CHELSEA NOW, MAY 28, 2015

YOUR WEEKLY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL’S KITCHEN

Revised Zoning Plan Still Endangers Housing, Says CB4

BY ZACH WILLIAMS The city has scaled back plans to raise height limits in contextual zoning districts within some parts of Chelsea — but proposed changes remain, which could result in buildings as much as 30 feet taller than rules currently allow.

City planners are in the midst of outreach to local community boards regarding the controversial effort to increase affordable housing by loosening construction restrictions so as to maximize the permitted space within buildings. Community Board 4 (CB4) was Continued on page 3

Mayor Comments on Chelsea Clinic SNAFU

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE When Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at a World AIDS Day event this past December 1, he boldly endorsed a plan to reduce new HIV infections in New York from the current roughly 3,000 annually to 750 a year by 2020.

“Hope will never be silent, and that’s what you’ve all proven,” de Blasio said. “And your voices have reached Albany and I commend Governor Cuomo for last June setting the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2020… And I want to thank so many of you who are part of that effort because this is the kind of goal that galvanizes us. And we will be working with Continued on page 4

50 IS THE NEW NIFTY Reverend Jen profiles a group of Art Stars who left their forties behind and found new ways to keep tapping into the creative spirit. See page 17.

Photo by Morgan McMahon

What does tap dancing by the Hudson have in common with Fleet Week in Times Square? They’re both things you’ve missed. Catch up on the week that was, and plan for the days ahead, on pages 12 & 13.

Local Legislation Could Impact International Hostel

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC For 22 years, Chelsea International Hostel has welcomed travelers from all over the world — and through it all, general manager Tim O’Reilly has been there.

The hostel — located at 251 W. 20th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.) — is one of the few of its kind in the city.

New legislation recently introduced by City Councilmember Mark Weprin is supposed to change all that, but O’Reilly, who has been in the hostel business for 25 years, isn’t convinced.

“They can propose this legislation all they want, but there’s no one that will follow this business model as a developer because it does not work,” said O’Reilly in a phone interview.

The way the legislation reads, there are a limited amount of people and beds per square feet that would not

© CHELSEA NOW 2015 | NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

make it profitable, he said. If one can only put four beds in a room, for example, at $30 each, that is $120 for a room that could make significantly more if it was a hotel room, he explained.

The idea is that a hostel bed is a cheap bed, but a larger number of them allows you to make some money, he said.

“My opinion, I don’t think [the legislation’s] going to do anything,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to spur growth. I think it’s just all smoke and mirrors.”

Proponents of the bill say that it will increase the number of hostels in the city, thus adding to the city’s tourism coffers. Weprin was the lead sponsor of the bill, but as he is going to work for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, it is unclear who will take the reins. The bill was

Continued on page 6 VOLUME 07, ISSUE 16 | MAY 28 - JUNE 03, 2015

Good Sport Wins With Words

BY SCOTT STIFFLER As a player of three sports and a member of six teams, it was sheer coincidence that Julianna Fabrizio was actually at home to come to the phone, and learn that she was a winner.

Competitive but compassionate, the 13-year-old student at West 17th Street’s NYC Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies recently answered the call from online resource hub New York Sports Connection, whose contest asked 12- to 18-year-olds for short essays on the theme “What Sportsmanship Means to Me.” Awards were based on originality, emotional appeal, use of the theme, grammar and spelling, and writing skills appropriate for the author’s age.

A finalist in the eighth grade category, Fabrizio’s winning entry asked her contemporaries to embody notions of etiquette once the game clock stops tick-

ing. “Why is it,” she wondered, “that it’s very respectable to talk of sportsmanship on the basketball court, and expected of you, yet these unofficial rules don’t always carry through to our everyday lives?”

During a recent phone conversation with Chelsea Now, Fabrizio ticked off the list of her current athletic activities, which have been accumulating since the sixth grade. “The teams I play for,” she noted, “are the Peter Stuyvesant Little League Belles [softball], the Lab Gators [soccer and softball], the Epiphany Blue Jays [basketball], Steady Buckets [basketball], and Manhattan Kickers [soccer].”

Fabrizio’s winning variation on the contest theme came from patterns observed over time, while playing with school and citywide teams.

“It’s the little things,” she says of gender disparities that, while not addressed overtly in her essay,

are very much part of the author’s appeal for an even playing field. “Sometimes people won’t pass the ball to a girl or cheer as hard for a girl. It’s especially important to me that girls are treated equally, just as everyone should be treated equally. And when you are a girl playing among girls, sometimes people will not give you the same respect they will give boys. So it’s important that all players respect everyone — on and off the court.”

Fabrizio is backing up that challenge by donating half of her $100 contest award to Steady Buckets (steadybuckets.org), a nonprofit that provides basketball skills training and academic support to NYC boys and girls, seven days a week. As for her essay, we’ve printed it below, in full. To access the work of all winners, finalists and honorable mentions, visit NewYorkSportsConnection.com.

