.

The central point of the suit, and of the multitude of environmental groups and individual petitioners who brought the suit, is whether the Hudson River Park Trust did its duty by completing a full environmental review as required by state law. A full environmental review would not gloss over the pending, life-threatening arrival of radon — which contaminates the gas — of safety from explosion and of other hazards of the pipeline.

I am proud of the many Villagers who have stood together to demand that government abide by its own laws and ensure that the environmental regulations enacted to protect ourselves, our children and our community from harm are properly followed.

Geballe is male Democratic district leader, 66th Assembly District, Part A

Women in and of the World: Michéle Flournoy Tuesday, March 5, 2013 2:30 - 3:30 pm Kimmel Center for University Life, Room 905-907 60 Washington Square South The Office of Government & Community Affairs invites you to join Michéle Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy of the United States, the highest-ranking position held by a woman at the Pentagon in the institution’s history. As part of the “Women in and of the World: Lessons in Leadership” series, Ms. Flournoy will discuss leadership, highlighting challenges she has overcome throughout her career and during her tenure as Under Secretary of Defense. This program is part of Women’s HERstory Month programming at NYU. This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and registration is required: RSVP at www.nyu.edu/ogca or call 212.998.2400.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Fighting against Council’s coddling big development Preservation

By Andrew Berman The final days of the Bloomberg administration have been a mad dash by developers and large institutions to get approvals for huge projects that will change the face of our communities forever. While neighborhood preservation advocates have been able to affect some changes for all these projects, the City Council has been extremely willing to accommodate the mayor and the developers, approving every rezoning application presented to them. Meanwhile the city has grown increasingly resistant to approving new landmark protections in our neighborhood, even those they had previously promised to do.

The 800-pound gorilla of development projects in our neighborhood was the N.Y.U. 2031 expansion plan, a massive, 2-million-square-foot development that requires handing public park space over to New York University, undoing the terms under which N.Y.U. was given public land in the 1950s and ’60s, changing residential zoning to commercial zoning, and eliminating open space preservation requirements.

The plan was first approved by Borough President Stringer on the condition that some minor tweaks be made by N.Y.U., such as moving one of its buildings a few feet farther away from some residential neighbors’ windows. The planned building was ultimately not moved, but the borough president nevertheless

stood by his approvals of the plan.

The Bloomberg-controlled City Planning Commission also approved the university’s mega-plan, with only Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s appointee voting no. The City Council nibbled further at the edges of the plan and then gave its final approval, unanimously, except for Brooklyn Councilmember Charles Barron.

Interestingly, one of the biggest community victories against the N.Y.U. plan took place long before it even got to these city officials’ desks. N.Y.U. originally proposed a 400-foot-tall tower — by far the tallest ever in Greenwich Village — near Bleecker St. on the open space within the Silver Towers complex, which the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and neighbors got landmarked in 2008. After an enormous outcry against the plan, including from Silver Towers architect I.M. Pei, N.Y.U. withdrew the tower proposal, eliminating the plan’s tallest, and by some measures, most conspicuous, element.

Further public pressure resulted in a reduction by about 20 percent in the project’s size by the borough president, City Planning Commission and City Council. But, conversely, N.Y.U. got about 80 percent of what it asked for.

G.V.S.H.P., N.Y.U. faculty and a broad range of local and citywide groups are now suing to have the approvals overturned in court.

Jamestown Properties’ proposal to upzone and build two towers atop Chelsea Market also faced considerable pushback, and also got easy approval from the mayor’s City Planning

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Andrew Berman at a March 2012 press conference calling for landmarking the rest of the South Village.

Commission and the City Council. Here too, however, the most dramatic changes took place before the proposal ever got to city officials, as the developer trimmed back its ambitious plans in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

Jamestown originally proposed a huge, spaceship-like office tower to be added atop the 10th Ave. end of the historic Chelsea Market complex (overlooking the High Line park), and an ungainly hotel structure to be added to the Ninth Ave. end.

After a huge public outcry, the developer reduced the size and height of the 10th Ave. office tower, and made the design less outlandish and a bit more contextual to the existing building.

Similarly, Jamestown eliminated the hotel use from the proposed Ninth Ave. tower, which had two beneficial effects — the traffic-generating hotel was removed from the plan, and the proposed replacement office tower was, unlike the hotel tower, no taller than the highest point of the existing Chelsea Market complex and more in context with its design.

Though these changes may have made the Chelsea Market upzoning plan “less bad,” they didn’t make it right, and community groups from Chelsea and the Village continued to strongly oppose it. In spite of this, the City Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve, and the City Council approved with just a few abstentions.

However, Speaker Quinn did claim to have conditioned the Council’s approval on several “givebacks” to the community and several “guarantees” that elements of Chelsea Market that the public enjoyed would remain in place “in perpetuity.”

One was the ground-level market. Advocates had pointed out that international developer Jamestown Properties, which had acquired Chelsea Market and was seeking the upzoning, had been replacing the beloved independent food shops that had made Chelsea Market such an initial success with chain clothing and other stores. So when Quinn approved Jamestown’s requested upzoning, allowing it to build two large and enormously profitable office towers atop the complex, she announced that her approval also required that 75 percent of Chelsea Market’s ground floor remain nonchain food stores in perpetuity, which would keep the character of the market at Chelsea Market as is forever.

Unfortunately, upon investigation it turned

out this claim was not true. Nothing in the approvals included any prohibitions on chain stores or any requirement that food stores occupy Chelsea Market. In fact, under the agreement’s terms, Chelsea Market’s ground floor could be occupied by The Gap and a Kmart without any penalty. Several of the other promises of community amenities also turned out not to be included in the agreements governing the rezoning, and thus Jamestown would suffer no penalty, and lose none of the valuable zoning changes granted to it, if these promises are not delivered.

Speaking of promises not delivered, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission refused to deliver on promised landmark designations in the Far West and South Village.

In 2004, the L.P.C. had promised to landmark eight individual sites in the Far West Village, along with expanding the Greenwich Village Historic District and designating a Weehawken St. Historic District. All were supposed to be done within a year.

The district extension and the new district were both designated, as were five of the promised individual designations (albeit many years behind schedule). However, three of the sites were never landmarked, and the L.P.C. finally admitted it had no intention to landmark them, including an 1830s house where the owner was seeking to build atop the historic structure (which sparked the push to get the city to finally fulfill its landmarking promise).

A broader lapse, however, was the proposed South Village Historic District, an area that Villagers have sought to landmark for nearly 50 years, and which L.P.C. Chairperson Robert Tierney promised four years ago he would consider in its entirety for designation. While a little less than 30 percent of the proposed district’s area was landmarked in 2010, Tierney promised that consideration of the remainder of the proposed district would closely follow.

Several years later now, the L.P.C. has given every indication that it has no intention of moving ahead with the promised landmark designation in the foreseeable future.

To add insult to injury, while the city has refused to fulfill its promise on South Village landmarking, the mayor and the City Council have approved deeply unpopular upzoning plans that will vastly increase development pressure on either side of the South Village.

N.Y.U.’s massive project directly abuts the South Village on its east, while the proposed Hudson Square rezoning borders the South Village on its south and west.

By the city’s own accounting, if the Hudson Square rezoning is approved without landmark protections, the South Village will suffer a “significant adverse impact.” And yet the administration still refuses to follow through on its landmarking promise.

The rezoning plan will only take effect, however, if it is approved by the City Council — a decision that will largely be made by Council Speaker Quinn, who represents the area. Thus the fate of the South Village, and the decision as to whether or not to approve a zoning change that will accelerate its destruction, now lies in Speaker Quinn’s hands.

Berman is executive director, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

February 28 - March 6, 2013

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Keeping the Central Village in shape, safe and thriving Business

By William Kelley As we begin our 20th year in operation, the Village Alliance would like to thank our neighbors, merchants and friends for your continued support. Last year was a particularly challenging one for our merchants, in light of the lengthy power outage and damages caused by Hurricane Sandy. But the spirit of resilience and cooperation shown by the community during the crisis and the subsequent recovery was, and continues to be, truly inspirational.

The Alliance is busy year-round caring for trees, tree pits, hanging baskets and other public landscaped areas in the Central Village. In 2012 we cared for trees along Sixth Ave. and also repaired much of the crumbling bluestone pavers that have become a nuisance for businesses, property owners and pedestrians alike. This past fall we secured the support of Community Board 2 to request a city budget line item to replace the bluestone with more durable concrete that is attractive and easier to maintain. However, we have a long road ahead to make this funding request a reality.

In 2012 the Village Alliance piloted a visual-merchandising grant program for businesses to make storefronts and window displays more attractive and competitive in the retail marketplace. The initial project at Economy Foam & Futon, at 56 W. Eighth St., was recently completed. The windows were provided with attractive vinyl signage and a modern art display highlighting the store’s main staple of foam. We look forward to our next project at 29 W. Eighth St. and to working with other merchants as projects are identified.

The Alliance is pleased that the city’s Department of Transportation approved our request to extend metered parking times on Eighth St. from one hour to a maximum of two hours, allowing more time for shopping and dining on the commercial corridor. This has been a desire of merchants for many years and we anticipate the change will be made during the first half of 2013.

For the past 10 years the Village Alliance

has utilized the Police Department’s Paid Detail (staffing by off-duty police officers) to cover two fixed posts three to four days per week. After a detailed program evaluation in 2012, our board and staff agreed that a private contractor would accomplish more than Paid Detail for our public safety program in several key ways: by acting as an extension of the Alliance’s staff during evening hours to provide additional eyes on the street; by regularly checking in with merchants to assess safety concerns; by interacting with visitors, noting concerns, answering questions and requests for directions; and by providing constructive feedback in daily reports to inform meetings with police and property managers.

