East Villager • Nov. 26, 2015

The Paper of Record for East and West Villages, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown

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November 26, 2015

EastVillagerNews.com

The Paper of Record for East and West Villages, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown

November 26, 2015 • FREE Volume 5 • Number 20

Opposing pictures painted of new arts charter school

BY AMY RUSSO

T

ensions ran high during a presentation at a Community Board 3 meeting on Nov. 10 by the New York City Charter School of the Arts, a.k.a. City School of the Arts, which is scheduled to open in fall 2016. Founding Principal Jamie Davidson and Trustee Jim Chu spoke to a table full of locals about their

intentions for the school, which is authorized to open in either Community School District 1 or 2.

Davidson, who has a background in language and literacy and received her master’s in education from Harvard, worked with teachers at Bronx Prep after graduating, and was challenged to improve that school’s academic results.

CHARTER continued on p. 8

Sixties draft-card burners recall inflammatory time at Maryhouse panel talk

BY MARY REINHOLZ

A

t the Catholic Worker’s residential Maryhouse last Friday night, three grizzled anti-war activists marked the 50th anniversary of burning their draft cards on Nov. 6, 1965, in opposition to the Vietnam War with two oth-

Square. They did the incenculty before a raucous crowd of about 1,500, among them counterdemonstrators who chanted and carried signs saying, “Burn yourself instead of your card.”

One man doused the radical peaceniks with water ANTI-WAR continued on p. 7

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

Colin Huggins, “That Crazy Piano Guy,” in Washington Square on Saturday afternoon.

Jury drama as Silver corruption trial heads into the homestretch

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC

T

he fate of Assemblymember Sheldon Silver, on trial on graft and corruption charges, is now in the hands of the jury, which broke off deliberations for the holiday weekend and will resume Monday.

Deliberations began on Tues., Nov. 24, and were already spiked with drama as several news outlets reported that a juror wanted to be dismissed after just

two hours. Judge Valerie E. Caproni did not dismiss the juror, but questioned another about talking to a news reporter.

Closing summations by both the prosecution and defense were on Mon., Nov. 23.

The case hinges on the issue of explicit quid pro quo: doing something to get something in return.

The prosecution said Silver -

The Lower East Side Democrat has represented the 65th Assembly District for 39 years and was assembly speaker for 20 years.

“Sheldon Silver is anything but honest,” said Andrew Goldstein, assistant U.S. attorney, during his closing remarks. He said Silver has been “cheating, lying [and] getting away with it” for years, abusing his position for more than

most powerful men in the state as Assembly speaker

SILVER continued on p. 6

WWW.EASTVILLAGERNEWS.COM 15-hour photo mashups.............page 15 | May 14, 2014

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1

L.E.S. PSYCHIC TSUNAMI: As bizarre as it sounds, a new 15th-floor bar inside the justopened luxury Hotel Indigo LES on Ludlow St. has been named after the late Adam Purple. of frills and glitz now seen in his old stomping ground, today’s “glamorous Lower East burg Bridge in September at age 84. The Gereven than Purple in his hippie heyday zipping around on his bike to collect horse manure in ed to appropriate the environmental legend for the bar. Scott Gerber, chief executive officer of the Gerber Group, told Women’s Wear Daily that the bar name indeed comes from Adam Purple, who was known for his preferred shade of clothing. “That’s really what inspired us,” Gerber told the fashion mag. Street artist Lee Quiñones was working on a mural for the hotel, and one of the images he was doing was of Purple, WWD reported. Purple’s image is discreetly painted on the ceiling of the 14th-floor lobby. Were Purple actually alive to process this, we’re sure it would all be quite a “psychic tsunami” for him, to quote one of his trademark sayings. Gerber, conscious of the complaints of the LES Dwellers and other neighborhood residents, about street noise from the horde of bars in Hell Square, explained that’s precisely why the lobby and Mr. Purple have been put on the 14th and 15th floors. “You’re not going to have noise on the streets because people are already up here,” he said. We noticed that the place will have burgers, plus corned beef from the 2nd

According to L.E.S. blogger Shawn Chittle, the women on the right are staff at the new Mr. Purple bar.

The real Adam Purple, at left, wore purple — not black ! Duh!

vegetarian! Sheesh!

Mr. Purple’s cocktails will run around $14 or $15. “So, expect more crowds and limos to carry them,” WWD warned. Oh boy...fantastic! Even the chic style publication offered, “That this rooftop hang is named for Adam Purple, and so soon after his death, does seem a tad sacrilege.

Doesn’t seem like he would want that honor.”

Perhaps if Mr. Purple’s patrons would have to poop in some sort of rooftop garden, instead

might make it all a bit more fitting. And we say that in all respect to Adam Purple. Meanwhile, Lower East Side blogger Shawn Chittle is beside himself over it all, and he’s calling for action. “A new restaurant on the Lower East Side capitalizing on Adam Purple’s name, complete place!” he declared.

PURPLE PLAQUE: O.K., this sounds a bit more appropriate. We hear from Bill Di Paola, executive director of Time’s Up, that plans are afoot to place a memorial plaque, or possibly plant a tree, for Adam Purple near the legendary green thumb’s former Garden of Eden and home on Forsyth St., south of Stanton St.

feuds between its factions, with meetings disrupted by squatters, smoke bombs, arrests, you name it. Until well into the late ’90s, police officers were posted at the front of monthly board meetings and out in the hall in front. But you heard about the new fashionista / yuppie bar, Mr. Purple? And now we hear, from Councilmember Rosie Mendez, a story of C.B. 3 love. Board members Carlina Rivera, who is a local Democratic district leader, and James Rogers, owner of Pushcart Coffee, which has a branch at 83 Third Ave., at E. 12th St., recently tied the knot. Judge Rita Mella, a Stuyvesant Town resident, officiated. The couple honeymooned in Turks and Caicos. Congrats!

C.B. 2 MUSICAL CHAIRS: We got a message on Facebook from Carol Feinman, a former C.B. 2 chairperson, that Arty Strickler was actually chairperson of C.B. 2 back when he created the Greenwich Village Children’s Halloween Parade, not district manager, as our article on the parade’s history in last week’s issue might have implied. Also, Maria Passannante Derr, another former C.B. 2 chairperson, resigned from the board midterm about two months ago. We did not hear it directly from Derr herself, but we’re told she was frus-

C.B. 3 LOVE CONNECTION: Community Board board, faced with slews of stipulations on operating hours and so forth.

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L.E.S. residents driven crazy by the Catch-22 of the M21 bus

November 26, 2015

T

ransit-deprived Lower East Siders say timely service is so rare that they have given up on public transportation altogether.

“We want to feel equal to the rest of Manhattan,” said Heung Tam, who has lived on Canal St. for 40 years, at a town hall forum organized by state Senator Daniel Squadron last week.

“We are underserved,” Tam declared, to supportive cheers from dozens of fed-up fellow residents.

Collectively, they gave the three Metropolitan Transportation Authority representatives in attendance an earful, rattling off a busload of complaints that ranged from frequent delays and missing Select Bus Service seniors and buses double-parking on Grand St. “I think there are times when people give up on buses because they don’t come. My nickname for the M21 was ‘the phantom bus of Houston St.’ because I never saw that bus,” said Robin Schatell, who said she had lived on the street for 17 years.