Sportsmanship: On and Off the Court

BY JULIANNA FABRIZIO When children are first taught to play sports, one of the first things they teach you is good sportsmanship. They tell you to pass the ball and always be nice to your teammates. But once you leave, sportsmanship is hardly ever mentioned. Coaches will tell you after a loss to leave those feelings on the court. However, a good amount of the time not only is the score left on the court, but so is the good sportsmanship that goes along with it.

Unfortunately, at basketball practice, they don’t teach you sportsmanship off the court. It is often never referred to as sportsmanship. We call it many different things such as etiquette, hospitality, and friendliness, to name a few.

Why is it that it’s very respectable to talk of sportsmanship on the basketball court, and expected of you, yet these unofficial rules don’t always carry through to our everyday lives?

Photo by Patrick D’antonio

Photo by Kevin Beauregard

Julianna Fabrizio at bat, during a recent game with the Peter Stuyvesant Little League Belles (one of six teams she belongs to).

Epiphany Blue Jays player Fabrizio, from a March game.

people I see shaking my hand and saying good game on Saturday are the same ones skipping me in line at a pizza parlor?

Sportsmanship is about more than just the game itself. It’s not about shaking hands afterwards, it’s about saying good game regardless of the score. It’s not just about saying sorry for knocking someone over, it’s about meaning it.

It’s about developing friendships with your teammates (and opponents) off of the court. It’s about caring about others regardless of if they’re your teammate, opponent, or a complete stranger.

It’s about supporting your teammates regardless of skill level, gender, or race.

There’s a lot more to sportsmanship than empty words and actions.

Sportsmanship is a degree of

selflessness that is often difficult to achieve. But many don’t strive to achieve that. When we finish a practice at Steady Buckets, we always end it with “hard work.” But hard work doesn’t just apply to the workout skills. It applies to sportsmanship as well. You have to work hard at sportsmanship. It’s not something that’s learned overnight. You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly have good sportsmanship. You have to teach yourself to pick others up when they’re down. You have to teach yourself to care when others are hurt, or achieve a goal. You have to work hard to display sportsmanship both on and off the court. After all, sportsmanship surrounds us. It’s everywhere we look and everywhere we go.

Sportsmanship is not just an unspoken rule of the basketball court, it is a lifestyle. But why is it that the same

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City Scales Back Plan, but Still Allows Increased Building Height

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Photo by Zach Williams

Critics of city plans to rezone contend that the effort undermines their own efforts to boost affordable housing in zoning districts, such as the 200 block of W. 15th St.

Continued from page 1 the first board in Manhattan to receive a presentation from the city Department of Planning (DCP) on how the effort to update contextual zoning would affect its neighborhoods.

Contextual zoning regulates the height, width, setback from street and other elements determining the proportions of a structure known as a building “envelope,” according to a city definition.

At a May 18 meeting of CB4’s Joint Chelsea & Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Land Use Committee, board members remained skeptical that the effort would result in more good than harm despite changes to the plan announced at the meeting.

A previous version of the department’s plan would have increased permitted building heights in the neighborhood in several areas. Four contextual zoning districts within the area bordered by Sixth and Eighth Aves. from W. 14th to W. 23rd Sts. would have received increases of 10 feet for new buildings. But changes presented to CB4 removed that proposed increase. Another type of zoning in Chelsea would have new building heights increase by five feet, according to current plans.

That same type of zoning would allow increased heights of 25 feet for the construction of senior and inclusionary housing in an area now allowing buildings up to 120 feet, according to the DCP. CB4 members reiterated at the meeting previously-stated concerns that the proposed changes would undermine years .com

of work invested in the board’s own neighborhood housing plan. Some members also said that while some proposed height increases are more modest now, the DCP still wants to permit even greater heights for inclusionary and senior housing on the West Side. Historic districts and landmarks would still follow under the purview of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Special districts in Hell’s Kitchen and West Chelsea could have heights boosted by either 25 or 30 feet if the new buildings include senior or inclusionary housing, according to the DCP. Current regulations only allow such buildings to reach 120 or 145 feet.

Current regulations of such zoning districts were set in 1987. Their intent is to make new buildings conform to the overall architectural characters of neighborhoods.

Building practices and other regulations have changed since then, according to the DCP. Floor-to-ceiling heights have increased, and additional infrastructure such as fire sprinklers further crowd space between building stories. The current attention on contextual zoning is one element of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing by 2024. Contextual zoning as it now stands results in nondescript buildings that emphasize conformance with the currently permitted building envelopes rather than quality buildings, according to the DCP. Public review of the proposed text amendment will likely commence later in the summer. The DCP’s proposals will ultimately require the approval of the City Council.

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Clinic Closing Plan ‘Could Have Been Better’ Continued from page 1 community leaders. We will be working with health care professionals, everyone who has something to offer in that fight to achieve that goal.”