This past fall, the Alliance issued a request for proposals (R.F.P.) for a public safety contractor, and recommended Archangel Security International, which began full coverage five days per week this January. Archangel’s telephone dispatch can be reached at 347-4326572 for any nonemergency safety concerns.

(Emergencies should always be referred to the police at 911.)

With the launch of the new villagealliance.org in 2012, the Alliance has created a single online destination from which you can plan your Village adventure. The site is a free opportunity for local businesses and cultural organizations to have additional Web presence, offer incentives to residents and list events. We have also created fun and unique neighborhood itineraries as well as a new blog, the Village Beat, to showcase the vicinity. Also in 2012 we launched a Twitter feed (@VillageAlliance) and Facebook page (Facebook.com/TheVillageAlliance), which continue to organically grow at a rate of about 10 percent per month.

Last September the Village Alliance produced the 10th Annual Taste of the Village benefit for Washington Square Park, offering an opportunity for local restaurants to connect with and provide samples to more than 400 guests at our most successful event to date. Together we raised almost $50,000 for park sanitation, horticultural and public safety services.

To raise awareness among residents of the importance of patronizing the Village’s small businesses, last fall the Alliance imple-

William Kelley, the Village Alliance business improvement’s executive director, left, with a member of Archangel Security at Taste of the Village last September.

Since its inception, the annual food-tasting fundraiser has donated more than $400,000 for horticultural, sanitation and public safety services for Washington Square Park.

mented three new “shop local” campaigns.

The first, a Back to School promotion targeting thousands of N.Y.U., New School and Cooper Union students, was distributed during each university’s Welcome Week.

A very special “Welcome!” to all the new students and families who will join our community this Fall!

OPEN HOUSE:

Please call (212) 243-5420 to join us for our Open House, starting at 9:00am: Tuesday, March 5 We offer: • Outstanding private education rooted in Character, Competence and Compassion • Low student-teacher ratios • Gorgeous, spacious classrooms • Nurturing, delightful environment • Inspiring rich education • Talented NY state certified teachers • Arts, music, & movement programs • Violin program has been added • Daily Spanish instruction • Enriching after hours programs • Active Parent Association

AL L AG ES E CL AS SE S FO R MU SI C & DA NC

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We are excited to add the 6th Grade to our school. We are happy to share that all classes from 2nd Grade down are filled, except a few remaining spots in PreK 4!

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Second, the Alliance created a succinct and user-friendly shopping-and-dining map for the district. And finally, our first-ever Village Holiday Gift Guide featured oneof-a-kind gift ideas found throughout the Central Village. The Village Alliance distributed thousands of maps and gift guides to local apartment buildings, businesses, tourist and university information centers, and also through social media and villagealliance.org. If you would like a copy of the Village Map & Guide, stop by the Village Alliance Information Center at 8 East Eighth St. Looking ahead in 2013, the Village Alliance will focus on placemaking activities, retail-attraction initiatives and community events in addition to improving our core services. The city will begin construction on a redesigned Astor Place/Cooper Square this spring, and we will be conducting interviews and workshops on programming ideas in preparation for unveiling this new civic space in 2014. Our “Positively 8th Street” retail open house event is slated for spring, along with plans for a Village Coffee Crawl to coincide with the opening of Stumptown Coffee Roasters. A multiday festival celebrating the unique cultural heritage of Eighth St. is also planned for summer.

Kelley is executive director, Village Alliance

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Losing our soul: Who’s saving us from ‘progress’?

PERSPECTIVE

By Arthur Z. Schwartz I have lived in the Village for 31 years now, long enough to measure progress in terms of decades, not years. The Village I moved into in 1981 was very different from today’s Village, so there has been change. Progress? It depends how one defines it.

I love living in the Village. I have great neighbors and it’s been a wonderful community for raising my four children. The scale is amazing by Manhattan standards. The streets are empty by Manhattan standards. The liberal attitudes of my neighbors are refreshing.

I never cease to be amazed how in 2008, Barack Obama carried our neighborhood in his primary against Hillary Clinton, the only community in the state where that occurred that wasn’t a majority black or Hispanic. We are less racist, less homophobic, more green and eat more nutritious food than almost anywhere in the U.S.A. People speak to each other in the streets, and street musicians still play classical music on the corners.

Yet, our most recent community board census shows only 2 percent of the Village and Soho is African-American, and a similarly small percent is Hispanic. This is in a city that is majority minority.

New York City now has 1 million Asian-American inhabitants, but if Chinatown weren’t partly in our census tract, we would be 0.5 percent Asian. So as liberal as we are, we live in one of the most lilywhite, segregated communities in the nation.

When I moved to the Village, a number of big buildings were “turning co-op.” But most people still lived in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments. And those people were often at the heart of the arts and intellectual community: musicians, fine artists, opera singers, cabaret performers, dancers, actors and writers — people whose pursuits were nourished by a low-rent, low-rise community with reasonably priced food, clothing stores, shoemakers and even entertainment.

But there aren’t very many rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments left. Studios in walkups cost $3,500 a month. A one-bedroom condo goes for around $1 million. Commercial rents are so high that only high-end outfits can locate here. One of my favorite hangouts, the University Diner, on 12th St. and University Place, just closed, and the landlord wants $125,000 per month for a lease. Although we occasionally hear the words “affordable housing” out of elected officials’ mouths, there is very little of that. And it is hard for landlords to charge lower rents since the city has ratcheted up real estate taxes to obscene levels: Small buildings like townhouses pay $70,000 to $100,000 per year in taxes, and the city doesn’t care if the tenants are rent-stabilized.

This is an interesting political moment, similar in some ways to 25 years ago. In the early ’90s, Deborah Glick got elected to the Assembly, and Tom Duane to City Council. His chief of staff was Christine Quinn. A few years later, Duane moved to the state Senate and Quinn took his place on the Council. Now Duane has left the Senate and

N.Y.U. project foes hail judge’s ruling on strips Continued from page 4 The N.Y.U. plan would add about 2 million square feet of space on the university’s two South Village superblocks and would cost a whopping $6 billion.

The City Council approved the plan this past July. Before the vote, Council Speaker Christine Quinn first cleared the balcony after angry Villagers refused her single warning to stop booing and catcalling.

In September, a broad coalition of 11 groups — including both community and citywide organizations — filed suit against the N.Y.U. plan The plaintiffs include N.Y.U. FASP, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Historic Districts Council, Washington Square Village Tenants Association, East Village Community Coalition, Friends of Petrosino Square, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, Lower Manhattan Neighbors Organization, Soho Alliance, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors and Noho Neighborhood Association.

The strips are, in fact, left over from Robert Moses’ street-widening schemes from

decades ago, when the planning czar sought to plow a cross-town highway through Downtown, with accompanying wide boulevards that would feed into it.

Officially, still mapped as part of the street, the strips have been under the jurisdiction of the city’s Department of Transportation.

However, their use is clearly as parks — including a dog run, a children’s playground, community gardens, a pseudo-primeval garden called “Time Landscape” and other extensive plantings.

A huge battle of past decades involved another one of the open-space strips, which used to be on LaGuardia Place between Washington Square South and W. Third St. The Board of Estimate — the City Council’s predecessor — approved the transfer of this strip to N.Y.U. so that it could extend the footprint of its massive Bobst Library, designed by Philip Johnson.

Bo Riccobono, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the current N.Y.U. 2031 plan, said — who knows? — if they win on the parkalienation issue, they might revisit the Bobst strip battle of decades ago.

“This throws it into question,” he said, adding, “Maybe we’ll seek damages.”

Quinn is either moving up or out.

Glick holds on after 23 years, much like her predecessor, Bill Passannante, did, looking to remain relevant, playing off some effective work she did in the past.

This could be called the “New New Politics Era,” which followed the New Politics era ushered in by Ed Koch and his cohorts in the Village Independent Democrats, who drove Tammany Hall to its grave.

Duane, Glick and Quinn promised to be the most liberal crew we ever had representing us. But under their watch (unlike during the New Politics Era, marked by heroes like Jane Jacobs, the landmarking of Greenwich Village, and the creation of West Village Houses), affordable housing disappeared, zoning variances that allowed large, oversized development became increasingly frequent, and we lost St. Vincent’s Hospital and a spate of historic structures in the West Village; meanwhile, we gained the multimillion-dollar condos built by the Rudins and Related Companies, while N.Y.U. took over more and more of the Central Village.

The Village has become more of a community of families with children, but the creation of school seats has lagged behind, forcing many parents to send their kids to private schools. We had a spate of park renovations, and Hudson River Park opened up (over Deborah Glick’s objection), but money to maintain those parks has had to be

raised privately.

Neighborhood store after neighborhood store has closed, only to be replaced by multiple Marc Jacobs, Duane Reades and lots of expensive bistros. And instead of opening politics up in the community to a new, young generation, the trio have kept it a closed club. (Although Brad Hoylman did push his way in.)

None of the three is happy with our three present City Council candidates, Yetta Kurland, Corey Johnson and Alexander Meadows; these newcomers aren’t part of their club and they are looking to find a candidate who is. They all supported Hillary for president when their constituents were excited about Obama.

Crumbs thrown off by developers, like the 75 Morton St. school, the Foundling School and the AIDS memorial park, were minor contributions from developers beginning multibillion-dollarprofit projects.

Yes, we have Andrew Berman of G.V.H.S.P. and Terri Cude fighting N.Y.U., and Tobi Bergman with Pier 40. But advances have been few and far between.

The Village of Ed Koch, Jane Jacobs, Verna Small and Bob Dylan and Stonewall is no more. It is a lovely place to live, but has lost a lot of its soul.