The evening’s main theme was transit access and connectivity on the East Side in general, an issue that was focused on at the town hall because it had emerged as a major concern at Squadron’s most recent community convention.

“East-west service south of Houston tionable,” the senator said at the town hall. “Because of the M21’s infrequency, no one feels like they can get across town.”

to offer solutions (the authority has already proposed expanding the notoriously bad M5 and M6 lines, for example) but, for the most part, still stuck with more general statements.

“We are constantly working to improve bus service and we will continue to do so,” said Marcus Book, the agency’s assistant director of government and community relations.

They also urged people to report bus drivers who refuse to take them to the end of their route, or double-park and idle in the street.

“These are things that can be addressed,” Book said. their support to the fuming locals.

Councilmember Margaret Chin, who was sitting in the audience, said she was concerned, not least because she likes to use the bus herself.

“We’re contributing more money to the M.T.A.’s budget, so we demand better service,” she said, referring to the city’s increased contribution to the state authority’s latest capital plan.

Residents repeatedly cited the Catch-22 at the heart of their quarrels cials claimed that increased ridership would translate into better and more frequent service, locals countered that the abysmal access to buses was exactly the reason they didn’t use them in “It’s predicated on ridership. The more people ride, the more buses [are available],” Book told the agitated audience. “In terms of bus frequency, my suggestion is ride more buses,” he said at another point in the discussion, eliciting confusion from the residents.

“You’re getting a tremendous

amount of money and then you’re only measuring ridership once every two years and tell us certain buses don’t get ridership. It’s obsolete,” said Helen Zwyer, who lives in the Seward Park Coop on Grand St. Buckley Yung, the M.T.A.’s manager of bus planning, had earlier mentioned that the authority’s schedule department conducts comprehensive ride checks only once every one to two years.

“We would like to have more, but our resources [are not enough],” he said.

Overall bus ridership in the city has been declining for years, with 162,385 fewer daily bus riders last year compared to 2009, according to the M.T.A.’s that the far East Side is not well connected in that category either.

“It’s really very underserved. We only have the F train, that’s it,” said Chin.

Squadron and Chin both acknowledged the gulf between riders and the M.T.A., but said the authority has to work harder to close the gap.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg: What comes improve the service.”

Before wrapping up the meeting, Squadron emphasized that even though there hadn’t been many concrete answers, this was by no means the end of the conversation.

“We follow up on a lot of these issues [with the M.T.A.], and we get written responses back on a lot of these things,” he told his constituents.

“It can sometimes be as slow as the M21, but it does come.”

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY YANNIC RACK

A volunteer doing horticultural work on the High Line this past summer.

Conservancies will pitch in to help smaller parks

BY YANNIC RACK

T

he grass soon won’t be “greener

at least not in the city’s biggest parks compared to its smallest ones.

Some of the largest parks conservancies in New York City extended a helping hand to smaller parks this month, with the announcement that they will donate $15 million worth of resources to historically underfundboroughs.

“Every child deserves bright, green space right in their neighborfrom our city’s conservancies will help us make this a reality,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement announcing the plan.

Over the next three years, eight of ing Friends of the High Line and the Madison Square Park Conservancy tise, workers and funds to help out smaller parks in less-wealthy neighborhoods.

Friends of the High Line will take its experience in horticulture and art installations to help out with renovation projects at a handful of community gardens in the South Bronx, while the team from Madison Square Park is fostering a “sister park” by sharing its know-how in stewardship and programming with the Herbert Von King Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

“We were mentored long ago, and feel it is so important to share EastVillagerNews.com

our experiences with other parks,” said Keats Meyer, executive director of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Shortly after being elected, the mayor endorsed the idea of getting the well-endowed conservancies to pony up some of their money. But some conservancies balked, and critics initially slammed the plan as “wealth redistribution,” saying it would alienate donors.

The original plan, proposed by state Senator Daniel Squadron, would have forced the major conservancies to contribute 20 percent of their operating budgets to a new “neighborhood parks” alliance.

Last year, the mayor changed tack and launched the Community Parks Initiative instead, another parks-equity plan that dispensed $285 million in capital funds to some of the city’s more run-down greenswards, without conservancy support.

Under C.P.I., 67 parks will eventually be rebuilt entirely, and 60 of them have already received improvements, with another 25 slated for the coming year, according to the Maythe mayor commended Squadron for sowing the seeds that sparked “a critical conversation around how to better maintain and improve smaller parks in less-wealthy neighborhoods.”

“My proposal was always about linking the biggest conservancies to the entire system,” Squadron said in a statement. “The fact that they’re stepping up voluntarily is great news.”

REFLECTIONS

OF EDGAR ALLAN POE Friday, December 4, 2015 at 6:00 pm NYU School of Law, Furman Hall 245 Sullivan Street, Room 216 (between West 3rd and Washington Square South)

Lois Rakoff, Community Director of the Poe Room, and NYU present “Reflections of Edgar Allan Poe.” Join local artists and members of the community for an evening of entertainment that will illuminate Poe’s work and legacy through a variety of creative works.

A reception will follow in the Poe Room.

“Reflections of Edgar Allan Poe” is free and open to the public and an RSVP is required. RSVP today at www.nyu.edu/nyu-in-nyc or call 212-998-2400.

Community members and NYU come together and partner on the Poe Room event each fall and spring.

November 26, 2015

5

Jury drama as Silver trial enters homestretch SILVER continued from p. 1

a decade.

The government divided its case into two schemes: asbestos and real estate.

In the asbestos scheme, Dr. Robert Taub of Columbia University referred his mesothelioma patients which then doled out referrals fees to Silver to the tune of more than $3 million. Silver allegedly then gave his support to two state Department of Health grants totaling $500,000 for Taub’s research.

The prosecution also stated that Taub’s son a job, Taub’s daughter an sembly proclamation to Taub.

The defense countered that the state was doing a good thing by supporting Taub’s research and that the doctor stated in court there was no explicit quid pro quo.

Steven Molo, one of Silver’s defense attorneys who presented the closing summation, showed the jury the original nonprosecution agreement with Taub. In it, the words “in exchange for” and “at Silver’s request” were crossed out before Taub would sign it.

“It took two to tango and there was no dance of corruption with Dr. Taub,” Molo stated.

Molo also used what the prosecution termed the “friendship defense”: Taub and Silver were friends and that is why he helped the doctor out.

“That defense is absurd,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein said the two men barely knew each other and when Taub threw a 400-person wedding for his daughter, Silver was not on the guest list.

In the real estate scheme, prosecutors said Silver requested that major developers Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group move their

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

On Monday, Andrew Goldstein, assistant U.S. attorney, right, gave his closing remarks, as Sheldon Silver sat listening, at far left.

Iryami, for property tax work. while the Witkoff Group did so in 2005, according to prosecutors.

Goldberg was then cutting checks to Silver for referrals, totaling $700,000.

The developers wanted a tax break, called 421-a, to be renewed, and each time that happened, new buildings Goldstein. The tax abatement was extended in 2003, 2007 and 2011. In 2003, there were two properties with Goldberg. That jumped to six in 2007, 16 in 2008 and 22 properties in 2012, according to the prosecution.