In large measure, that goal relies on identifying HIV-positive people and treating them with anti-HIV drugs so they are no longer infectious. And it uses pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), anti-HIV drugs given to HIV-negative people to keep them uninfected. Candidates for PrEP and treatment as prevention (TasP) — the latter appropriate for those with the HIV virus — will be found at the city health department’s nine sexually transmitted disease clinics, among other locations.

So when the city closed its Chelsea clinic on March 21 for a necessary twoyear renovation with no apparent plan to replace the roughly 20,000 visits that clinic gets every year — the most among the nine clinics — community leaders were unhappy.

Asked at a May 22 press conference if the city ever had a plan to replace the services lost when the Chelsea clinic closed and if it will spend the money needed to maintain those services, de Blasio said, “I always try to be careful, I don’t have the details. I don’t want to speak beyond my knowledge. I think it’s fair to say our health commissioner, Mary Bassett, has been extremely careful and conscientious in making sure resources are available to the community.”

In some respects, the Chelsea clinic closing is emblematic of the early going in the Plan to End AIDS. The plan has political support, but not a lot of cash.

When Governor Andrew Cuomo endorsed the plan last year, he also announced that he had negotiated reduced prices for the anti-HIV drugs that are a central component of the

Photo courtesy Gay City News

Mayor Bill de Blasio at a May 22 press conference.

effort. His budget for the state fiscal year that began on April 1, however, only included $10 million in new spending for the plan. Advocates were looking for over $100 million.

In the preliminary budget for the city’s fiscal year (that begins on July 1), de Blasio cut the budgets for the health department and the Human Resources Administration, the two city agencies that will contribute the most resources to the plan. Those cuts were partially restored in the mayor’s executive budget, which was introduced on May 7.

Responding to the preliminary budget, the City Council proposed $9.7 million in new spending for the plan. That cash was not in the executive budget.

The frustration with the Chelsea clinic closing is due to the city knowing that the renovation was pending for at least seven years and getting the required permits for it approved over the course of 2014.

Currently, the health department is sending prospective clinic visitors to its clinic on W. 100th St. It is paying for six

non-profits to park testing vans outside the Chelsea clinic five days a week. The department is contemplating parking a trailer, which will replace the vans, outside the clinic for the duration of the renovation that will provide some of the services the clinic supplied and refer visitors to three Manhattan non-profit clinics.

In an email, Mark Harrington, Executive Director of the Treatment Action Group, wrote, “The community has provided detailed recommendations to [the health department], to elected officials representing Chelsea, and to [Deputy Mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli] and the Mayor regarding the urgent need to fully replace all activities suspended at [the clinic]. Somewhere in Chelsea, ideally close to the original site. To date, my understanding is that while the Deputy Mayor’s office has been supportive of fully resourcing a solution to the problem, [the health department] has failed to propose an adequate interim solution.”

Harrington called the health department’s approach to the clinic closing

“epic incompetence.” Jim Eigo, a member of ACT UP New York, wrote that the health department had “badly botched planning for the closure. (How badly?

Words fail!).”

Following a meeting among advocates, elected officials, and senior health department staff on May 15, Eigo told our sister publication, Gay City News, “We’re going to miss a lot of people who are in acute infection and we’re going to miss a lot of people who are candidates for PrEP.” Harrington, at that time, lamented the lack of adequate city planning on issues also including the persistently high rate of syphilis and hepatitis C in Chelsea, saying, “The other thing we found out is that the city doesn’t have a plan to address the syphilis epidemic. They have to have a clear syphilis response. They don’t.”

Eigo wrote that activists, the health department, and City Councilmember Corey Johnson, the out gay Health Committee chair who represents Chelsea, appear to be approaching a solution. They “secured the support of most of the relevant local politicians (city, state and fed) to support having an ‘enhanced’ trailer at the site that would be equipped to do a full range of STD and HIV testing, free and anonymous.

The cost for a trailer that would have the capacity to test about six thousand people a year on site is modest.”

Throughout the recent controversy, Johnson has been more charitable than the advocates, pointing out that, since 2008, the health department had investigated 80 alternative sites to provide services during the Chelsea renovation, but none was suitable. Asked if the health department did not plan for the closing, he said, “That’s not my impression. I think the planning could have been better.”

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Hostel Offers Sociable Alternative to Hotels, Airbnb

Courtesy Chelsea International Hostel

A double room at Chelsea International Hostel.

Continued from page 1 co-sponsored by City Councilmembers Margaret Chin, David Greenfield and Jumaane D. Williams.

Hostels in the city were not always a rarity.

O’Reilly started renting beds by the week in the late '80s, early '90s, when

the now-defunct Sloane House YMCA (on W. 34th St.) began doing out-oftown transient business, and O’Reilly and the people he worked for followed their example.

At this point in time, he said, everything was done by hand, such as mailing out flyers and contacting other hostels.

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“With the advent of the Internet in the late '90s, early 2000s, the business exploded throughout the city,” he explained.

At one time there were upwards of 10,000 beds in New York City, he said.

That boom lasted until around 2008 when the city started cracking down on illegal hoteling, he said.