Schwartz is Democratic state committeeman for the 66th Assembly District

Keeping an eye on East Side Community

By Sara Romanoski The East Village Community Coalition is a community, nonprofit organization that works to support and sustain the architectural and cultural character of the East Village.

E.V.C.C. traces its roots to the struggle over the former P.S. 64 / CHARAS building, at E. Ninth St. and Avenue B. E.V.C.C. along with other community groups, Community Board 3 and elected officials advocated for landmark designation for this building and its return as a community resource. The former school was designated a New York City landmark in 2006, but continues to sit unused.

Our community has many needs that this building could help serve. We have serious concerns that a recent Department of Buildings filing applying to convert the building into a dormitory shows no sensitivity to these needs.

Last summer we testified in opposition to a proposal from Icon Realty to add a floor to each of four buildings at 329-335 E. Ninth St. While the proposal was unfortunately approved, we will continue to monitor development at these sites by a new owner, Kushner Companies.

Our raising an alarm led to a partial stopwork order at the former Cabrini Center Nursing Home building, when we were able to bring a neighbor’s images of precarious working conditions and the groundwork for what appeared to be an undisclosed seventh floor to the city’s attention.

In the past year, E.V.C.C. worked with neighbors and preservation groups in successfully advocating for two new New York City historic districts: the E. 10th St. Historic District on the north side of Tompkins Square Park and the East Village / Lower East Side Historic District, located along the southern portion of Second Ave. and eastward to Tompkins Square Park on Sixth and Seventh Sts. The districts are a great complement to a 2008 contextual rezoning of much of the East Village and Lower Side, for which the E.V.C.C. was an early advocate.

Through our Get Local! shopping initiative, E.V.C.C. emphasizes the importance of local shopping in sustaining the local economy, creating a creative and unique environment, and keeping more money within our community. Our annual Get Local! Guide is a free resource to help businesses and shoppers support more than 400 independently operated retail stores. Copies of the sixth edition are can be downloaded at our Web site: www.evccnyc.org and found at participating businesses.

E.V.C.C. is advocating for “formula retail zoning” that would require that stores be unique, and prohibit chain retailers from opening stores that follow the exact same formula as their other locations.

Volunteer with us! Whether you’re an expert or you want to meet your neighbors, join us in building community. Visit www. evccnyc.org or call 212-979-2344.

Romanoski is managing director, East Village Community Coalition

February 28 - March 6, 2013

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villager arts & entertainment

‘Katie Roche’ caps three-year project

Mint Theater champions rediscovery of playwright Teresa Deevy THEATER KATIE ROCHE

Written by Teresa Deevy Directed by Jonathan Bank Through March 31 Tues.-Thurs. at 7pm, Fri. & Sat. at 8pm Sat. & Sun. at 2pm Special 2pm matinee Wed., March 20th at 2pm No performance March 19 Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes At the Mint Theater 311 West 43rd St., 3rd floor (btw. 8th & 9th Aves.)

For tickets ($55), call 866-811-4111 or visit theatermania.com Also visit minttheater.org

BY JERRY TALLMER For Teresa Deevy, playwright, born 1894, the sounds of silence were everywhere.

For Katie Roche, house worker, not yet twenty years old — lovely, impatient, illegitimate Katie of little Lower Ballygar, Ireland — the temptations to greatness, particularly the call of the convent, were everywhere. But none of it went anywhere.

The youngest of thirteen children, Teresa Deevy of Waterford, Ireland, on course to become a teacher, had been walloped by Ménière’s disease while at University College, Dublin — a turn of affairs that left her stone deaf for life.

She went to London to study lip reading because of her deafness — and instead fell into the clutches of Theater, also for life.

Indeed, not starting until her mid-30s, she became a most prolific playwright in a land of such phenomena, and though periodically dropping out of sight, or overlooked, she was always rediscovered through the years — including one stretch, 1930-1936, in which the Abbey, Dublin’s revered National Theater, mounted six of her works (including the one that New York’s own superb little Mint Theater Company is bringing to 311 West 43rd Street through March 31).

Photos by: Richard Termine

Wrenn Schmidt (as Katie Roche) and Margaret Daly (as Amelia Gregg).

Margaret Daly as Amelia Gregg and Patrick Fitzgerald as Stanislaus Gregg.

It caps the Mint’s three-year Teresa Deevy project, the two previous entries being her “Wife to James Whelan” (2010) followed by “Temporal Powers” (2011), a drama that stirs together poverty, peasantry, crime, bad marriage and — a favorite Irish subject — the rights and wrongs, or wrongs and wrongs, of being an informer.

An actress named Wrenn Schmidt, who first worked at the Mint in that exploration of “Temporal Powers” — after breaking in with Charlotte Moore and Ciaran O’Reilly’s great little Irish Rep on West 22nd Street — is the exquisite but ultra-confused Katie Roche of this one.

Should she go into that convent to care for abandoned children and thus seal off her life — her dreams of grandeur — forever?

Should she give in — give herself in marriage — to Stanislaus Gregg (Patrick Fitzgerald), the buttoned-up, buttoned-down home-grown village architect more than twice her own age and stuffiness?

STANISLAUS: Would you think of marrying me?

KATIE: Now, is it? Or then?

STANISLAUS: Now. So she does. But in due course: STANISLAUS; There’s a good child.

KATIE: Child? I am your wife that you married.

STANISLAUS: Then do what you’re told!

Keep out!

Okay, then — should she fool around with dashing young Michael Maguire (John Fletcher), who sneaks a kiss onto her whenever Stanislaus isn’t in the room? And once too often when he is?

Worse yet, should she spend her life in repentance for all the sins nailed onto her by weird old Holy Reuben (Jamie Jackson) — the staff-clomping cross-country walker from Dublin who reads the riot act to any and all mankind (even more so, womankind)?

Or should she say the deuce with all of them and go for the grandeur that is in her blood, as the out-of-wedlock daughter of the late and dashing Maurice Fitzsimon, seducer of Katie’s beautiful mother who died in childbirth bearing her?

“The world is a very flat place” is what Katie finally, bitterly concludes — although neither actress Wrenn Schmidt, who speaks those words, nor Jonathan Bank, the Mint Theater and this show’s director, will agree with me.

About the bitterness, I mean. They see hope.

All of this is — as Hemingway taught us — not in, but between the lines; the silences between the tears and cheers and jests of a tiny rural community rooting for their own lads in the annual Regatta, or river-rowing contest. A whole worrisome scene spins on the borrowing of a long wooden bench to stand on to watch the race.

Teresa Deevy left us in 1963. This month, the Mint is bringing out a printed edition of the three plays of hers that it has now mounted, plus some other, shorter, works.

To Jonathan Bank, Katie at the end “has hit rock bottom in suffering” as she’s dragged off, terrified, to the big city, Dublin, but is also elated, excited, exultant to leave the place where she was born.

“I’ve had my own illusions of grandeur since I was seven or eight,” says slim, finespun Wrenn Schmidt, who was born on a February 18 of some year or other, and arrived in New York from Lexington, South Carolina in 2005, to work at the Bond Street Theatre on Bond Street in the East Village.

For Irish Rep, she did John B. Keane’s “Sive” and Eugene O’Neill’s “Beyond the Horizon.”

In between and since, a lot of television.

Both she and Bank have, yes, been to Ireland — she to study at Trinity College, he to meet with some grand-nieces and nephews of Teresa Deevy. They brought forth for his benefit a suitcase full of Deevy’s unpublished manuscripts.

The Abbey’s most famous female playwright and story-teller, was James Joyce’s angel, Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (1852-1932).

“I was just curious,” says Jonathan Bank, “as to why there were not many female Irish playwrights in Lady Gregory’s footsteps.”

And found Teresa Deevy.

“She was not an unknown person at all,” says Bank, “but by the time she died she was pretty much forgotten.”

The Mint Theater Company remembers.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Chelsea Gallery District still weathering Sandy

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN On January 12th, more than ten weeks after the devastating storm surge of Hurricane Sandy hit the Chelsea gallery district with unexpected and unprecedented force, things finally seemed to be getting back to normal. That day, the last group of galleries located on the block of 27th Street, between 11th Avenue and the West Side Highway, officially re-opened after months of arduous and costly repairs.

Jeff Bailey Gallery, Derek Eller Gallery, Wallspace, Winkleman Gallery, and Foxy Production, all of whom experienced major damage due to flooding — inaugurated their 2013 season with newly finished floors and freshly painted walls. Installed on these are now a selection of strong and versatile solo shows, some of which (one consciously, the other coincidentally) make faint references to the storm.

At first glimpse, visitors to the area might feel that not much has changed since Sandy. Galleries are open, the streets abuzz.

However, in conversation with local gallerists and artists who show or have their studios in West Chelsea, one finds that this “return to normal” took an incredible effort.

Many of the exhibitions that were scheduled for the fall are currently up on the walls. At David Zwirner, which in late October was just about to mount exhibitions of Luc Tuymans and Francis Alÿs, these installations were postponed, then recently displayed through February 9 (at 519 and 525 West 19th Street). Meanwhile, at Jeff Bailey (625 West 27th Street), where the basement was flooded all the way to the ceiling, Jackie Gendel’s exhibition had only been up for two weeks before the hurricane. Momentum was lost — and while the gallery was renovating, Gendel embarked on a new group of paintings. Some of these, depicting dramatic waterlines, were installed under the title “Revenge of the Same” (which ran through February 9).