“Glenwood is rewarding Sheldon Silver every time they get what they

6

November 26, 2015

On Monday, one of Sheldon Silver’s attorneys, Steven Molo, standing at right, gave the defense’s closing argument, as Silver listened, at far left.

want,” Goldstein said. “This was a scam orchestrated by the speaker of the Assembly.”

Molo said the real estate scheme “makes absolutely no sense” and was the “strangest quid pro quo ever.”

Molo insisted Silver was pro-tenant.

“Mr. Silver was not in Glenwood’s pocket,” he said. “The real estate case is zero. It is nothing.”

Both the developers and Taub did what they did to garner “goodwill”

with the then-Assembly speaker, according to Molo.

“Remember the environment we’re talking about,” he told the jury, meaning the political goings-on of Albany.

Molo said that because New York State has a citizen Legislature that is only in session for six months a year, its members are allowed to do outside work and there will be “some

crime had been committed, according to Molo. said Molo, who repeatedly said the prosecution had “a theory looking for a case.”

Goldstein said the defense’s “politics as usual” defense was “outrageous.”

“He did these things for money,” he said of Silver. “Let’s dispense with the nonsense.”

EastVillagerNews.com

’60s draft-card burners recall inflammatory time ANTI-WAR continued from p. 1

shown to a group of about 50 apparent lefties gathered in the decidedly funky Maryhouse auditorium at 55 E. Third St. The footage also showed a swarm of police, some reportedly perched on rooftops, concerned about the prospect of sniper attacks on the card burners.

The cops formed a corridor and escorted them to safety to a Lower nell, an associate editor at the Catholic Worker newspaper and a Catholic deacon who was one of the trio of aging draft-card burners and speakers on stage.

Cornell, born in 1934, said the card burning was also designed to show earlier by President Lyndon Baines Johnson that made damaging or mutilating a draft card a federal offense.

“There was no legislative purpose to that law,” he said. “It was meant to date.”

He noted that Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement who is now a candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic doors” at the Union Square rally. Cornell also claimed that Dutch-born pacthere, called it “the most successful demonstration since World War II.” But while the card-burning theatrics were successful as agitprop, garnering front-page coverage in The New York Times on a Sunday (Cornell said two young Timesmen gave explicit instructions on how to get maximum impact) and publicity from other papers across the country, it stirred tragic consequences.

Three days later, a young Catholic Worker volunteer named Roger Allen LaPorte went up the United Nations, “sat in front of the Secretariat building at 5 o’clock in the morn-

I refused. I was arrested in December of 1966. The judge sentenced me to three years and I went two years,” he said.

At one point during his time behind bars, Wilson was taken by prison guards to Foley Square and faced a U.S. district judge and a government prosecutor who sought to im-

PHOTO BY NEIL HAWORTH, COURTESY OF WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE

Draft-card burners in 1965 at the Union Square Pavilion, from left, Tom Cornell, Marc Edelman, Roy Lisker, David McReynolds and Jim Wilson.

Dutch-born clergyman and activist A.J. Muste is at right in hat and topcoat.

Bellevue Hospital at 22, said famed olds, 86, the retired longtime national secretary of the War Resisters League, who had also burned his draft card that long-ago Saturday in Union Square.

“It’s impossible for me not to accept some sense of responsibility for Roger La Porte,” said McReynolds, adding, “I think he was trying to absorb the violence.” His protest was one of several self-immolations protesting the war in Vietnam.

McReynolds, an atheist who lives in the East Village, described his decision to burn his draft card as “an act of penance” for supporting President Johnson the year before.

“I thought he would stop the slide to war,” he recalled. “I felt so betrayed by the horror of Vietnam.” were eventually arrested and most served short prison sentences, except for McReynolds, who by then was too old to be inducted. Jim Wilson, now about 70 and active back then in the Catholic Movement “by way of Selma,” received the harshest penal-

bars from a three-year sentence for failing to report for induction. He was 20 or 21.

“I was the youngest of the got off easy with a two-year suspended sentence and two years probation for draft card burning. But while on probation, his draft board ordered

had allegedly violated his probation by not reporting for induction.

“The judge looked at me and said: ‘Mr. Wilson, how do you plead?’ I said, ‘Guilty, your honor.’ The judge said, ‘I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this.’ ” That’s when Wilson called renowned civil liberties lawyer William Kunstler, who represented him at the next court hearing. The judge rejected the government’s arguments for extra time and sent Williams back to prison “There was a community in prison and community outside of prison,” he recalled. “A lot of people came refusing induction. The jails weren’t big enough. It was an important thing to do.”

THE NEW SOUND OF

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Speaking at Maryhouse last week, ’65 draft-card burners, from left, Jim Wilson, Tom Cornell and Dave McReynolds.

EastVillagerNews.com

GERSH KUNTZMAN

LOOK FOR IT MONDAY, DEC. 7 AT BrooklynPaper.com/radio November 26, 2015

7

Opposing pictures painted of new arts charter CHARTER continued from p. 1

While at Bronx Prep, she met Geoffrey Kiorpes and Kate Quarfordt, who would eventually become co-founders of City School of the Arts. Kiorpes was working at Bronx Prep as a piano teacher while Quarfordt was a theater instructor. Together, they developed the idea for an arts-focused charter school.

City School of the Arts will be a middle school, serving grades 6 through 8. It will start with 102 sixth graders, growing by one grade per year for the next two years, reaching 306 students total.

Davidson and Chu want to engage with District 1 and 2 residents to ensure that the school’s opening is transparent. They stated that, contrary to the belief that the opposition has been widespread, the school has a lot of support.

A 42-page informational packet assembled by the District 1 Community Education Council, with data and arguments against the new charter’s opening, was distributed to meeting attendees. According to C.E.C. 1, the charter “claimed

support from almost all of the partners listed in the many applications,” yet these partners have “either been totally unauthorized or are in fact interested parties who charter’s funding stream… .”

City School of the Arts, which received its charter from the State University of New York, will receive 80 percent funding per pupil from the state Department of Education, a figure that has some locals concerned that too many dollars will be stripped from needy public schools.

C.E.C. 1 further claims, “There is no need [for the new charter] according to enrollment data in D1, where 3 middle schools very near the proposed lease location are facing a proposed consolidation next year due to under-enrollment…”

However, when asked about the school’s planned location, it was stated that this information could not yet be disclosed, though it was hoped the school could operate in a privately owned space. One attendee at the meeting, Luke Henry,

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a C.E.C. 1 member and former candidate for state Assembly, claimed that for the past two years no location has been given.

“We’re still investigating what the options are,” Chu later admitted. “We’ve had a letter of commitment that was withdrawn from us.

We currently do not have a space or location.”

Local resident Naomi Peña, who also was at the meeting, offered a unique perspective. As a parent of children enrolled in both a charter school and a public school, she could speak to the differences between both educational systems.

Peña’s two major concerns were that the students and faculty accurately reflect the neighborhood, and that there be adequate resources and fair treatment for special-education pupils. She argued that teachers may experience a disconnect with students if they are from areas with markedly different socioeconomic conditions, citing a Long Island vice principal who was not equipped to connect with students who live in public

housing.

Peña worried that the charter might not effectively provide for the 15 percent of its student body it expects to have disabilities.