“The city threw a net on everything and went after the hostel business like gangbusters because they viewed us as competition for the hotels,” said O’Reilly.

The final nail was a 2010 law that made changes to single room occupancy.

Hostels are not competition for hotels — or for Airbnb, for that matter — because the clientele is not the same, according to O’Reilly.

“Part of the hostel experience is coming here and meeting different people — eating in [a] community setting, hanging out with people from different countries and getting to know each other,” he said.

This international exchange has been going on in Europe for a long time and New York was very popular because it’s a gateway city to the U.S., he said.

The hostel’s location in Chelsea has been one of its main selling points, he said in an email.

“Chelsea has changed a lot over the past 25 years,” he said. “It is a wonderful and safe community that has added so many great eateries, and the kids love the location. Our ratings are [through] the roof when it comes to location.”

O’Reilly said that the hostel is at a prime location to reach every part of the city in a relatively short time.

“We have worked very well with our neighbors to make sure that our customers are never a burden or bother to the residents,” he said.

While O’Reilly acknowledged that petty crime happens, he said the hostel tries to monitor what is going on, and that with strangers staying together in a room, it is part of the business.

He noted, however, “You can go to any city in the world and there are hostels — with bunks, and they’re safe.”

O’Reilly also pointed out that young people who go to hostels patronize mom and pop stores, thus supporting local businesses.

Photo by Scott Stiffler

More on the way? Proposed legislation means to expand the city’s network of hostels, but a veteran manager says developers won’t follow its business model.

If the city is serious about taking a look at hostels, it can’t do so based on old models or laws, he said.

Part of the proposed legislation, which is currently at the committee level, is that licensing and regulation would be handled by the new Office of Licensed Hostels as part of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

O’Reilly said he welcomes the oversight and is looking for a clear set of standards and rules.

“Give me a playlist that I can follow,” he said.

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As Mayor Pledges NYCHA Surplus, Tenants Await Repairs

BY ZACH WILLIAMS Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to transform the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) by streamlining operations, raising tenant fees, shifting funding and seeking partnerships with private developers.

The authority’s finances have deteriorated, with nearly $17 billion in outstanding repairs among its 334 housing developments and an overall $1 billion loss in operating revenue since 2001.

Years of divestment by the state and federal governments necessitates that the city makes its own way in ensuring the financial future of NYCHA which comprises about eight percent of the city’s rental housing, said De Blasio at a May 19 press conference announcing a plan called “Next Generation NYCHA.” “This is, at this moment, the worst financial crisis in the history of NYCHA. That’s what these years of disinvestment have taken us to. And I say that with pain,” he said according to a transcript.

He added that his administration has already taken several measures to relieve some pressure from authority finances by not requiring NYCHA to pay for police services nor taxes to the city. About $300 million in capital funds were committed for capital repairs and safety. The plan aims to save $4.6 billion in repair needs over the next decade, according to de Blasio.

“So we’re going from an organization that’s one month away from going over the edge, in terms of its expense budget, to one that, over the next decade, will produce a $230 million surplus,” he added.

There are 15 elements of the plan organized into four overall goals: achieving financial stability, operational efficiency, building and maintaining affordable housing, and improving services for tenants.

NYCHA will make efforts to improve its rent collection rate from its current level of about 75 percent.

Parking at developments will increase towards market rates. Tenants concerns will now be processed via 311 as part of the process of shifting 10,000 NYCHA employees to other city agencies. About 13,000 units of new housing will arise, most of which are intended to be nearly 100 percent affordable housing — while some will have market-rate tenants in order to raise revenue for the authority.

New partnerships among city agen.com

Photo by Zach Williams

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Next Generation NYCHA” initiative could jumpstart plans to construct a new residential building on a parking lot at Fulton Houses.

cies and community groups will allow the authority to concentrate more on its core mission of housing provision rather than social services, according to the plan.

The location of the new developments will be announced in August.

There is hope that a new building with more than 3,000 units will come to Fulton Houses (btw. W. 16th & 18th Sts., Ninth & 10th Aves.) atop a current parking lot after a decade-long effort. How that building would benefit the development as a whole could be key to garnering community support.

“I don’t want it to be something where you build on our property... and there is no return on the development itself,” said Miguel Acevedo, president of the Fulton Houses Tenants Association, in a telephone interview.

Other local public housing residents meanwhile expressed their own optimism that any plan which would shake up the status quo at the Authority is welcome. The current backlog of apartment repairs often means that tenants wait years for non-emergency repairs.

Plumbing leaks, ceiling cracks, warped floors and stubbornly slow elevator services are part of the public housing experience, according to residents. In a repair-economy of scarcity, the most persistent most often prevail, according to Fulton Houses resident Amalia Rodriguez.

“It’s a long time unless you really put up a fight about it,” she said.

Even when repairs are made, they are often shoddy, she added. A trouble-

some doorknob would sometimes lock her out while at other times lock her inside the apartment where she lives.