“A lot of attention was paid in the press and blogs to the galleries and dealers who lost their inventory or whose businesses sustained damage, but the majority of artists, whose entire livelihood, healthcare and studio practice for one or two years at a time can rest on the sale of just a few cru-

cial pieces (not to mention the feeling of personal loss), weren’t really the subject of that reporting,” states Gendel. She explains that she and other fellow artists, helped their gallerists during the early days of recovery.

“Christian Maychack, Fabienne Lasserre, Louise Belcourt, Chris Gentile, Josh Marsh and others dawned waders or rubber boots, head lamps and gas masks and headed down into the basement where they pulled out work after work. There must have been hundreds. An assembly line was formed from the basement up the stairs to the outside of the gallery, where it was chilly. Work was photographed, taken out of bubble wrap and frames and wiped clean. Later, the assembly line carried work three or four floors upstairs through the darkness to storage rooms to air out.”

Artist Nick Lamia, whose studio is located in the well-known 526 West 26th building that also houses various galleries, Galerie Lelong and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, reflects: “My studio, being on the eighth floor, came through the storm unscathed, but the building itself, and other artists who had things stored in the basement, were not so fortunate. A friend who lives in a loft across the street described that she was able to literally watch the water rising, coming up the street from the river to the west. When it got to the middle of the block, it’s steady progress mysteriously stopped. When she looked more carefully, she realized the water had stopped moving from west to east because it was flooding down into the basement of my studio building, damaging the boilers. We were without heat for two or three weeks.”

In fact, 524 West 26th Street still does not have a working passenger elevator, making it hard for some of the businesses in the building to welcome their clients.

Lamia reflects further that for days after the storm, “the sidewalk in front of the building looked like a shanty-town built from the soggy remains of artworks, rolls of drawing paper and canvas, filing cabinets, old desk chairs and other office materials being dredged up from the flooded basement. You don’t see any visible evidence of the storm outside the building now, but the damage remains. There are a significant number of artists who lost much, if not all,

Photo by Scott Stiffler

On Nov. 4, gallery owner Jack Shainman takes a break from consigning waterlogged basement items to the trash bin.

of the physical history of their careers.”

Though by now the dumpsters filled with massive piles of ruined office supplies, artwork and other gallery paraphernalia have long been picked up and most water pumps and portable generators have vanished, it is clear that the storm has left behind a major imprint on all individuals involved.

However, not everyone is eager to discuss the extent of their losses. Some galleries have to face millions of dollars worth of damages — and worse, some artists have lost most of their life’s work. One art dealer who wished to remain anonymous explained his polite decline to participate in this article by stating that, “In the art world, showing weakness will not get you sympathy…but it

might be your downfall.”

Edward Winkleman, who shared reflections and photographs during the past weeks on his blog (edwardwinkleman.com), does feel comfortable discussing his experience.

While looking at a stunning large triptych

by Michael Waugh featuring a ship battling a massive tidal wave, he explains that he and partner Murat Orozobekov talked about the pros and cons of being open about the challenges they faced. Deciding that they could not hide anyway what was going on (“everybody who was walking by could see themselves how we were doing”), they were surprised to find far-reaching support. During

Continued on page 27

February 28 - March 6, 2013

27

Galleries: Digging in or bailing out?

Continued from page 26 the first most upsetting days, when art works piled up outside on the cold street, the only place to assess the damage in the light due to the lack of electricity, “we asked our artists to stay away until we could review the situation with each one individually.” However, they were surprised to find colleagues, neighbors and also collectors willing to help.

Bailey shares the sentiment: “the outpouring of support has been fantastic, from artists to clients and friends of the gallery. Many people leant a helping hand during those first few weeks, and it made a big difference in getting things done: Moving artwork to storage, cataloguing, photographing, cleaning up.

The landlord brought in a disaster recovery team to clean and renovate the spaces.”

Both Bailey and Winkleman note that it was the disaster relief fund, put in place by the Art Dealers Association of America, that

‘You don’t see any visible evidence of the storm outside the building now, but the damage remains. There are a significant number of artists who lost much, if not all, of the physical history of their careers.’

—Nick Lamia helped in their recovery. Founded in 1962, the ADAA is a non-profit membership organization of the nation's leading galleries in the fine arts, counting about 175 members.

Remarkably, their member-funded relief effort was made available to affected members and non–members alike. “The ADAA reached out and provided grants to galleries to help with hurricane related expenses, which was very generous,” says Bailey. “We are almost back to normal, and that will be a welcome change.”

“The relief fund was available quickly,” Winkleman explains, adding that, “It was crucial in a time when we were facing a lot of unexpected bills, like ordering dumpsters.” In the issue of this month’s Artforum, the ADAA took out a whole page ad, listing Acquavella Galleries, Mitchell Innes & Nash, and David Zwirner Gallery, among others, as major donors.

While larger galleries might be able to keep their efforts more private, Gendel points out that “emerging artists and smaller galleries don't have the luxury of secrecy, the resources

to hide the mess, the clout with insurers who wouldn't pay small timers without the entire public knowing the extent of it.”

The question arises, what kind of long-term decisions have been made. Before Sandy, most ground floor galleries used their basements for inventory storage. Today, nobody will leave anything of great value on a subterranean level.

Though large galleries often have off-site storage in specialized and costly facilities in New Jersey or Long Island City, smaller galleries are now facing the need for renting new additional space above ground.

However, rent is of course determined by square footage, no matter if basements are used or not. Only a few Chelsea galleries own the property they occupy. Most are renters, and those who have experienced major damages will certainly re-consider their location as soon as their lease is up for renewal.

Nobody I talked to rules out that a similar situation might occur in the near future.

Ultimately, it might be high rents and the shifting demographic of the neighborhood however that will have more impact on the art district than Sandy. With the opening of the Highline, major tourism has swamped the area. On 10th Avenue, between 17th and 20th Street, stores and restaurants rather than galleries have begun to open their doors. In addition, new rental and condo constructions increasingly dominate.

Some high-profile galleries have recently looked at Midtown and Uptown as a possible base. Peter Blum Gallery (formerly located on 526 West 29th) recently moved to 20 West 57th Street — New York’s original art district, before Soho and then, Chelsea, became fashionable. Other possible destinations might be Long Island City or Brooklyn — where last year, Chelsea staple Luhring Augustine opened another venue at 25 Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick. On the other hand, Hauser & Wirth (which is based in Zurich, London and the Upper East Side) recently opened its massive Chelsea branch in the former Roxy (511 West 18th Street, between Tenth Avenue and the West Side Highway).

Only time will tell if Chelsea will remain the city’s foremost art district or if the scene will become more scattered. In the meantime, galleries have resumed their exhibition programs.

This month, it might be in Gendel’s work that we find one of the most poignant traces of the faceted experience. In her new paintings, the waterline runs through the middle of the canvas — where the gallery would center its plumb line. Though at Bailey, where the water flowed into the basement, Gendel’s line begins to read as high water mark (and for many galleries whose ground floors were flooded, that would indeed have been the case).

Looking at this abstracted memory of a disaster past, one wonders how and when another storm might challenge what we usually deem safe and until then, take for granted.

Courtesy of Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York

Water, water, everywhere: Jackie Gendel's “Carried Woman II” (2013, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches) was part of “Revenge of the Same,” which closed Feb. 9.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

When bullies are attacked

For tormented gay teens, sometimes it must get worse before it gets better THEATER FROM WHITE PLAINS A Fault Line Theatre Company production Written & Directed by Michael Perlman Through March 9 Wed.-Fri. at 8pm, Sat. at 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun. at 3pm At Studio Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center 480 W. 42nd St., btw. Tenth & Dyer Aves.

For tickets ($34), visit ticketcentral.com or call 212279-4200 For info, visit faultlinetheatre.org

By DAVID kENNERlEy In recent years, the LGBT community has adopted the issue of anti-gay bullying as a cause célèbre, leveraging tragic, high-profile cases to shine a light on intolerance and advance gay rights. More often than not, the issue is reduced to black and white — bullies are evil, victims are saints.

“From White Plains,” the savvy, searing drama about the lingering aftermath of a suicide brought on by a high school bully, refuses to traffic in such stereotypes, instead exploring the mottled shades of gray.

325 W. 14th St. New York, NY 10014 (212) 242-1456

www.reddenfuneralhome.net NY State law mandates that funeral trust funds for Medicaid recipients pay for funeral and burial only. The contracts are irrevocable.

JACOB J. GOLDBERG

Jimmy King, Aaron Rossini, Karl Gregory, and Craig Wesley Divino in “From White Plains.”

Written and directed by Michael Perlman, the bold, scrappy work manages to steer clear of preachiness in order to focus on the complex contradictions of human relationships. Ultimately, the play is about anger, retribution, forgiveness, and exorcizing personal demons so that we can move forward. And, in some respects, it also attempts to redefine what it means to be gay.

The opening scene is a doozy. Ethan and his best bud John sit in shock in front of the television, having just watched some gay guy Ethan went to high school with win an Academy Award for his biopic about bullying. In the acceptance speech, screenwriter Dennis, best friends at school with the tormented boy who later took his own life, names Ethan as that bully.

Breaking the stunned silence is a barrage of buzzing messages coming in on Ethan’s phone. Masterfully timed and exquisitely unnerving.

According to John, the film, titled “White Plains,” is where “plain white people” live. And it’s about “what they do to people who aren’t just white and plain.”

What follows is a highly public battle, waged over the blogosphere, between Ethan and Dennis, whose life was also made a living hell by Ethan 15 years earlier. Dennis’ obsession with revenge puts undue strain on his relationship with his boyfriend Gregory, who’s dealing with baggage of his own. Despite apologies from Ethan, Dennis continues his attack. The relentless exposure causes Ethan to lose his job and his girlfriend and threatens his friendship with John.

So who is the bully now?