“You need to create an environment that allows these children to succeed, not just general ed,” Peña said.

Davidson explained that the 15 percent figure mentioned in the school’s plans is a conservative figure. With regard to English Language Learners, she stated, “We want to meet or exceed the E.L.L. target in the district. We have staffed an E.S.L. teacher that is distinct from the special-ed teacher.”

“I think there were many questions that people have and there are some people who feel that they have not been answered,” said Carolyn Ratcliffe, chairperson of the C.B. 3 Arts and Cultural Affairs Subcommittee, at the meeting’s end. Ratcliffe recommended that the school also present to the board’s Youth and Human Services Committee, where more parents could weigh in on the matter.

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November 26, 2015

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PHOTO COURTESY OF N.Y.P.D.

A firefighter dragged an actor playing an injured person out of the station during the simulation.

Terrorists are down and out in Bowery subway drill

I

n a drill reportedly planned for more than a year, but which came on the heels of the recent Paris

swarmed into the J/Z Bowery subway station last Sunday in a simulated response to a terrorist incident.

The phony terrorists, including one with a mock suicide vest, were all “killed.” But 30 actors playing civilians also “died,” while six others survived, though with “serious injuries,” the Daily News reported. sponders also participated in the two exercises in the station, at Bowery and Kenmare St., which was closed for the drill.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, were on hand for the action.

“We did very well, I think, this

morning,” Bratton said afterward.

“There were casualties, but the idea is to get in and minimize to the greatest degree possible the casualties.”

“This was an impressive display of the capacity of this city to respond to an incident,” de Blasio said. “This is why this city is so fundamentally prepared for any situation.”

The News reported that Johnson said Homeland Security doesn’t of a Paris-like attack against the U.S. homeland.”

However, he added, “We are and we continue to be and we have been concerned about copycat-like attacks.”

Johnson encouraged people to go about without their normal lives and travel as the holiday season approaches.

“Terrorism cannot prevail,” he said, “if the people refuse to be terrorized.”

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November 26, 2015

9

Pols put on a push JACOB A. RIIS Revealing New York’s Other Half T

BY AMY RUSSO

“HEART-RENDING RETROSPECTIVE” – The New York Times

Inequality remains a fact of life in America.

A century later, this New York master’s photos still explode with outrage.

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he state Department of Transportation reports that the number of double-decker tour buses in New York City more than tripled, from 57 to 194, from 2003 to 2013.

Today, there are at least eight sightseeing bus companies that operate a total of 229 buses nine license plates pending. The number of buses was, even higher, 299 in September 2014.

Endangerment of pedestrians, pollution, crowded streets and excessive noise are just some of the complaints being raised by Manhattan politicians and locals against sightseeing tour buses throughout the city.

Repeated cases of tour buses injuring and even killing pedestrians have moved politicians to action.

These included one accident last July when a bus struck a man at the intersection of West Fourth St. and Sixth Ave., pinning him under the vehicle and dragging him down the street for some distance.

In October, legislation was announced by Councilmember Margaret Chin and Borough President Gale Brewer to cap the number of tour bus licenses issued at 225.

There are currently no laws regulating the number of tour bus licenses in Manhattan.

“Multiple tour buses piled up at curbs and near-empty tour buses cruising the streets have made it for this industry,” Brewer said.

If it becomes law, the bill would prevent the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs from issuing new license plates to sightseeing buses unless the number of active plates is under 225. The bill would not prohibit existing licenses from being renewed or replaced. Any vehicle capable of seating at least eight passengers that hires and sells trips to tourist destinations is required to have a sightseeing bus license.

The proposal comes a few months after a bill was introduced last May, under the prime sponsorship of Councilmember Corey Johnson, mandating that tour bus operators submit their operating plans to D.C.A. when

applying for a bus license, facilitating at any given time.

Johnson also supports the cap on tour buses.

“This bill will improve the quality of life for so many New Yorkers who are affected every day by the our streets,” Johnson said. “When we have too many of these buses in operation, residents are faced with congestion and serious pedestrian safety issues.”

Paul Leonard, a spokesperson for Chin, said, “We feel that there is a momentum behind this effort to propose a very reasonable cap. We are The bill is currently in the Council’s Committee on Consumer Affairs.

Meanwhile, local residents and politicians claim that the buses are often partially or completely empty, functioning more as mobile advertisements than tourist transportation.

“Often nearly empty of tourists, these tour buses serve as rolling billboards for a captive audience of New Yorkers who are negatively affected by the noise, negative air quality and congestion the buses create,” said Chin. “Our legislation seeks to institute a better balance between accommodating tourism and ensuring the safety and well-being of residents in neighborhoods throughout our city.”

Opponents also claim the vehicles’ noise levels are not being effectively regulated.

“These buses not only cause trafto comply with the law requiring them to have sound-limiting devices,” said Leigh Behnke of the Broadway Residents Coalition.

Leonard echoed the same concerns, stating, “Despite legislation that was actually signed into law limiting use of loudspeakers…we are still getting complaints about noise coming from sightseeing tour buses.”

Regarding the instances of pedestrians being injured or worse by the lumbering buses, Leonard said, “Unfortunately, these tragedies occur and it just makes us more resolute in our efforts.”

www.clwac.org 10

November 26, 2015

EastVillagerNews.com

to cap number of tour buses at 225

FILE PHOTO BY SHARON WOOLUMS

T:8.75”

In July, a tour bus turning onto Sixth Ave. at W. Fourth St. struck a man, pinning him underneath it and dragging him for a distance.

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November 26, 2015

11

Lost and found 2.0: All’s well ends well for cell RHYMES WITH CRAZY

BY LENORE SKENAZY

R

emember that old expression “Finders keepers, losers weepers?” Does it even exist any-

more?

Last week I lost my phone on the Q58 bus, but before I even realized it was missing, I sat down at my computer and found e-mails from my family, “Call a lady named Grace.

She has your phone.”

She did indeed.

She’d found it on the seat next to her, taken it with her to work, and reached the “favorites” on my contact list. Soon I was in a Mexicana Car Service car heading to her at her workplace in Maspeth, Queens: United Basket. This turned out to with every possible basket (big surprise) and an even cooler young woman, Grace Chen, who cheerfully handed over the Android, adamantly refused a reward, and hurried back to her job.

A couple of months ago someone stole my wallet on the subway and another wonderful young woman of cash but otherwise intact. She contacted me and also refused a reward.

Could it be that this is the way of Finders aren’t keepers? I started asking around.

“I got a message that said, ‘I found your phone. Please call me,’ ” recalled Natalie Yates, co-founder of the digital agency Blue Iceberg Interactive. “I chester. He’d just gotten off his shift, found the phone, and he said that once his wife got home, she could take care of the kids and he could drive back into Manhattan with his truck to bring me my phone.”

Drive it in? After his shift?

“I can survive without my phone for a night!” Natalie told him. To which he replied with a laugh, “A lot of people can’t.’ ” Instead, they arranged for him to drop it off the next day, whereupon he told Natalie that he always returns things, including, one time, $10,000 that had been left in his cab.

For that good deed, he got a $20 tip.

Natalie gave him $30.

For her return efforts, performer Laurie Gamache got some lovely wine.