A pipe mended with electrical tape failed anew. Persistent mildew afflicts the Chelsea-Elliot Houses (btw. W.

25th & 27th Sts., Ninth & 10th Aves.)

Longtime resident Juan Tejada said through an interpreter meanwhile that he prevailed in getting a new tiled floor

Continued on page 15

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

Publisher

Jennifer Goodstein

Editor Scott Stiffler

Editorial Assistant Sean Egan

Art Director Michael Shirey

Graphic Designers Andrew Gooss Chris Ortiz

Web Master Troy Masters

Contributors Stephanie Buhmann Sean Egan Michael Lydon Dusica Sue Malesevic Winnie McCroy Puma Perl Paul Schindler Trav S.D. Eileen Stukane Zach Williams

Executive VP of Advertising Amanda Tarley

Account Executives Jack Agliata Allison Greaker Jennifer Holland Jim Steele Julio Tumbaco Published by

NYC Community Media, LLC

One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Phone: (212) 229-1890 Fax: (212) 229-2790 www.chelseanow.com scott@chelseanow.com © 2015 NYC Community Media, LLC

Member of the New York Press Association Chelsea Now is published biweekly by NYC Community Media LLC, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. (212) 229-1890. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $75. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2015 NYC Community Media LLC, Postmaster: Send address changes to Chelsea Now, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY FOR ERROR: The Publisher shall

not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue.

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May 28 - June 03, 2015

Carriage horses are not commodities To The Editor: This is a plea, asking Councilmember Corey Johnson to vote for Intro 573, when it comes up for a vote in the City Council.

It will, once and for all, ban the carriage horses from New York City.

This “tradition” has been around since the mid 1800s. It’s time to bring it to an end. You don’t have to have two legs to be a slave — and that’s what these horses are. They are unwilling laborers for their “owners.” They are denied freedom of any kind, their natural instincts are thwarted, and they are nothing more than objects of property for profit.

We can do better. We must do better.

We must evolve beyond this exploitation now. Horses know the difference between pleasure and suffering. They are sentient beings, not commodities. We must realize this, and act on it.

Councilmember Johnson, please vote for Intro 573.

Thank you.

Jean Khatchadourian

Tommy Tune deserves Tony time To The Editor: I am addressing the fact that The Lifetime Achievement Award will NOT be presented during the Tony telecast (June 7). I would like to change that!

Lifetime achievement awards are awarded to recognize contributions over the whole of a career — rather than, or in addition to, single contributions. This year’s recipient is Tommy Tune and he is certainly deserving of this award. He has won nine Tony Awards and is the only person in theatrical history to win in four different categories (and to win the same two Tony Awards two years in a row).

With this Lifetime Achievement Award, he will have an unprecedented 10 Tony Awards!

Tommy danced onto the Broadway scene in the chorus of “Baker Street” in 1965 and hasn’t stopped since. He worked in the choruses of “A Joyful Noise” in 1967 and “How Now Dow Jones” in 1968. He garnered raves and his first Tony (Best Featured Actor in a Musical) in Michael Bennett’s “Seesaw” in 1973. Branching out, he directed his first show, the OffBroadway production of “The Club” in 1976. “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” was his next venture, followed

by “A Day in the Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine” and his second Tony (Best Choreography).

Tommy returned to off-Broadway in 1981 to direct Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud 9.” In 1982, “Nine” brought him a third Tony (Best Direction of a Musical). Mr. Tune pulled double duty in “My One and Only” and was rewarded with his fourth and fifth Tony (Best Choreography, Best Actor in a Musical). This was followed by “Stepping Out,” and then he received his next two Tonys with “Grand Hotel” (Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical). The following year brought the “Will Rogers Follies” and his next two Tony Awards (Best Choreography, Best Musical).

Not satisfied to remain stationary, Mr. Tune returned to the stage in his acclaimed one-man song and dance extravaganza, “Tommy Tune Tonight!” first on Broadway, and then touring nationally and internationally.

He continues to perform, and epitomizes why Tonys are given out in the first place.

It is an insult to a body of work and worth to be relegated to not be a part of the very telecasts that purports to celebrate excellence in the theatre!

Please help me get him the respect he deserves and allow his legion of fans to celebrate with him by writing to the Tony Committee directly, at tonyawards.com. Find petition information at RichardSkipper.com.

Theatre Lovers: Lifetime Achievement Award winners should be celebrated as PART of The Tony Telecast.

Richard Skipper

Disabled get screwed To The Editor: Able-bodied Westbeth artists leave the building through the main entrance at 55 Bethune St. and down four steps to the sidewalk. The mobility impaired who can’t maneuver the steps come and go through the entrance on 744 Washington St., designated by the Department of Transportation [DOT] as the official place for pickup and drop-off by accessible vehicles. It also has an indoor waiting area with chairs.

