Tighten up, now! p. 14
Volume 2, Number 35 FREE
East and West Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown
March 22 - 28, 2012
South Village is a must-save, says Preserve League BY ALBERT AMATEAU The Preservation League of New York State announced on Wednesday that the proposed South Village Historic District was added to the league’s “Seven to Save” list of the state’s most threatened historic resources. Jay DiLorenzo, league president, joined Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, in a Bleecker St. rally urg-
Photo by Milo Hess
Hue gotta believe spring is here! While green proliferated elsewhere Saturday, in Hudson River Park the scene was rainbow hued at a celebration of Rang Barse, or Holi, the traditional Indian spring festival of colors. Revelers threw pigmented powder and danced to Indian beats.
Tompkins rat rampage has been brought under control BY LINCOLN ANDERSON “Mission accomplished!” The surge against the rats of Tompkins Square Park has succeeded. Last July, this newspaper first reported that ravenous rodents were running wild in the famed East Village park. The article set off a wave of media coverage more frenzied than rats fighting over a half-eaten Ray’s chili-cheese hot dog. The late blogger Bob Arihood even coined a term, “Ratstravaganza,” to describe the hordes of TV news crews that descended on the park. After the embarrassing story went viral, the Parks Department threw everything it had at the romping rodents
— from mint-scented garbage bags to impenetrable trash cans. Also, Parks finally relented and started putting out rat poison again, feeling Tompkins’ red-tailed hawks were no longer at risk of dying from ingesting poisoned rats. The alarm over the park’s shocking rat infestation was first raised by the new parents group Tompkins Square Park and Playgrounds Parents Association, or TSP3A. The group was formed to combat the rats and also address other pressing park and playground issues, like maintenance. This Monday, the day before the official start of spring, Chad Marlow, founder of TSP3A, declared victory in
the anti-rat campaign — though, he acknowledged, it’s a war that never ends. People began seeing a noticeable decrease in the rats’ numbers around November, according to him. “I think, if you looked around the park before, it was like the pocked surface of the moon,” he said, referring to the ratholes that used to be everywhere. But the holes have been filled in and new ones aren’t appearing. “Hopefully, we’ll keep an eye on it,” he said, “but I think we’ve got our hands around it. Hopefully, the
ing the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to act on the two-thirds of the proposed district that was not designated two years ago. “The league believes that preservation of special and meaningful places is important for the South Village, the state and the nation,” DiLorenzo said. He added that inappropriate development has
Continued on page 5
New business group calls for scaling down N.Y.U. plan BY ALBERT AMATEAU More than 30 Village businesses and property owners have signed onto a coalition that recognizes New York University’s right to expand but is calling for modifications of the proposed superblocks projects. Villagers for a Sustainable Neighborhood began organizing last month and is led by Judy Paul, C.E.O. of the Washington Square Hotel. The group hopes that N.Y.U. will
Continued on page 9
515 C A N A L STREET • N YC 10013 • C OPYRIG H T © 2012 COMMU N ITY M ED IA , LLC
negotiate with businesses and elected officials to scale down its proposal to add 2.5 million square feet of development to its two superblocks between LaGuardia Place and Mercer St. from Houston to W. Third Sts. “We recognize that N.Y.U. is going to expand and acknowledge that the university is good for the neighborhood, but there are problems with the
Continued on page 27
VALIANT VIGILER PAGE 13
EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 18