Rock around the park, p. 23
Volume 82, Number 9 $1.00
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933
August 2 - 8, 2012
Burlesque will be on the menu with stripped-down poetry club
N.Y.U., affordable co-op reach deal on long-term lease
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Some might think the Bowery Poetry Club’s scaling back its presence on the Bowery — largely giving way to a swank and sexy new restaurant — is just the latest sign of the famously gritty boulevard’s gentrification. But to hear both Bob Holman, the poetry club’s founder and proprietor, and the restaurant’s ownership tell it, the space’s new incarnation will be firmly in keeping with the Bowery’s historic identity. Bowery Poetry Club closed last month and the space, at 308 Bowery between Houston and Bleecker Sts., is now undergoing renovation to become the new home of Duane Park, a Tribeca restaurant featuring nightly live entertainment. Duane Park’s Web page describes it as “New York Burlesque & Live Jazz,” with the motto, “Always an evening of dreamy elegance, hot dancers, cool jazz or moonlight magic.” Featured performers on its August calendar include the likes of Jo Boobs, Gal Friday, Hazel Honeysuckel and Stormy Leather. But the restaurant’s operators stress it’s not fair to pigeonhole it as a burlesque club, since the dancing is just part of what they do. “Burlesque is mixed in,” explained Billy Melillo, one of the club’s coowners. “It’s more of a mood.” Other performers at Duane Park include Albert Cadabra, a.k.a. “The Great Deceiver,” a sideshow-style magician, and Motown-inspired singer Aaron Marcellus, formerly of “American Idol.” Duane Park has even had opera and poetry readings. The restaurant was started by Marisa Ferrarin four years ago. Melillo soon came in as a partner. As Melillo explained it, only people in their 20s really go out dancing in clubs nowadays. “The club scene is totally gone,” said Malilo, who was a part owner of the Sound Factory dance club in Chelsea in 1989 and ’90. “For people
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON New York University on Tuesday said it has reached an agreement on the land lease with the co-op that owns the building at 505 LaGuardia Place, one of the three residential towers on the N.Y.U.-owned South Village superblocks. Under the deal, the term of the co-op’s current land lease will be extended in perpetuity as long as the building remains in the Mitchell-Lama or other approved affordable housing program. The agree-
ment also limits future rent increases under the lease to allow the building to continue to be affordable. The co-op’s current lease with N.Y.U. provides for an annual rent payment to the university of $28,400 per year for the land on which the co-op is built. Under that lease, the rent would have been reset in 2014 at 6 percent of the market value of the land, which would have resulted in a substantial rent increase due to
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The Villager is sold to I.T. executive Jennifer Goodstein The parent company of The Villager has been sold to a business executive with experience in information technology and e-commerce. “I was looking for something in New York that had quality and integrity behind it,” Jennifer Goodstein said of purchasing Community Media, LLC, effective July 31. The award-winning newspaper chain also includes the Downtown Express, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and the East Villager, and was owned for the past 12 years by John
Members of the Plume Review, one of the acts at Duane Park. The dancers come out and perform one by one, not all at once.
in their 30s, 40s, 50s, this is the new nightlife — dinner and a show.” Duane Park added burlesque to the menu to draw out people after the economy tanked. According to Melillo, it was his idea.
“We actually started it when the stock market crashed,” he said. “Marisa had started the restaurant. We incorporated burlesque into the
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W. Sutter. “John has maintained, over the years, a very strong reputation of having a place where people can find a trusted source of what’s happening,” Goodstein said. “I do feel that, looking at the condition of the papers –– I think the hard work is done.” Goodstein was a key e-business executive at MetLife for 10 years. Prior to that, she was director of information technology for instruction and curriculum at a Maryland school district.
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EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 8
‘THE OTHER LA LIZ’ PAGE 13