A bottle o’ squat? p. 3
Volume 82, Number 11 $1.00
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933
August 16 - 22, 2012
Chick-fil-A flap embroils N.Y.U.; Vote on fall menu BY GARY SHAPIRO A local food fight is causing a lot of squawking in the Village. The ruckus began when Dan Cathy, president of the Atlanta-based restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, criticized gay marriage. N.Y.U.’s Weinstein Residence Hall, which is currently closed for summer break, serves food from this company. The Village location is the
Photo by Milo Hess
The little drummer boy On Saturday, the sound of pounding drums led listeners to a lion dance competition at Broome and Eldridge Sts. It was very loud, and also very impressive. Awards were given out.
Hot stuff! Park benches are unfit to sit, as they hit 125 °F BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Talk about being on the hot seat! On hot, sunny, summer days, the dark granite benches in Washington Square Park reach bun-blistering temperatures. The classy-looking benches, which ring the famed fountain plaza, were added under the park’s recent hotly debated renovation. And “hot” is definitely the operative word where the new seating is concerned. The painfully evident fact is not lost on parkgoers, or their posteriors. On high-temperature days during midday, very few people can be seen sitting on the sections of these granite benches that are in direct
sunlight. Instead, parkgoers can be found clustered under the sections of the benches that are shaded by trees. Meanwhile, the park’s sandstone fountain and traditional wooden benches, when exposed to strong sunlight, don’t heat up excessively and parkgoers can be seen sitting on them during the hottest part of the day. On Monday, at 1:40 p.m., The Villager took a reading with a thermometer on one of the granite benches and, on the “outdoor” scale, it registered a tush-torching 125 degrees Fahrenheit! It wasn’t even particularly hot outside, with the temperature at that time, according
to wunderground.com, being about 82 degrees. (A knowledgeable stock clerk at the Nuthouse 24-hour hardware store on E. 29th St. said the key to an accurate reading would be to put the thermometer’s bulb on the bench surface. Fortunately, the $7 indoor/ outdoor thermometer that was used had — for the “outdoor” reader — an external wire with a metal piece at its tip that could be placed directly onto the bench surface. The “indoor” reading, which measured the “ambient” temperature, was also very high, around 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Both
only Chick-fil-A franchise in the city. Hillary Dworkoski, a former student at N.Y.U.’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, caused a lot of clucking by circulating a petition at www.change. org, urging N.Y.U. to stop doing business with Chickfil-A. City Council Speaker
Continued on page 11
Will Berman run? Districting issue could decide it BY LINCOLN ANDERSON There are three expected candidates for the Third District City Council race in 2013, Corey Johnson, Yetta Kurland and Andrew Berman. But redistricting could affect whether one of them — prominent preservationist Berman — ultimately runs or not. Berman has not yet opened a campaign account, and a large factor behind this is reportedly
Continued on page 23
5 1 5 CA N A L STREET • N YC 10013 • C OPYRIG H T © 2012 N YC COMMU NITY M ED IA , LLC
the redistricting question. Meanwhile, Johnson has “maxed out,” raising about $170,000, the maximum eligible to receive public matching funds under the city’s campaign finance law. Kurland has raised more than $70,000. Every 10 years, following the Census, New York City Council districts are adjusted to ensure fair rep-
Continued on page 6
EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 8
REDlight BARES ALL PAGE 14