As the 30-year old former tyrant who hasn’t completely changed his ways (in heated moments he calls his straight bud John a fag), Aaron Rossini delivers a layered, absorbing performance. Even though we loathe Ethan’s past behavior, he earns our sympathy.

He claims he was an asshole to everyone in high school, just trying to score laughs. Not that we’re totally buying it.

Craig Wesley Divino portrays John with skillfull restraint. Also harassed by bullies as a kid, John is torn between supporting his friend and moving on with his own life, by planning a wedding with his new fiancée.

Perlman does a nice job of integrating of-themoment technology to advance the plot. At one point, all four characters are tapping away on sleek computers, tablets, or smartphones while dramatic momentum is sustained — no easy feat.

Somewhat less successful are scenes between Dennis and Gregory (Jimmy King) — who alternately bicker and smooch — that tend to err on the melodramatic side. As played by Karl Gregory, the crazed, self-righteous, axe-grinding Dennis is largely unlikable until the confrontational climactic scene. We’re on his side, but it’s not hard to imagine him as a target for brutes in high school. He’s no saint, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, Perlman falls into the trap of many young playwrights who direct their own material by including problematic scenes that drag down the rest of the piece. A contrived chance meeting on a subway and the limp coda should have been reworked, if not cut.

To say that the main message of this insightful if slightly frustrating work is “bullies are people too” would be an oversimplification. “From White Plains” posits that all of us — best buds, boyfriends, parents, victims — are capable of being bullies. And that sometimes it takes an eye-for-aneye conflict to move beyond a quagmire from the past and focus on a brighter future.

February 28 - March 6, 2013

29

Just Do Art!

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

FILM: “SUMMERTIME” AT THE FIRST TIME FEST

Before heading to Los Angeles to attend film school (later honing his craft at Lenfilm Studios in St. Petersburg, Russia), Max Weissberg called the Lower East Side home while working at the L.E.S. Tenement Museum and serving as a tour guide with the East Village History Project. Now, Weissberg (a directing fellow with the American Film Institute) returns to the old neighborhood as one of 12 debut filmmakers invited to participate in the inaugural year of First Time Fest — a celebration of new cinematic voices whose grand prize winner will land a theatrical distribution deal and full international sales representation from American film distributor, Cinema Libre Studio.

Made in the Lower East Side with several actors who work at the Tenement Museum, writer/director Weissberg describes his entry (“Summertime”) as “truly a love letter to the L.E.S.” which spins a circular tale of friendship, love and sex among a group of six while dealing with local issues including “housing, the struggles facing artists and the bohemian lifestyle.” The cast and crew will be in attendance for a discussion after the screening.

In addition to the competition films, First Time Fest will present “First Exposure” — screenings of notable first-time efforts from John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”), Todd Haynes (“Poison”) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Jack Goes Boating”) and Stanley Kubrick (“Killer’s Kiss”). “Exposure” will also include a 60th Anniversary Tribute to Morris Engel's 1953 Coney Island-set cinema vérité classic, “The Little Fugitive.”

“Summertime” screens Sat., March 2, at 5:30pm. The First Time Fest happens March 1-4, with screenings at AMC Loews Village VII (66 Third Ave., at 11th St.). The Players (16 Gramercy Park South) will host panels and events as well as the Filmmaker and VIP Lounge. For a full schedule, tickets & info, visit firsttimefest.com. Also visit summertimefilm.com.

Photo by Xax Han and Andreas Thalhammer

Eric Yves Garcia as Dan and former L.E.S. Tenement Museum worker H.R. Britton as Max, in Max Weissberg’s “Summertime” (debuting in the First Time Fest).

Photo courtesy of the publisher

The handsomest man in the room? See, hear and (if so disposed) swoon over Michael Lydon — March 5, at Cornelia Street Café.

WESTBETH GALLERY PRESENTS MARION LANE, DIANA T. SOORIKIAN & REBECCA DANKER

Westbeth Gallery brings together three gifted artists in this exhibit of paintings, wall sculptures and drawings. Marion Lane says of her creative process, “The possibilities of color, shape and line invites and delights me. It is always a new experience that I find impelling and often beautiful.” For Diana T. Soorikian, “The human body, without narrative or locale, dominates my work. I welcome the struggle between the opposites of figuration and the imperatives of paint.” Color moves Rebecca Danker into “deciding how it can be applied, and how to combine it with shapes, the resulting composition can be an abstraction, with or without figurative elements.”

Through March 10, at Westbeth Gallery (55 Bethune St., corner of Washington St.).

Gallery Hours: Wed.-Sun., 1-6pm. For info, call 212-989-4650 or visit westbeth.org.

Photo by Diana T. Soorikian

Diana T. Soorikian’s “Criss Cross” (oil painting, 74 x 64 in.). See “Westbeth Gallery.”

Also visit marionlanestudio.com, rebeccadpaintings.com and columbia.edu/cu/arts/ varchive/soorikian.

MICHAEL LYDON: “WORDS & MUSIC, MUSIC & WORDS”

His self-professed status as “The Handsomest Man in the World” is subject

to personal taste — but there’s no disputing the imprint made by Michael Lydon over the past several decades, in the realms of music, writing and activism.

The Boston-based, jazz-loving son of a big Irish family made his debut as a music critic in college (panning an upstart group called the Beatles and directing readers

to Martha and the Vandellas). After covering the civil rights movement for the Boston Globe, the young Newsweek scribe warmed up to those lovable mop-tops during their “Rubber Soul” era — then worked the circa-1967 Haight-Ashbury Fillmore/Avalon Ballroom beat, grew his hair long, quit Newsweek and co-founded Rolling Stone with a “gung-ho kid” named Jann Wenner. No moss would gather, as Lydon left after the first few issues to “join the Rolling Stones on a wild ride across America to Altamont.” That’s just the first part of his website bio, which is full of compelling pop culture anecdotes (singing in a Berkeley coffeehouse, moving to Manhattan, busking on the subway, opening for Muddy Waters and becoming a Ray Charles biographer).

Fast forward to 2013, and Kindle Singles has released an e-book of “The Rolling Stones Discover America” — an eyewitness account of that aforementioned trek with Mick and the boys. At his upcoming Cornelia Street Café gig, you’ll hear Lydon read from the book, between playing, singing and whistling his own easy-going popjazz tunes (with able assistance from pianist Ellen Mandel, singer Bridget Beirne and bassist Dave Hofstra). “Music’s opened me up to gorgeous sounds and challenging ideas,” says the handsome fellow. “In every note I play, I try to sum up all I’ve heard and send it back as me to anyone who’ll listen.

When I get back silly grins from couples dancing to my beat and singing in on the chorus, I thank my inspirations.”

Tues., March 5, at 6pm. At the Cornelia Street Café (29 Cornelia St., west of Sixth Ave., off Bleecker St.). For tickets ($10), call 212-989-9319 or visit corneliastreetcafe.com. Access Lydon’s writings at franklinstpress.com, and his music at michaellydon.com.

30

February 28 - March 6, 2013

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Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: 30 Crosby St., NY, NY 10013. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Mihir Patel, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, 55 E. 52nd St., 28th Fl., NY, NY 10055. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 02/28 - 04/04/2013 Notice of Qualification of National Women’s Soccer League, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/8/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1801 S. Prairie Ave., Chicago, IL 60616. LLC formed in DE on 12/12/12.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 02/28 - 04/04/2013 Notice of Qualification of VTR Hertlin House, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/3/12. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 10350 Ormsby Park Pl., Ste. 300, Louisville, KY 40223. LLC formed in DE on 11/27/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC:The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 02/28 - 04/04/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SWEET ANGEL GARMENT CARE LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/8/13.

Office New York County.

SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal address: 713 Washington St. New York, NY 10014. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice is hereby given given that license #1268837 has been applied by the undersigned to sell wine at retail in a restaurant under the alcoholic beverage control law at 125 East 39th Street, New York, NY 10016 for on-premises consumption. SUIMON INC d/b/a KAJITSU Vil: 02/21 - 02/28/2013

NOTICE OF FORMATION of Palmer Sound NYC LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of NewYork (SSNY) on 01/03/13.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: 65 Downing Street Apt A New York, NY 10014. Purpose:To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION of APAC LIVING, LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of NewYork (SSNY) on 01/28/13.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: Gartner+Bloom PC, 801 2nd Ave #1505 NY, NY10017.

Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Qualification of CCD OF NEW YORK, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/27/11. Princ. office of LLC: The Learning Experience, 4855 Technology Way, Ste. 700, Boca Raton, FL 33431. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State - DE, Corp. Dept., Loockerman & Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Formation of PHIPPS HPS GP LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 902 Broadway, 13th Fl., NY, NY 10010. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Qualification of GATEWAY CENTER PARKING ASSOCIATION, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/07/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/04/13. Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., Federal and Duke of York Sts., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013

THE GRAMERCY CENTRE LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/4/13. Office in NY Co. SSNY design.

Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 38 Gramercy Park Apt. 3E New York, NY 10010. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Formation of Wild History, LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/28/12. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 604 E. 11th St., NY, NY 10009.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Formation of North 9 Joy LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/6/13.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Joy Construction Corp., 40 Fulton St., 21st Fl., NY, NY 10038. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Formation of New Heights Tech.

LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/3/13.

Off. loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Stanley K. Anderson, 13 Pierson Curt, Mahwah, NJ 07430. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/21 - 03/28/2013 Notice of Formation of Leondari Marine Advisors LLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 5/30/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to c/o Seward & Kissel, 1 Battery Park Plaza, NY, NY 10004.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Formation of SK Reade LLC, Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 9/21/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to NRAI, 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qual. of Village 2 JV SPE LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 12/4/12. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 12/3/12. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to NRAI, 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served. DE off. addr.: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904.

Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013

Notice of Qual. of Sydell Freehand Williamsburg LLC, Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 11/13/12. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 11/7/12. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to NRAI, 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served.

DE off. addr.: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904.

Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qual. of Altalis Capital Management LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 8/2/12. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 7/19/12. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: Sam Elder, 11 E. 86th St., Apt. 2C, NY, NY 10028.

DE off. addr.: CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SG@NYC, LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/28/13. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal address: c/o Stephanie Garcia 1569 York Ave NewYork, NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 75 WALL STREET LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/23/13. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal address: 118 Baxter St 402 NY, NY 10013.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qualification of HEI Fund GP LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/15/2013. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/02/2013.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to 477 Madison Ave. 8th Flr., NY, NY 10022. DE address of LLC: c/o Maples Fiduciary Services (Delaware) LLC, 4001 Kennett Pike, Ste 302, Wilmington, DE. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State, of the State of DE, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013

Notice of Qualification of OUT OF EGYPT LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/06/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/22/12. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Louis R. Piscatelli, Esq., Withers Bergman LLP, 430 Park Ave., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10022. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of the State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qualification of MKP OPPORTUNITY PARTICIPATION FUND LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/05/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/01/13. Princ. office of LLC: 4 World Financial Center, 250 Vesey St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10080. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State, DE, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qualification of VOYANT CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/04/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/31/13. Princ. office of LLC: c/o Millennium Management, LLC, 666 Fifth Ave., 9th Fl., NY, NY 10103.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State - Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qualification of SOFT SERVE FRUIT CO LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/01/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/04/10. Princ. office of LLC: 337 Park Ave. South, 5th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013

Notice of Qualification of Landmark Infrastructure Holding Company LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/28/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/8/10.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, also the registered agent. Principal office: 1700 E. Walnut Ave., Ste. 400, El Segundo, CA 90245. Address to be maintained in DE: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secretary of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Registration of GUSY VAN DER ZANDT LLP Certificate filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/19/09. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to:The LLP, 261 Madison Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: practice the profession of law.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Formation of AR ROZA FEE LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/2/12.

Off. loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Steven E. Plotnick, 227 E. 58th St., 3rd Fl., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Formation of Roth Group LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/21/11. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Steven E. Plotnick, 227 E. 58th St., 3rd Fl., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Formation of ATF COMMODITIES LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/29/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 64 Waterman Ave., Rumson, NJ 07760. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Formation of 426 East 9th LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 8/24/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 636 Broadway, Ste. 820, NY, NY 10012. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013

February 28 - March 6, 2013

31

Publ ic Notice s Notice of Formation of Eldridge Beaumont LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/1/13.

Off. loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Andrews Kurth LLP, 450 Lexington Ave., NY, NY 10017. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 Notice of Qualification of Zuckerberg Media, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/8/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 5/7/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Jeffrey Paik, Zuckerberg Media, LLC, 960-970 O’Brien Dr., Menlo Park, CA 94025. DE addr. of LLC: National Registered Agents, Inc., 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/14 - 03/21/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION of Graves, Horton, Askew & Johns, LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of NewYork (SSNY) on 02/22/12 Office location: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: Graves, Horton, Askew & Johns, LLC, 1750 K St., NW, #200, Washington, DC 20006. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Holland Hunt LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/11/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: US Corp Agents, Inc. 7014 13th Ave Ste 202. Principal business address: New York.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Qualification of HOSPITAL MEDIA NETWORK, LLC Authority filed with Secy of State of NewYork on 01/28/13.

Office location: New York County. LLC formed in Connecticut on 5/1/12. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 Eighth Avenue, 13th floor, New York, NY 10011. NRAI is registered agent as well.

Address required to be maintained in home jurisdiction: 1 Station Place, Stamford, CT 06902. Arts of Org filed with the Secretary of State of Connecticut, Commercial Recording Division, 30 Trinity Street, Hartford, CT 06106.

Purpose: Patient room TV advertising.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013

NOTICE OF CONVERSION OF Charles, Frederic & Co., LLC Cert of Conversion filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/5/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal business address: The Bank of New York Mellon, Securities Dept., One Wall Street, NY, NY 10286. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF THE ALCHEMY SHOP LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/3/13.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal business address: 333 E 109TH STR #6C NY, NY 10029. Purpose: any lawful act. 2023960 Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY. NAME: URBAN KINGS, LLC. Articles of Organization were filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 01/22/13. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail a copy of process to the LLC, 245 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1001, New York, New York 10016. Purpose: For any lawful purpose.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 STONE & WILLIAMS PARTNERS LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 12/26/12.

Office in NY Co. SSNY desig. agent of LLC upon whom process may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to c/o Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP Attn: Theodore N. Kaplan, Esq., 850 3rd Ave., 14th Fl., NY, NY 10022, which is also the principal business location. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 800 BP NYC, LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 11/27/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 1150 Ave. of the Americas, Fl. 5, NY, NY 10036. General Purposes.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 WINDSOR PARK, LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 11/19/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 54 W. 21 St., #905, NY, NY 10010. General Purposes.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of One Jewelers LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/7/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Tylan W. Davis, 1050 2nd Ave., #19, NY, NY 10022, also the principal office address. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013

Notice of Formation of Re-Inked LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/25/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 225 W. 13th St., NY, NY 10011.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Hunter Gray at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of RGN INSTRUMENTS AND COLLECTIBLES, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/29/12. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 1700 Broadway, 39th Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Qualification of STAPLE STREET GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES FUND, L.P. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/24/13. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/07/13. Princ. office of LP: 24 W. 40th St., NY, NY 10018. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LP at the addr. of its princ. office. The regd. agent of the company upon whom and at which process against the company can be served is Nasser A. Ahmad, c/o Staple Street Global Opportunities Holdings LLC, 24 W. 40th St., NY, NY 10018.

Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Qualification of YAMPA, L.L.C. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/22/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/18/13.

Princ. office of LLC: 350 Park Ave., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10022.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 NOTICE TYPE: Certificate of Assumed Name Certificate of Assumed Name: KSA RETAIL LLC is doing business as EQUIPMENT; their principal place of business in New York is 80 West 40th St., #40, New York, NY 10018. Business will be transacted at 110 Wooster St., New York, NY 10012. This certificate was filed with the State of New York, Department of State on 12/18/12.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013

Notice of Formation of Unit 500, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/19/12. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 62 W. 47th St., Ste. 501, NY, NY 10036.

Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of October Management LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/7/13.

Off. loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Libra Capital US, Inc., 134 E. 40th St., NY, NY 10016, Attn: Bert Diaz. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of DANA Building LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/7/12. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Naomi Avigdor, 45 W. 85th St., NY, NY 10024. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of Valet Parking Services LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/23/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Icon Parking Systems, 211 E. 38th St., NY, NY 10016.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of NYNP LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/22/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Capitol Services, Inc., 1218 Central Ave., Ste. 100, Albany, NY 12205. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of J2FIT, LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/23/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 1382 First Ave., Apt. 19, NY, NY 10021. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Formation of Gallagher’s Famous, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/13/12.

LLC formation on 1/1/13.

Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 228 W. 52nd St., NY, NY 10019, principal business address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013

Notice of Formation of Gallagher’s National, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/13/12.

LLC formation on 1/1/13.

Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 228 W. 52nd St., NY, NY 10019, principal business address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 Notice of Qualification of Lazard Emerging Markets Debt Blend (US), L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/17/13.

Office location: NY County.

LP formed in DE on 1/11/13.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to the principal business addr.: 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NY, NY 10112. DE addr. of LP: c/o The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 OTCEX LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/20/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Kaiser Saurborn & Mair, P.C., 111 Broadway, Ste. 1805, NY, NY 10006. General Purposes.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qualification of MKP Opportunity HedgeFocus Fund LP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/14/12. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 11 Madison Ave., NY, NY 10010. LP formed in DE on 12/10/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/ addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 02/07 - 03/14/2013 NOTICE TYPE: Certificate of Assumed Name Certificate of Assumed Name: KSA RETAIL LLC is doing business as JOIE; their principal place of business in New York is 80 West 40th St., #40, New York, NY 10018.

Business will be transacted at 1196 Madison Ave., NewYork, NY 10128; 429 14th St., New York, NY 10014; 114 Wooster St., New York, NY 10012. This certificate was filed with the State of New York, Department of State on 12/27/12.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

NOTICE OF FORMATION of J + G Interior Design, LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of NewYork (SSNY) on 01/11/13.

Office location: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: J + G Interior Design, LLC, 1 University Place, Apt. 5G, New York, NY 10003.

Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of formation for 753 Ninth Ave Realty LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (“SSNY”) on 12/12/12. Office location: NY county. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail a copy of any process to: 1461 First Avenue, New York, NY 10075. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of formation for 753 Ninth Ave Holdings LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (“SSNY”) on 12/12/12. Office location: NY county. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail a copy of any process to: 1461 First Avenue, New York, NY 10075. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of formation for 212 East 72nd Street LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (“SSNY”) on 12/12/12. Office location: NY county. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail a copy of any process to: 212 East 72nd Street, New York, NY 10021. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qualification of Real Time Neuromonitoring Associates, PLLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/14/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Tennessee (TN) on 12/31/08.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: URS Agents, LLC, 25 Robert Pitt Dr., Ste. 204, Monsey, NY 10952. Principal office address: 3004 B Poston Rd., Nashville, TN 37203. Arts of Org. filed with the TN Secretary of State, 312 Rosa L. Parks Ave., 6th Fl., Nashville, TN 37243-1102. Purpose: to practice the profession of medicine and any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of Golf Manhattan Instruction LLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 11/30/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to CSC, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Notice of Formation of Luis Guerrero, PLLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 10/15/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to CSC, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: to practice the profession of Law. Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of Yield Curve Capital, LLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 12/3/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Att: Amir Sadr, 105 Duane St., #44F, NY, NY 10007. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of WiSH Trading LLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 12/3/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Att: Amir Sadr, 105 Duane St., #44F, NY, NY 10007. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of PFNY, LLC filed under the original name PFNY Operating Company, LLC Art. of Org. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 11/27/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to 320 Yonkers Ave., Yonkers, NY 10701. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qual. of Armistice Capital, LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 6/4/12. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 4/11/12. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: Steven Boyd, 237 Park Ave., 9th Fl., NY, NY 10017. DE off. addr.: CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qual. of Manor Road Investment Partners, LP Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 7/25/12. Office loc.: NY County. LP org. in DE 6/19/12. SSNY desig. as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: John Ku, 900 Third Ave., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10022. DE off. addr.: CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901.

Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Notice of Formation of MAGNACARE IPA, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/15/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: One Penn Plaza, Ste. 4630, NY, NY 10119. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Attn: Craig B. Greenfield at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qualification of THR WASHINGTON II, L.P. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/18/13. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/17/12. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qualification of SOLUTIONSTAR REALTY SERVICES LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/16/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/02/12. Princ. office of LLC: 350 Highland Dr., Lewisville, TX 75067.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of GNYHA Purchasing Alliance, LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/10/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o GNYHA Ventures, Inc., 555 W. 57th St., Ste. 1500, NY, NY 10019. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of Hudson Empowerment LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/11/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 826 Broadway, 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

32

February 28 - March 6, 2013

Notice of Qualification of Merrimac Marine Insurance, LLC Fictitious name in NY State: Merrimac Marine Insurance LLC, Brokerage. App. for Auth. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/31/12. Off. loc.: NY County. LLC formed in Florida (FL) on 6/27/02.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016, the registered agent upon whom process may be served. FL address of LLC: 1020 North Orlando Ave., Ste. 200, Maitland, FL 32751.

Arts. of Org. filed FL Secy. of State, 2661 Executive Center Circle, Tallahassee, FL 32301.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of SES Wealth Advisors LLC Arts. of Org. filed Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/18/12. Off. loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 237 Park Ave., 9th Fl., NY, NY 10017. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Formation of Weiter, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/10/12.

Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 405 Howard St., Ste. 550, San Francisco, CA 94105. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Publ ic Not ices

Notice of Qualification of Libra TE, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/17/12. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 11/13/12.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to the principal business address: 777Third Ave., NY, NY 10017, Attn: Ranjan Tandon. DE address of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013 Notice of Qualification of Thorley Industries LLC. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/10/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in PA on 6/15/05.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. PA and principal business addr.: 40 24th St., 2nd Fl., Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Cert. of Org. filed with PA Sec. of the Commonwealth, 206 North Office Bldg., Harrisburg, PA 17120. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

MANHATTAN COGNITIVE – BEHAVIORAL THERAPY / PSYCHOLOGY, PLLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 12/10/2012. Off. Loc.: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC 276 Fifth Avenue, STE # 905, New York, NY 10001.

Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013

Notice of Qualification of SP HHF Sub Brook Avenue LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/19/12. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: c/o Storage Post HHF Venture LLC, Two Buckhead Plz., 3050 Peachtree Rd. NW, Ste. 580, Atlanta, GA 30305. LLC formed in DE on 12/17/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Notice of Qualification of HIROAKI, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/12/12.

Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Hawaii (HI) on 12/5/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to the principal business addr.: c/o Keiko Ono Aoki, 645 Fifth Ave., Ste. 905, NY, NY 10022, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. HI addr. of LLC: 1136 Union Mall, Ste. 301, Honolulu, HI 96813.

Cert. of Org. filed with HI Commissioner of Commerce & Consumer Affairs, 335 Merchant St., Honolulu, HI 96810. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Notice of Qualification of Zion Rootswear L.L.C. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/17/13.

Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in FL on 2/8/99.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. Principal office addr.: c/o Bravado International Group Merchandising Services Inc., 1755 Broadway, 2nd Fl., NY, NY 10019. Cert. of Org. filed with FL Sec. of State, 2661 Executive Center Cir., Tallahassee, FL 32301.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/31 - 03/07/2013

Notice of Formation of CawsVideo LLC Articles of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/26/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal business address: 116 Pinehurst Ave., Suite J23, New York, NY 10033. Purpose: to engage in any lawful act.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF ARAVO HOLDINGS LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/9/13. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to principal address: 118 Baxter St Ste 402 New York, NY 10013.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 TJD 21 LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 9/21/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 245 Park Ave., NY, NY 10167. General Purposes.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 LENOIR LAW FIRM, PLLC, a domestic PLLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/28/12. Office location: New York. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the PLLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: S. John Lenoir, 2753 Broadway, Ste. 251, NY, NY 10025.

Purpose: Law Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 Notice of Formation of SASHA WOLF GALLERY LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/20/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 70 Orchard St., NY, NY 10002. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/20 COMGROUP GLOBAL HOLDINGS LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/18/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Trief & Olk, Esqs., 150 E. 58th St., 34th Flr., NY, NY 10155.

General Purposes.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN LLC, a domestic LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/10/12. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The Street.com, c/o James Cramer, 14 Wall St., 15th Flr., NY, NY 10005. General Purposes.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013

Public No tices Notice of Formation of LINCOLN PLAINS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/10/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to M. Nader Ahari, 524 Broadway, Ste. 405, NY, NY 10012. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 Notice of Qualification of METLANG LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/09/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/08/10. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/24- 02/28/2013 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of Battery Park Holdings Subsidiary LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 01/10/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 200 Vesey St., 11th Fl., 3 WFC, New York, NY 10281. LLC formed in DE on 12/21/2012. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013 Notice of Formation of SN Compliance LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 1/4/12.

Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: USPO Village Station, P.O. Box 132, NY, NY 10014. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of Brookfield Properties W 33rd Co. L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 01/11/13. LP formed in DE on 04/15/1986.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: 200 Vesey St., 11th Fl., 3 WFC, New York, NY 10281. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Name/addr. of genl. ptr. avail. from NY Sec. of State.

Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of BOP West 31st Street LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 01/10/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 200 Vesey St., 11th Fl., 3 WFC, New York, NY 10281. LLC formed in DE on 01/15/1999. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013 Notice of Formation of Philal LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/6/12.

Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013

Notice of Qualification of Foreign Limited Liability Company (LLC) Name: Global Tax Network

Notice of Qualification of Potenza Capital (GP), LLC

Northeast, LLC. Application

Authority filed with NY Dept.

for Authority was filed by

of State on 12/28/12. Office

the Department of State of New York on: 01/02/2013.

Jurisdiction:

Delaware.

Organized on: 01/30/2008.

Office location: County of New York. Purpose: any and all lawful activities. Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) designated as agent

location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 12/21/12.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be

of LLC upon whom process

served and shall mail pro-

against it may be served.

cess to: c/o CT Corpora-

SSNY shall mail a copy of process to principal business address: 7950 Main Street N., Suite 200, Minneapolis, MN 55369. Address of office required to be maintained in Delaware: One Commerce Center, 1201 Orange Street, Suite 600, Wilmington, DE

tion System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE

19899. Authorized officer in

19801. Cert. of Form. filed

its Jurisdiction is: Secretary

with DE Sec. of State, 401

of State of Delaware John G. Townsend Building, 401 Federal Street, Suite 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013

Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/24 - 02/28/2013

CITATION File No. 2011/765 SURROGATE’S COURT, New York COUNTY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, By the Grace of God Free and Independent TO: The heirs at law, next of kin and distributees of VERA SAVOYKA, deceased, if living; and, if any of them be dead, to their heirs at law, next of kin, distributees, legatees, executors, administrators, assignees and successors in interest, whose names are unknown and cannot be ascertained after due diligence A petition having been duly filed by Public Administrator of the County of New York who is/are domiciled at 31 Chambers Street, Room 311, New York, New York 10007 YOU ARE HEREBY CITED TO SHOW CAUSE before the Surrogate’s Court, New York County, at 31 Chambers Street, New York, Room 509, New York, on March 22nd, 2013, at 09:30 o’clock in the forenoon of that day, why a decree should not be made in the estate of Vera Savoyka lately domiciled at 20 West 64th Street, Apt. 31V, New York, New York 100237129, United States admitting to probate a Will dated September 30, 1994 a copy of which is attached, as the Will of Vera Savoyka deceased, relating to real and personal property, and directing that: Letters of Administration c.t.a. issue to Public Administrator of the County of New York Further relief sought (if any): that Letters of Administration heretofore issued to the Public Administrator of the County of New York be revoked. Dated, Attested and Sealed, January 29th, 2013 HON. Nora S. Anderson Surrogate, Diana Sanabria Chief Clerk, Steven R. Finkelstein, Esq. Attorney, (212) 363-2500, 90 Broad Street, Suite 1700, New York, New York 10004-2286.

NOTE: This citation is served upon you as required by law. You are not required to appear. If you fail to appear it will be assumed you do not object to the relief requested. You have a right to have an attorney appear for you.

Vil: 02/07 – 02/28/2013

February 28 - March 6, 2013

33

letters to the editor Continued from page 10 very wasteful and environmentally harmful to tear down a portion of Pier 40. Pier 40 is a very solid and useful structure.

Our lesser vision is to keep, restore and repurpose the existing structure in order to fund the cost of renovating the existing structure, improve the fields, and help fund the Hudson River Park.