Sometime ago, the board of directors, in violation of city law, narrowed the already narrow Washington St. sidewalk to an illegal 3-foot width — not wide enough for maneuvering a wheelchair — when scaffolding posts were placed directly on the sidewalk. In June 2014 the board’s executive director announced that the scaffolding was improper and would be replaced

by October 2014 with a wider, legal one.

In December, not only had it not been replaced, it was extended, and a violation was issued by DOT and the Department of Buildings [DOB].

Recently, the board, with unthinkable arrogance, and the tacit approval of DOT and DOB, had the Washington St. sidewalk lined with concrete barriers, banning assessable vehicles from the pickup zone, and instructed Access-a-Ride passengers to wait on the corner of Bethune St. or Bank St. instead. The mobility-impaired who cannot navigate the scaffolding posts or the stairs are now forced to take the following route: leave the elevator, go through the mailroom, up a ramp with no rail or platform, through a glassed-in foyer, into the inner courtyard, through the underpass, down a too-steep ramp, across the broken surface of the outer courtyard, turn left at Bank St., and go half a block to Washington St., and wait on the corner of Bank St. or Bethune St. for their ride — rain or shine.

Also recently, a screwdriver fell eight floors from the scaffolding to the corner of Washington and Bethune Sts., nearly missing an artist in a wheelchair and another passerby. Nevertheless, this potentially dangerous situation, the board tells us, will continue until the end of the summer. To quote Clint Eastwood: “Are you feeling lucky?”

Margie Rubin Rubin is a member, Disabled in Action

Feedback from Facebook Re: “Curbside Homestead, and Hope, for Former Chelsea Merchant” (feature, May 21, 2015): Shows you that sometimes the homeless situation is more complicated than we even thought. Mr. Morris has quite a story and I wish that there was some place he could find a warehouse to live his dream.

Excellent story.

Kc Williams

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to Scott@ChelseaNow. com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to Chelsea Now, Letters to the Editor, NYC Community Media, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. Chelsea Now reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Chelsea Now does not publish anonymous letters. .com

POLICE BLOTTER ASSAULT: And pepper Things got spicy near the southwest corner of 11th Ave. and W. 29th St. on Sat., May 23. Police say that a 34-year-old man engaged an unknown woman there in an argument just after 3 a.m. Their exchange became testy for unknown reasons and the woman attacked the man with pepper spray. The woman was not found by police during a subsequent search of the area.

UNAUTHORIZED USE OF MOTOR VEHICLE: Legally drunk behind the wheel Police disagreed with a 22-year-old woman who reportedly reckoned that “three cups of Hennessy” would not affect her driving abilities. An officer observed a green 2007 Nissan Murano back into a tree on the 400 block of W. 23rd St. on Sun., May 24. The driver did not have permission to use the car, which belonged to a 24-year-old Brooklyn man.

A quick peak inside the car at about 4:30 a.m. revealed a bottle of whiskey on the passenger side floor with the engine running and the woman sitting behind the wheel. She was arrested for the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanor, and then taken to a police station where she blew .03 percent below the legal maximum of .08 percent blood alcohol content. The police report did not state how she came into possession of the automobile.

PETIT LARCENY: Stomach for theft Two unknown men evidently wanted to wage a cheap battle against stomach acid — but first they needed their weapons. They went for a full-fingered discount on Sun., May 24 at a Duane Reade located at 322 Eighth Ave. A 22-year-old employee saw them stuff their pants with $688 worth of stomach medicine before they promptly left the premises at about 3:50 p.m. Police have not found the suspects who are wanted for petit larceny, a misdemeanor.

PETIT LARCENY: Free beer ruse One man distracted a store employee, the other snatched the beer. This teamwork garnered a 12-pack of Heineken beer for two perpetrators on Fri., May 22. They entered a 7-Eleven located at .com

368 Eighth Ave. just before 9 p.m. that night. Luck accommodated their execution of the scheme because there was no video surveillance of the two perpetrators who saved $20.18 through their thievery.

Police would like to charge them with petit larceny though, a misdemeanor.

BURGLARY: Church loses computers A 41-year-old woman returned to Metro Baptist Church (410 W. 40th St.) on the evening of Sat., May 23 to a strange scene. There were water bottles all over the floor of a back office, she told police.

There were no signs of forced entry to the building but at least one unauthorized visitor had pried open a metal cabinet and helped him or herself to three laptops and two tablet computers sometime between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. The total value of the loot was about $3,275, according to a police report. No video surveillance was available but police collected possible DNA evidence from a red pair of scissors found at the scene.

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Rhymes With Crazy

What a Rush: The Sweet Science of Grocery Shopping

BY LENORE SKENAZY Not everyone shares my hobby, but let me put it out there. It is grocery shopping. Nothing I enjoy more. And since we live in the city, I’m shopping all the time, because who has space for those container ports of Country Crock the folks in the suburbs stock up on?

But if I’m tingling every time I wander down the cereal aisle hoping that Kellogg’s just might have scored another home run like Kraves (basically, wafer cookie meets molten chocolate cake meets “breakfast”), I can’t help wondering who’s yanking our collective chain when it comes to the items on sale.