“I used to live in a little basement studio on W. 96th St.,” said Laurie, who now teaches theater arts at the School of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as running the Theatre West 97th program at the Franciscan Community Center on the Upper West Side. “I was getting ready to go on the road with ‘A Chorus Line,’ and so I was cleaning out the place.” In she found a class ring.

The year on the ring was 1980something, and this was still in the ’80s.

There was a name engraved, too. Laurie put it in a box in her desk drawer, then it slipped her mind. For decades. explained. But when she was preparing for a move, she cleaned out her desk and opened a little box she its owner?

Well, in the intervening years, a device had been invented to do just that: the Internet. So instead of thumbing through phone books, Laurie instantThe judge’s husband runs a winery, so

the exchange concluded with a drinkable reward, nicely aged.

Just like the ring.

Dana Rubin, the chief executive ofmunications and content creation company, came home one day to a ransacked apartment.

What pained her most was the loss of a bag of jewelry, including sentimental pieces given to her by her parents.

“I was devastated,” she recalled.

About a year later, she called an organization to come pick up some furniture she was donating. As the workers lifted up her mattress, there was the jewelry bag. She had put it parently, worked.

“I’d been sleeping on it all year,” she said.

In a world of good people and eureka moments, there seems to be and precious item, at least according to my sister-in-law: Go online and shop for a replacement. Press “Purchase.” Look up.

There it is.

Kids”

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR L.E.S. Di$maland To The Editor: My image and the name and slogan of my LES FUN Gallery are also utilized in the mural at the new Mr. Purple restaurant without my permission or knowledge. “FUN for Everyone?” I think not, fun for anyone who can spend $15 on a cocktail. I am outraged at this blatant commercialization of Adam Purple, who I saw all the time and was a tremendous inspiration to me.

This outrage may even “Trump” the $64 “Basquiat Burger,” at the new PYT on the Bowery, against which I also spoke out and led a campaign against on Yelp until they censored all of our comments.

Vague promises of “but you are getting recognition and they can sell your book” don’t cut it. No way in hell would I put my book in there until that bar gives back to the community.

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-2292790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, tion purposes. The Villager reserves the right to

Patti Astor FUN Gallery

SOUND OFF!

IRA BLUTREICH

Write a letter to the editor

news@thevillager.com Security fears are in the air this holiday season.

12

November 26, 2015

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTOS BY BOB KRASNER

Marcia Resnick, left, and Amanda Rubin, a former photography student of hers, at the launch of Resnick’s new photography book.

Punk cool rules at Resnick photo book launch

BY BOB KRASNER

F

East Village’s Howl! Happening Gallery for the launch of “Punks, Poets and Provocateurs: New York City Bad Boys, 1977-1982,” by photographer Marcia Resnick and writer Victor Bockris.

Downtown denizens and colleagues praised the work, a collection of photos and text that captures the energy of a truly special place and time.

Noted lensman Bob Gruen, whose own work intersects with Resnick’s, said, “The book is amazing. It’s a long time in coming and I’m thrilled that I can see all these great photos collected together.”

Author Bockris noted in his remarks that Resnick’s work is “not only art, but also anthropology” and that the book “is a celebration of the counterculture.”

From left, Snooky, the photographer Godlis and Tish.

what it meant to her to see the volume in print. out,” she said. “It was a really important New York City.”

EastVillagerNews.com

Unidentified.

West Villagers photographer Bob Gruen, left, and activist Jim Fouratt.

November 26, 2015

13

Food Emporium sold as A&P heads to final checkout Even though the Union Square Food Emporium’s stock had been dwindling for weeks, some customers said they “didn’t know” about the store’s new ownership and the apparent impending demise of the ven-

BY MARY REINHOLZ

K

nown for its store-made heatand-eat entrees, sushi bar and gourmet delicacies, the Food Emporium supermarket at 10 Union Square East changed hands Nov. 9.

The transfer occurred a few weeks after its new owner, Key Food Co-Operative, Inc., acquired the store in a court-supervised bankruptcy sale from the market’s former corporate ic Tea Company, otherwise known tomers during the one-day transition.

On Tues., Nov. 10, with no formal notice of different management outside its doors, Food Emporium reopened with diminished stock but maintained its deli, hot foods and large bakery, featuring artisanal breads and elaborately decorated cakes. All the checkout scanning machines had been temporarily shut down. Signs noted that purchases via food stamps (E.B.T.) were not yet available. Cashiers could not provide “cash backs” on electronic buys for sometime.

But the upscale Union Square store kept the Food Emporium banner, signage and e-business after Key Food purchased that brand’s intellectu-

started out on Vesey St. in Lower Manhattan as a tea and spice business founded by merchants George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman.

PHOTO BY MARY REINHOLZ

A vintage photo of the A&P chain’s founders and staff hangs on the wall at the E. 15th St. Food Emporium supermarket, now under Key Food ownership. A&P started out on Vesey St. in Lower Manhattan.

al property rights for about $1.75 million in a separate deal overseen by the White Plains U.S. bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New

Wing it, but don’t fling it!

listing sale items from Marketplace Emporium, a possible new name for the store.

A manager for the bustling Key Food chain, founded in Brooklyn in 1937 and now headquartered in that none of the employees from the some were “transferred” to other stores in New York and New Jersey. can grocers, is attempting to unload 120 of its 296 Northeastern stores for $600 million after the company’s secBrian Shiver, a spokesperson, declined to comment. But a Manhattan retail executive familiar with the hush-hush proceedings said that tual property rights to the Food Emporium brand, but that doesn’t mean for all the Food Emporium locations,” he said. He referred to three other Manhattan Food Emporiums that Key Food purchased, bringing the

Read t the Easr!

Village 14

November 26, 2015

to 23. (These include three Pathmarks and 10 Waldbaums.) id and complex,” the source noted that technically “any Key Food store can be turned into a Food Emporiits property rights, which includes Food Emporium grocery chain of 16 stores in 1986 from its former parent, Shopwell, Inc.

still line the walls at Food Emporium’s E. 15th St. entrance between Park Ave. South and Irving Place, including an immense photo of the Vesey St. “headquarters” in 1890.

But other seasoned regulars were well aware that a new day had arrived.

“Is it going to be called Key Food now or the same?” inquired Waheed Salam, an airline pilot and resident at Zeckendorf Towers, as he checked store hours around 8:30 over. Salam, who has patronized Food Emporium for 20 years, said he had asked a manager about the store’s future.

Food Emporium managers declined to answer questions from The Villager, one noting she had been told by Key Food “not to speak to the press.”

Local 342 of the United Food and Commercial Workers in Long Island did not return calls by press time.

But Sophie Henderson, 60, a parttime night manager who worked at the Union Square Food Emporium for 17 years, said over the weekend of Nov. 7 that she was resigning without “any severance” and would receive her late husband’s Social Se“I’ve seen so many things over the years,” she mused with a smile as she sat on a Food Emporium newsstand, which still carries copies of The Villager. She noted that Key Food would be “sending trucks in” to replenish On that day, one Key Food staffer, standing by cans of cat food selling for 69 cents each, said the store’s pricing for products will remain ba11-19 listed four “large” Hass avocadoes for $5; imported Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese for $6.99 a pound; boneless chicken breasts for $1.99 a pound; and store-made strawberry shortcake “fresh daily” at $19.99.) not disclose its price for purchasing the Union Square store and 22 others be completed this month.