Once the decision is made to build housing in the park — and I am very much in favor of building housing in parks — there is no reason to only look at the park in front of Pier 40. There may be better locations, and if so, the parking area in front of Pier 40 could be park instead of high-rise housing.

Douglas Durst

Deep Bialystoker connection To The Editor: Re “Bialystoker backers praise historic home at hearing” (news article, Feb. 21): Sam Solasz was one of the postwar arrivals to the Bialystoker Center who made it into a center of a new life in America for other Holocaust survivors. In turn, Sam’s cohort started helping to fundraise and operate the center and its home for the elderly for many years. Sam is one of the few survivors of the Bialystok Ghetto.

Esther Malka Boyarin

We’ve ‘Observed’ Kushner in Soho To The Editor: Re “Fighting corporate ownership of our homes and our stores” (talking point, by Rob Hollander, Feb. 21): Jared Kushner’s new tenants should be worried. We in Soho have seen how the city government enables Kushner’s companies to ride roughshod over the rest of us. His company has been preparing 200 Lafayette St., at Broome St., for close to a year now.

Since day one, they have falsely claimed that no residences are within 200 feet of the building and have been given afterhours permits to work weekends and 23 hours a day Monday through Friday. They work without permits on federal holidays.

Calls to city officials result in runarounds or dead silence, and calls to 311 do not result in violations. In fact, in respect to working on federal holidays, the inspector wrote that this is not a violation, despite the Department of Buildings Web site clearly instructing that permits are needed for federal holidays.

And the one hour a day they don’t have a permit to work?

From 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. they often are loading and unloading equipment and pipes and emptying up to 50 containers. To his tenants: Be strong, be loud, know your rights and work together.

Lora Tenenbaum

We’re sinking fast To The Editor: Re “Pink Pony had a great ride, but couldn’t buck changes” (Clayton, Feb. 21): New York City is being killed every day by greedy develop-

ers, rampant landlordism and clueless politicians. The horrifying news never ends. It’s heartbreaking to witness and hear about — like the destruction of Atlantis... .

Nick Zedd

thousands more who had no other options, the way the artists did, to live elsewhere. Today, artists are seen as the victims of gentrification when, in the main, they were the tools of gentrification.

Steven Matthews

Artists were gentrifiers’ tools To The Editor: Re “Let’s get back to our roots: We need new leaders” (Clayton, Feb. 14): Mr. Patterson puts the cart before the horse. Leaders come out of the people. It used to be that the people of this neighborhood were communists, socialists, even anarchists. Today they are mostly liberals. Liberals don’t care about the poor.

They care more about which stores open in the neighborhood than they do about the condition of the people who work in those stores.

And if artists need to live in slums to be creative, there’s no shortage of those in the world.

“The breeding places of disease, the infamous holes and cellars in which the capitalist mode of production confines our workers night after night, are not abolished; they are merely shifted elsewhere! The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also.” (Friedrich Engels, “The Housing Question”) I don’t know why it is that people isolate the experiences of artists when talking about this neighborhood. The movement of artists into this area occurred during a specific period of time — post-World War II. Artists were not immigrants; they played a significant role in gentrifying this neighborhood.

I’m not hostile to artists, but their plight was the plight of

Yippies are all fired up To The Editor: Re “Takes pot shots at Beal” (letter, by Joseph Marra, Feb. 21): Joe Marra, you ran the Night Owl Cafe and booked Fred Neil there. In Bob Dylan’s autobiography, “Chronicles,” Dylan calls Fred Neil “an underground cop.”

So you had a undercover narc working for you. Everyone knows that many Greenwich Village venues at this time were controlled by organized crime. Afraid Dana is cutting into the mob’s pot business? Dana had the lowest prices in town.

The Yippies are coming to your home, Marra, for a legal but loud demonstration.

A.J. Weberman E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to lincoln@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 515 Canal St., Suite 1C, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The Villager does not publish anonymous letters.

In Loisaida, we keep the faith, never give up Continued from page 11 postponed demolition of St. Brigid’s to allow the Board of Standards and Appeals time to investigate whether or not the demolition permit was valid.

Miraculously, an anonymous donor came forward with $20 million to pay for the restoration of the church, and St. Brigid’s was saved.

St. Brigid’s story shows us that our community’s struggles, and even our losses, need never leave us without hope. Yes, the city evicted gardeners from Esperanza’s giant coqui. It bulldozed Esperanza, ABC, and so many other gardens. But the community founded new gardens, like De Colores, just down the block from St. Brigid’s. We blessed the gardens in rituals like Earth Celebrations’ seasonal garden processionals. And we achieved a protected status for the gardens on an official level.

Giuliani auctioned off the former P.S. 64, home to our community’s largest cultural center, CHARAS. Eight years later, having taken up the abandoned school’s occupier — the common pigeon — as our totem, we

achieved the designation of landmark status for historic P.S. 64.

For years, alone or with a running partner, I would purposefully circle the East River Amphitheater on my morning runs, making a diagonal capoeira pass across the glass-strewn stage and reciting an original song or poem. Eventually the amphitheater reopened, stretching its new jet-wing canopy over free performances of experimental theater, rock music and salsa. We lose beautiful old theaters like the Charles on Avenue B to the bulldozer, but we keep creating new work and managed to burn the mortgage at Theater for the New City last month.

What might have happened if I had not gotten up to swim that morning in July 2006? It’s tempting to attribute magical significance to the little caring rituals we reinvent every day. But the faith and hope of a close-knit community ready to respond to a call of need in a matter of minutes are no accident. It seems fitting that I found out about the reopening of St. Brigid’s on the day of the first service through the grapevine, albeit through rather spiritually directed happenstance: Pastor Phil

of Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish mentioned it to me earlier that day after I sang in Trinity’s choir.

That evening, I took my place in the line that had formed in the cold outside St. Brigid’s and, after about an hour, I managed to get myself in the door, reconnect with some neighbors, take some photos on my phone, and then give up my space in the packed vestibule after the opening hymn to whatever official invitee was able to squeeze in.

Of course, there are a lot of projects still pending on our community wish list. I walk out my front door and rejoice that St. Brigid’s is safe. I gaze out my back window at the changes of seasonal light playing across the terra-cotta cornucopia nestled in the lintel of the building that once housed CHARAS, a building our community succeeded in landmarking against all odds, even after it was sold, a space slated for community use that more than a decade after CHARAS’s eviction stands empty. Like urban druids, let us continually renew our collective guardianship of our habitat with our mindfulness and rituals of community culture.

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Public Notice NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANT TO LAW, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition fromTecton Cafe Inc. to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk café at 460 Greenwich Street in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years. REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF THE PROPOSED REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

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Public Notice NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANT TO LAW, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition from Lekkas Restaurant Corp. to maintain, and operate an enclosed sidewalk café at 322 Seventh Avenue in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years.

REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF THE PROPOSED REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

Vil: 02/28 - 03/07/2013

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February 28 - March 6, 2013

Photo by Daniel Jean-Lubin

N.Y.U.’s Cory Stockmal defended as a Brandeis player tried to drive on him.

Seniors step up as N.Y.U. beats Brandeis, 59-57, in seesaw battle SPORTS

By Daniel Jean-Lubin On a day meant to honor the team’s graduating seniors, New York University’s men’s basketball team survived a late surge to defeat Brandeis University 59-57 on Saturday afternoon, in the final game of the University Athletic Association regular season.

The N.Y.U. Violets’ starting five seniors combined to produce a final big game as starting forward and team captain Carl Yaffe and center Devin Karch led the team with 19 points each. Yaffe’s midrange jumper would start the first half scoring for the Violets (15-10 over all, 5-9 in conference play), but that lead would quickly vanish as the Violets saw Brandeis (17-8, 8-6) hit a pair of 3-pointers and give the Judges a 6-2 lead four minutes in.

The Violets would later find themselves in an 8-point hole with 10 minutes remaining in the first half, desperately looking for a spark. The Stockmal brothers, Cory and Kyle, proved up to the challenge, providing key plays on both sides of the ball to make it a 2-point game in the span of three minutes.

A fast-break layup from sophomore Iyoha Agho produced the game’s first tie at the 5:48 mark of the first half. Yaffe missed a late go-ahead layup, however, as the half ended with Brandeis leading 29-28.

The second half saw N.Y.U. net 8 straight points and continue their tight defensive play. Soon, the Violets found

themselves leading by 10 points with 14 minutes remaining in regulation. The Judges would not be bested that easily, however, as they stormed all the way back and then took a 3-point lead with four minutes left on the clock.

Panic began to seep into Coles sports center and the Violets once again had to call upon their dynamic senior group to produce the clutch plays that define N.Y.U. basketball. The veteran leadership proved to be the game-changer as Yaffe and Karch combined to produce N.Y.U.’s next 6 points and give the home team a 57-56 lead with 2:05 to go.

The Violets held their 1-point lead until the last 5.5 seconds of regulation time. A foul gave Brandeis’s Youri Dascy the chance for the Judges to take the lead or tie the game. But he missed both freethrow attempts. Senior Max Wein quickly scooped up the rebound, but was fouled by the Judges. Wein easily made both free throws and gave the Violets a 3-point lead with four seconds left.

Another late foul by the Violets put one of Brandeis’s best shooters, Alex Stoyle, at the free-throw line. After sinking the first shot, he intentionally missed the second, hoping for a teammate to rebound, but Karch got it first and time expired, giving N.Y.U. the win, 59-57.

The Violets will begin their postseason play Wed., Feb. 27, at home when they host New Jersey City University in the quarterfinals of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Metro Championship.

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February 28 - March 6, 2013