I realize this is the dictionary definition of First World problem, but when the sign in the supermarket window screams, “Oreos, $2.99!” I expect to find Oreos for $2.99. And by “Oreos” I mean the most popular cookie in America, consisting of two chocolate cookies separated, yet also bound together (talk about your existential metaphor!), by “cream.”

On sale weeks at my local grocery,

these are harder to find than a “Jeb for President” button in George Stephanopoulos’s accessory drawer.

Oh, there are piles and piles of Oreo options, all right: Double Stuf, Mint, Fudge-Coated. There are “Heads or Tails Oreos,” which have a vanilla cookie on one side and a chocolate one on the other. (I tried to describe these to a friend as “black and white Oreos,” to which she replied, “Aren’t all Oreos black and white?”)

Actually, missy, they aren’t. Because now there are “Golden Oreos,” which are albino.

And then there’s always the nearly pristine stash of “Birthday Cake Oreos” — Oreos with sprinkles embedded in the cream, sought after by the same demographic that demands M&M’s in its brownies.

I left that demographic about four

decades and 17 cavities ago.

My frustration on finding a sea of Oreos and not one sleeve of the Platonic Oreo ideal is matched only by my fury at the Friendly’s ice cream selection at sale time. Drawn in by that same promise of a $2.99 treat (never $3, of course), I make my way to the freezer case and scorn all the other ice creams that are not on sale that week. Turkey Hill for $5.69. Doesn’t it realize how ridiculous it looks? Who would buy that? (Until next week when it goes on sale, I mean.) And the store brand, at $3.99? Don’t make me laugh.

Then look! There’s Ben & Jerry (& Unilver)’s, the megalithic corporation that pretends to dream up its flavors lying on its back in the haze of a Grateful Dead concert. One pint-sized container of Ben/Jerry/Uni costs more than the entire carton of delicious vanilla

Friendly’s I am about to grab — except, of course, there is no vanilla!

Oh, there’s Moose Tracks galore.

Rum Raisin by the barrel. If you’re looking for Rocky Road ice cream with Raw Cookie Dough Chunks, my friend, you are in luck. But if you want vanilla ice cream without a swirl? Vanilla on its own, unflanked by strawberry and chocolate flunkies so short on self-esteem they are excited to be purchased, even though they’re riding vanilla’s coat tails?

But wait…behind the mint chip… could it be? Yes! There’s one bashed carton of vanilla with a sticky trickle down its side. I can see the little crystals formed where a piece of the lid was ripped off.

Oh wait — it is low-fat.

And sugar free.

And actually, it is yogurt.

Who cares? I grab it and head home, ecstatic. It’ll taste fine, once I crumble some Birthday Cake Oreos on top.

Lenore Skenazy is a public speaker and founder of the book and blog FreeRange Kids (freerangekids.com).

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11

You May Have Missed This, B

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

FLEET WEEK ROCKED It was another tough assignment for our photographer Jenny Rubin, as we sent her to Times Square on May 23 to cover Fleet Week activities.

Between bouts of prolonged swooning (on the part of tourists, and maybe a bit of her own), Rubin captured images from a concert featuring music from the Navy Band Northeast’s “Rhode Island Sound” and performances from the USCG Silent Drill Team.

HELL’S KITCHEN STREET TREE CARE Prune some things from your schedule if you must — whatever it takes to give some love back to the trees that line the side streets of that place some call “Clinton.” The West 45/46 Street Block Association is hosting a Street Tree Care event that puts the TLC in H-E-DoubleHockey-Sticks’ Kitchen. They write: “Ever notice the sorry state of our tree beds? We don’t just mean the ridiculous garbage people feed our trees — join us to learn about the danger of impacted soil, buried roots and much more. We’ll supply gloves and tools, and we’ll all get to work on making our trees much healthier.

Our trees need YOU!” The event takes place Sat., June 6 and is led

by David Korman, an area resident and trained Tree Captain through Million Trees NY. For details, send an email to west45thstreet@gmail.com.

On Facebook: facebook.com/westfortyfifthstreet.blockassociation.

“TAP ATTACK” TRIBUTE Hudson River Park’s Pier 45 played host to dozens of syncopated hoofers, who took part in a May 24 “Tap Attack” celebration. The event anticipated National Tap Dance Day, which falls on May 25 to mark the birthday of tap dance legend Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878-1949). Tony Waag, Executive/Artistic Director of the American Tap Dance Foundation (154 Christopher St.), told the participants they were following in the footsteps of “Gregory Hines, Donald O’Connor, Honi Coles and the Copasetics. This is the perfect occasion to honor those history makers as well as motivate dancers to preserve the art form.” For

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Photo by Morgan McMahon

Dozens of tappers — young and old, students and professionals — gathered at Pier 45 in anticipation of May 25’s National Tap Dance Day.

the skinny on strapping on some spats of your own, visit atdf.org.