A spokesperson for Dean Janeway, C.E.O. of Key Foods, said he could MARKET continued on p. 21 EastVillagerNews.com

When day and night move as one Stephen Wilkes puts a face on time

BY NORMAN BORDEN Imagine if you could actually see the passage of photograph. Fine art photographer Stephen Wilkes has accomplished just that in his remarkable series of 18 large format images called “Day to Night.”

For the past six years, Wilkes has been making panoramic photographs of iconic cityscapes, landscapes and historical events such as Times Square, Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and President Obama’s 2013 Inauguration, respectively.

Normally perched 50 feet above the street in a cherry picker [crane], he takes up to 1,500 pictures from one camera angle over 12 to 15 consecutive hours. Then, back in his studio, he digitally blends about 50 of those pictures into a single image.

The result: half of the picture shows the scene in broad daylight while the other half shows it at night, with glimpses of life’s little moments throughout. For example, in the print of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it seems as if the Fireman, Spider-Man and SpongeBob balloons are on an improbable collision course in Columbus Circle.

They’re heading toward oncoming cars and taxis it’s night. The other details, with Central Park and the skyline divided by day and night, are mesmerizing.

Wilkes says, “I discovered that being 50 feet above the street is the point where you begin to see the energy of New York…it’s almost like when you They react as if they’re a single unit rather than same thing when I get above New York and other emergence. It’s an exciting thing to study and see how it translates all over the world.”

The Times Square picture was one of the most challenging for Wilkes. He explains, “Whenever I do these pictures, I have to think about the transitions as time changes. Do I have all the visual material? For every moment with people, I need a moment without them. So when I’m shooting a place EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY STEPHEN WILKES, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND BRYCE WOLKOWITZ GALLERY

For “Times Square, New York, 2010,” Wilkes spent over a half-day in July of 2010 perched 50 feet above, staying put during a bomb scare to capture our city’s “emergent behavior.”

as busy as Times Square, I need to pay attention to what’s going on. But what happened on that July day was crazy. There’d been a bomb scare, so the streets within three minutes. I kept photographing because in closing the streets, the cops had given me the place where I had nobody in the scene, and that allowed me to create a checkerboard scene of time. Wherever you see shadow, it’s night, and where there’s light, it’s day. If not for that bomb

scare, the picture I would have gotten probably wouldn’t have been as exciting.” tographing “Day to Night,” he concentrated mainly on taking pictures of well-known cityscapes.

Lately, he’s gone back to nature to capture the mag-

DAY TO NIGHT, continued on p. 16

November 26, 2015

15

‘Day to Night’ mesmerizes with extremes and in-betweens

PHOTO BY STEPHEN WILKES, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND BRYCE WOLKOWITZ GALLERY

“Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, 2015” is the result of 26 hours spent on an 18-foot high platform (minus two hours for lunch).

DAY TO NIGHT, continued from p. 15

with his stunning image of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. After a three-week vacation in Africa, Wilkes went to the Serengeti to photograph the largest migration of mammals in the world. Witnessing something like that, he says, was a life-changing experience.

The photographer explains, “When my wife and I got there, drought going on. It was interesting to see how it was affecting the animals…I found one watering hole along the river and after studying it for several days, got permission to go off-road and photograph it. I went in there at about 2 a.m. Using

high platform attached to a crocodile blind that had a 20x24” window.

I was in that space for 26 hours with my assistant, and took two hours for lunch. What we saw in those 26 hours was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.”

Adding to the experience, Wilkes

Wilkes’s favor, since it forced the ani-

the series that actually bridged many of the social issues most important to him: rising seas and climate change.

And with water so scarce, it was amazing to spend 26 hours watching how these competitive species shared the water without so much as a grunt between them. He observes, “They’ll

When asked why he spent 26 hours instead of the usual 15-hour

“I was able to capture this very powerful narrative of animals during the day and night,” he says. “I think the fact that I was in a crocodile blind and had immersed myself there for a long time let the animals accept the

shift: “I stayed there because of the moonlight…that can be a one hour exposure in itself. We photographed the stars, but the main thing is to get the detail from the moonlight, and sometimes you have to wait till the moon gets to a certain height in the sky to get the beautiful light and details.” And there are amazing details, from the stars to the baby elephant and zebra, to the papa (or mama) elephant in the foreground, wildebeests in the background, and more. It’s quite a story.

At this point in the series, Wilkes is excited that he is merging history into his work with the image of Obama’s inauguration and Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Now the pictures are also speaking to conservation and nature.

“They do it in a way that is enlightening and that is very gratifying,” he says. Wilkes hopes to go to Brazil and Russia, and is scheduled to photograph the Brooklyn Bridge next spring.

“One of the things I love about this project is that it’s essentially everything I love about the medium of photography and the things I’ve been drawn to since I was a kid. It’s exciting to be able to put a face on time.”

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“Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, New York, 2013” finds Spider-Man, SpongeBob and others on an illusory collision course with nighttime taxis.

EastVillagerNews.com

Herbal delights

Fifty years ago, ‘Whipped Cream’ gave us a taste for ‘Honey’

BY JIM MELLOAN

M

y parents picked up Herb Brass’s two 1965 albums,

and “Going Places,” sometime in the first year after their release. I would have been 10 years old. But I don’t recall being, shall we say, intrigued by their covers, especially “Whipped Cream,” until after I turned 11 in September of 1966 and we moved to London in November of that year.

Then, the stimulation of pubescent hormones, combined with swinging England and its ads for burlesque shows in the back of

skirt lengths shortening at a rate of approximately an inch per cant fascination with this album cover featuring model Delores Erickson wearing seemingly nothing but a pile of whipped cream, with a bit of it in her hair, and taking a lick off her finger.

The cover was so iconic that Alpert used to tell the audience in concerts, “Sorry, we can’t play the cover for you.”

“Going Places,” with the girl in a kind of Hispanic maid costume showing some fishnetted leg, wasn’t bad either. The liner notes for “Whipped Cream” were my first encounter with the word “hippie.” At the Brass’s first concert, “The teens were there, but so were the ‘hippies’ and the ‘squares,’ the ‘little old ladies’ and the screen starlets, the celebrities and those who make them celebrities.”

Fifty years ago this week, “A Taste of Honey” from “Whipped Cream” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The band’s popularity began to soar.

In 1966, they sold more than 13 The Beatles. In April of that year, four of their albums were in the Top 10, a feat last achieved by The Kingston Trio in 1959.

Not one of the Tijuana Brass was Hispanic. Alpert used to say that his group had “four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese.” family were Jews from Ukraine and Romania. But he was born EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO SOURCE: HERBALPERT.COM

This iconic Herb Alpert cover piqued the interest of a young Jim Melloan just coming into his own.

and grew up in the predominantly Mexican-American Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles.

Before the Brass existed, Alpert had success as a songwriter in the late ’50s, co-writing “Wonderful World” (first performed by Sam Cooke and later by Herman’s Hermits, and Art Garfunkel with Paul Simon and James Taylor), and “Alley Oop,” by the Hollywood Argyles. In the early ’60s, a pre-Beatles Ringo Starr was belting out “Alley Oop” in the special vocal spotlight his band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes gave him called “Starr Time” at a Butlin’s holiday camp in the UK. Getting back to short skirts and other sexy delights, the Brass will be forever associated with “The Dating Game,” which used a few of its songs, in particular, “Whipped Cream,” “Spanish Flea” and “Lollipops and Roses,” as incidental music throughout the show.

In 1967, the band performed the Burt Bacharach-penned theme to the James Bond spoof “Casino Royale,” a bouncy and infectious earworm if ever there was one. My friend Jerry has said he would like this one to be played at his funeral.

In the late ’60s, still in England, it became a favorite game for my sister and I to put on some Tijuana Brass and look out the window at pedestrians walking by. We would select one, and as the person walked down the street, we would imagine that this person was the star of his or her own TV show, and we were watching the credits and this was the theme song. We found this hilarious, and I bet it still is. If you live in a place where you can look out the window and

see pedestrians walking by, I suggest you try it now.

Herb’s only No. 1 hit in the ’60s featured him as a vocalist, with the Bacharach-David tune “This Guy’s In Love With You,” a favorite of my cousin Samia’s. The song was perfect for Alpert’s limited vocal range, and audiences fell in love with it. This was part of a 1968 CBS special called “Beat of the Brass,” in a paradisiacal sequence shot in Malibu in which he sings to his then-wife. It was not intended for release as a record, but CBS was flooded with thousands of calls asking about it, so it came out and spent four weeks at No. 1.

The Brass split up in 1969, but reformed a few times and released records in the ’70s and ’80s. Alpert had a No. 1 hit with “Rise,” in 1979, and released the album “Keep Your Eye on Me” in 1987, which had two hits: “Diamonds,” featuring Janet Jackson, and “Making Love in the Rain,” featuring Lisa Keith with backup vocals by Janet Jackson. The title track was not a hit, but for whatever reason it’s the one I remember. The videos for both that and “Diamonds,” in a sign of the times, both slipped in “say no to drugs” messages.

Alpert turned 80 this past March. In September he released “Come Fly With Me,” which went to No. 7 on Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums chart. Pretty good work for an old bagel from East LA. Jim Melloan is a writer, actor, mu-

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The power of place Linda Troeller’s Chelsea Hotel photos chart ‘art in the near’

COURTESY SCHIFFER PUBLISHING

“Living in Plastic, 2013.”

COURTESY SCHIFFER PUBLISHING

“Stanley Bard, Hotel Chelsea, 2008.”

COURTESY SCHIFFER PUBLISHING

“Gerald Busby, Composer, 2014.”

BY PUMA PERL

“

L

iving in the Chelsea Hotel,” Linda Troeller’s recently published book, looks back — in words and photographs — at her two decades as a resident of the historic and cultural landmark.

For Troeller, the Chelsea was both sanctuary and muse, guiding her through a spiritual journey she

boundaries between the artist’s life and a separate “regular” existence fade away, and where creative enfriendships. As per the late Herbert Huncke, “Live glory days, and if you have too many lost days, meet new people, swing around again and almost anything can happen here.”

18

November 26, 2015

Troeller had already become a well-known visual artist when, in 1994, she was introduced to Stanley Bard, the manager of the Chelsea Hotel. She grew up in New Jersey and says she always knew she was headed for the arts, despite her mother’s early hopes that she would “enjoy the life of a wife and eventually have a child.”

It was not until she watched a documentary about Ansel Adams, who Troeller had assisted in workshops, that she began to support her daughter’s photographic dreams. She was the inspiration for one of Troeller’s most intimate photo collage series that recalls her mother’s 1930s struggle with tuberculosis while recounting the story of another mother who lost her son

to HIV-related illness.

In an especially moving part of the “Chelsea Hotel” book, Troeller describes her depression after the loss of her mother, and the comfort she received when a staff housekeeper, in the midst of a chore, turned to her and warmly embraced her.

Healing has been an ongoaward-winning photographs are included in her book “Healing Waters,” an exploration of water therapy all around the world. Two of her other books, “The Erotic Lives of Women” and “Orgasm,” traverse the sexuality of women far beyond the usual acceptable borders.

Writer and journalist Victor Bockris, in his foreword, describes the photographs as “emerging out of -

ow and visions.”

As presented by Troeller, the hoacter as its inhabitants. “Memory is also in the muscles,” she writes, “especially the heart muscles.”

She coped with her eviction from the hotel by “falling into a daydream,” imagining a healer sprinkling her with lotion and twirling saturated color and dreamlike images of the hotel, contrasting with the desolation as the building is vacated, evince the photographer’s long journey to acceptance of the loss of her community and home.

One feels both the communal spirit and the introspection of the CHELSEA HOTEL, continued on p. 19

EastVillagerNews.com

COURTESY SCHIFFER PUBLISHING

“Self-Portrait, Zac Posen Dress, 2006.”

CHELSEA HOTEL, continued from p. 18

room shortly after meeting Bard, was Herbert Huncke, who lived

cially the self-portraits. Troeller deturmoil around me.”

In a 2006 self-portrait, we see Troeller breezing through a hallway, wearing a Zac Posen dress that seems to be made of watercolors created in 2012 (and recently deexhibition), reveals only her eye, staring almost despairingly into the camera beside a portrait of Mary.

“I believe in the power of cultural memory and that the creative ‘input and output’ that’s evolved at the historic Chelsea Hotel will emerge in a new way,” said Troeller. “These photographs of my visual journey are there to keep reminding us of the power of place, and social and physical borderlines. The Chelsea Hotel is where I have felt the most comfortable being an artist, and I hope many artists can utilize it in some way when it reemerges as a hotel.”

EastVillagerNews.com

COURTESY SCHIFFER PUBLISHING

“Hot Chelsea, 2000.”

her, after noticing a Chanel jacket in her possession, were: “You look like you’re a divorcee. It would be nice

Another of the many artists whom

Despite learning that his initial assessment was incorrect, they became fast friends, developing a ritual in which she’d spot him a few dollars to get to his daily methadone program, and he’d pay her back by reciting his poetry over coffee in his favorite diner when he returned.

The relationships Troeller developed were multi-faceted, leading to lifelong friendships as well as cre-

was designer Alexander McQueen, who came to see her photographs in the lobby and invited her to a show.

“His use of partial nudity, the dark colors of war, and the pale lace of peace inspired me,” she said. “I got away from direct narrative string editing, and let photographs talk more to each other in structure and frame. Color, unusual color, any colors became exciting material.”

Troeller had to give up the evic-

on the Hotel Chelsea blog, Troeller

dust and toxins. She spent a year on this book, “a story about dear remembrance and photos of good times and bad times. Many of the residents that I met still live amid the renovation and have continued creative projects.”

She is looking forward to co-hosting an upcoming party among

husband” during her tenancy. One photo in the book reveals the man she would eventually marry, Lothan Troeller, lying in bed beneath an Andres Serrano portrait of Linda, one of many photos within a photo contained in the book.

friends celebrating the 80th birthday of composer Gerald Busby, a longtime resident. Included is a about his odyssey, “The Man on the Fifth Floor.”

“We have to keep going,” Troeller “We have to keep going even if we don’t know where we are going to.

There’s no reason something good can’t come out of this.”

Linda Troeller will give a presenta-

info at lindatroeller.com. Learn more

November 26, 2015

19

20

November 26, 2015

EastVillagerNews.com

17 8th Avenue (between 12th and Jane)

PHOTO BY MARY REINHOLZ

Sophie Henderson, a part-time night manager at the Union Square Food Emporium for 17 years, resigned without severance pay after the store was sold. Above, she sat on the store’s news rack — where The Villager can be found — the weekend before the store’s sale.

Food Emporium is sold MARKET continued from p. 14

“not accommodate” an interview. But in a prepared statement dated Oct. 22, the company said its acquisition of the 23 the number of the chain’s stores to 212 and add $400 million in annual retail sales, for a projected yearly total of $2.3 billion.

The statement also claimed the company’s buys will “preserve” Neil Saunders, managing director of Columino, a retail research and consulting agency,

good positions and have been “snapped up” by competitors.

“Union Square is a case in point, which is why Key Food bought it along with the 68th St., 50th St. and 42nd St. locations,” he said.

“The logic for Key Food is obvious: It gives the company an opportunity to grow its presence in the heart of Manhattan.”

Although unions have offered

www.leftbankbooksny.com leftbankbooksny@yahoo.com instagram @leftbankbooksny

212.924.5638

years, some critics blame the cost while saying the union’s policies downfall, also note that the gro-

divesting its stores “because it needs to pay down its debt as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. This debt, as well as business is not viable as a going concern, which is why it is now being carved up.” in 1936, reported owning 16,000 stores by the 1940s. When the company sought federal bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2010, it cited about $2.3 billion in debts and $1.6 billion in assets.

Saunders said a few of the locations” and have not been purchased, but others are in EastVillagerNews.com

up with the times. The chain, these observers say, struggled to compete with newcomers, like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s, both of which have stores in Union Square.

Chuck Lanyard, president of the Goldstein Group, which specializes in retail brokerage become “slow” and “its competitors have done a better job.” He believes the company will soon vacate its “huge” corporate headquarters in Montvale, N.J. “An icon is disappearing, but that’s the nature of things,” he said. “There’s always a new kid on the block.”

November 26, 2015

21

A Coney Island blast from the past in Little Italy;

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

A

piece of historic Coney Island lives on in Little Italy, where gallery owner Allan Reiver has an original, working Mangels shooting gallery from the early 20th century.

Reiver, 73, who owns the Elizabeth St. Gallery, at 209 Elizabeth St., hunted down the hidden shooting gallery on Stillwell Ave., near Surf Ave., on the street where the Nathan’s hot dog shop is located.

The attraction had been boardons were outlawed in New York City or shooting galleries were actually hidden behind a basketball hoop-shooting concession.

It turned out that the basketball ously repeatedly denied to Reiver that the shooting gallery was still inhabiting the space between the two amusements.

“It was his living room,” Reiver said.

There was a switch for the shoot-

A windmill with pipes. The pipes bend back when hit by a shot. Racks of doves on the left, and “spinners” on the right — hit one of them right and they spin.

it on, the old attraction sprung to life in “perfect working condition.”

The Little Italy gallery owner said the vintage shooting gallery had with “a very soft lead shield,” so that when they hit the target, they turned to powder. In fact, Reiver said, lead powder 3 feet deep was piled up at the base of the machine, and he had to clean it carefully with alcohol to make it safe to handle.

He bought the contraption the same day and moved it to his loft on Elizabeth St. When he later relocated to a building across the street where his gallery is today, he installed the shooting gallery there.

In the late 1800s, William F. Mangels, a young German immigrant, opened a factory blocks from the beach where he created carousels and other amusement rides, along with his renowned shooting galleries. Known as the “Father of Amusement Rides,” he held a patent on the mechanism that made carousel horses go up and down to “gallop.”

Mangels lived on Ocean Parkway near Coney Island, and today lies buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

Reiver, in fact, claims his is the only intact, original Mangels shooting gallery in the country. Many of them were disassembled and their parts sold off individually as collector’s items.

“I don’t know of another one that’s especially not in original working

22

November 26, 2015

PHOTOS BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Allan Reiver in front of his original Mangels Coney Island shooting gallery.

condition,” he said. “If there’s one out there, it’s probably laying in parts and pieces in a garage somewhere. This one’s in totally original condition, I’ve done nothing to it.”

The objects in his Mangels shooting gallery include a lion, a stag, a whale, a tank, battleships, an Indian cepted racism against Native Americans), pipes on the arms of a spinning windmill and racks of doves.

Shooters could also aim at symbols spun on a wheel, or at a swinging target, inside of which was a pan that

loudly clanged when hit.

When running, the aged machine, with its grinding metal gears and moving chain-link belts, sounds a parently sucks up a lot of electricity.

As Reiver was recently giving The Villager a demonstration, he said, “I should turn it off in a few minutes.”

A couple of years ago, the Coney Island USA Museum unveiled a restored, working 1940s Mangels shooting gallery.

Reiver said that, at one point, he had offered his shooting gallery to the museum, but they felt the ’40s one they

He also said he believes his is older, dating from “sometime after the turn of the century.”

The diverse objects in Reiver’s one also move at the original speed, whereas video of the Coney Iswhose targets are mainly soldiers ing considerably faster. cial Mayor of Coney Island and the producer of the annual Mermaid Parade, claimed Reiver’s statements were “off target.”

MANGELS continued on p. 23 EastVillagerNews.com

Original Mangels shooting gallery still cranking

A nearly full view of the vintage Mangels shooting gallery. The holes in the white circles, at bottom, were bull’s-eyes.

MANGELS continued from p. 22

“There are four operating Mangels shooting galleries in the U.S.A. western bar,” he said, obviously including Reiver’s in that number.

“Our Coney Island Museum was never interested in purchasing his,” he added.

Finally, he said of the museum’s Mangels attraction, “Ours runs at the correct speed.”

An Internet search for a Knobels bar instead yielded Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysberg, Pennsylvania.

Dick Knoebels told The Villager, “Yes, we do have an intact Mangels shooting gallery. We also have a 15car Mangels Whip ride, a Mangels Kiddie Whip and Mangels boats and pony cart. We have a lot of Mangels stuff.”

Shoot a suit.

EastVillagerNews.com

Harris Falk, a board member at Coney Island USA, said the Midwestern bar with a Mangels shooting gallery is actually the Sandy Chanty seafood restaurant, in Geneva-onthe-Lake, Ohio. Indeed, a shooting gallery was found there and rebuilt to working condition in 2004.

Zigun later added that there, in fact, may even be a couple more of the old-school amusements out there, that the Doris Duke estate sold one about a decade ago and that there is one at the National Gun Museum, in Washington, D.C. At any rate, although Reiver claims he offered his shooting gallery to the Coney Island Museum before, he now says he doesn’t think he could bring himself to part with it.

To watch a brief video of Reiver’s original Mangels Coney Island shooting gallery, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=A97gzbry5s0 .

A target that only the owner of the Washington Redskins might approve of today.

A favorite target of early 20th-century dentists and gynecologists?

November 26, 2015

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