SHRED DAY NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, NYC Councilmember Corey Johnson and the AARP invite you to “Shred Day.” Bring up to three boxes (per household) of documents containing personal and/ or sensitive information — and have them torn to bits, free of charge. Wed., June 3, 3–7 p.m. at Penn South (at W. 26 St. btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). For info, call the Community Action Center at 212-669-3916.

HUDSON GUILD’S ANNUAL SPRING BAZAAR As grassroots fundraises go, it’s quite crafty (literally!). Hudson Guild’s Spring Bazaar, open to the Chelsea and West Side community, offers handmade items, jewelry, toys and household goods — and a food court offering ethnic specialty dishes.

In addition to the ceramics, beading, crocheting and other crafts created by participant classes and clubs, community vendors and local artisans will also be represented. “There are some very talented people here.

Photo by Chana Widawski

At Hell’s Kitchen Commons (W. 45 St.), from last October’s Street Tree Care Project. The next installment happens on June 6.

The Bazaar is a testament to our participants’ commitment to rediscovery and lifelong learning,” says Fredrick Miuzzo, Program Manager of Adult Services. “Plus, it’s a great chance to purchase unique, handmade gifts.”

All funds raised go directly towards funding Hudson Guild’s Adult

Services programming, which helps seniors live in independence and with dignity as contributing members of their community.

Sat., May 30, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. at Hudson Guild’s Fulton Center (119 Ninth Ave. btw. W. 17th & 18th Sts.).

For info, visit hudsonguild.org. .com

But You Can Still Catch That

Photo by Jenny Rubin

Members of our military rocked out, May 23, in the heart of Times Square.

Photo by Scott Stiffler

Courtesy Hudson Guild

No, it’s not a pop-up promo for the new “Jurassic Park” flick. This dinothemed vehicle rolls into town June 3, to shred your sensitive documents.

Sweet faces and fair prices, from the vendors at Hudson Guild’s Spring Bazaar (May 30).

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The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce & Chelsea Now Support

The

n e p O s i ge

a l l i V t s Ea

ness i s u b e illag V t s a E last e b t i e r h o t v y r fa ed b u t o c y e ff p a o Sh hose t t r o p p and su

T

he “East Village Loves� campaign is conceived by the East Village Independant Merchants Association (EVIMA) and encourages residents and visitors to shop local at their favorite East Village spots. Many businesses affected by the blast have re-opened and are ready for your visit.

The campaign is a celebration of the rich, diverse, and historic neighborhood in lower manhattan, characterized by a concentration of mom-and-pop establishments that are becoming less common throughout the city

#EastVillageLoves evimanyc.org

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May 28 - June 03, 2015

.com

At Fulton Houses, Cautious Celebrating Hope for Next Gen NYCHA LGBTQ Leaders Harlem Pride & Public Advocate Letitia James to honor leading LGBTQ businesses, entrepreneurs, & charities.

Photo by Zach Williams

Unreliable elevator service (seen here at Chelsea-Elliot Houses) is one of the most vexing problems for public housing residents.

Continued from page 7 for his apartment. But it was not quite what he expected. The repairman utilized an array of differently shaped and colored tiles to do the job, Tejada said.

Feelings that NYCHA residents are not getting their due have not escaped the notice of Councilmember Corey Johnson who expressed support in a statement for the plan.

“NYCHA residents have been treated like second-class citizens for too long.

No tenant should have to wait several months or longer for basic repairs. No child should have to play on broken playgrounds and no senior should have to walk on cracked pavement,” he said.

Some residents do their own repairs, though. When a toilet broke, ChelseaElliot Houses resident Chris Bautist said he called a plumber friend rather than sacrifice several days waiting for a NYCHA-

appointed repairman who would only come at an unspecified time within an eight-hour window. But management is not the only problem, he added. Fellow residents should take better care of their homes and community facilities alike, according to Bautist — who swore that this would be the last year he manages a community garden there, because of all the garbage residents throw onto it from their residential windows.

But don’t do your own repairs at Baruch Houses in the East Village, residents warn.

Such initiative can result in grudges from management who nonetheless do not like residents to complain too much, said longtime resident James Johnson.

The housing project has seen better days — 60 percent of NYCHA buildings are more than 50 years old — yet the management system should be better despite the difficulties currently afflicting the authority, Johnson added.

“It needs help,” he said.

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT The All-New Adventures of an Aging Urban Elf Rev. Jen on trudging through life with creativity and grace

BY REVEREND JEN (rev-jen.com) This morning, I had a conversation with my boyfriend, Joe, which went something like this: Me: I would really love a burrito from Puebla Coffee Shop.

Joe: It’s closed.

Me: We could go to Benny’s Burrittos.

Joe: It’s closed.

Me: A falafel from Bereket?

Joe: Closed. I wish we could go to Olympic Diner.

Me: Closed. I wish we could go to Jade Liquor.

Joe: Closed.

Me: I know! Let’s go to the bank!

They’re all still open.

(We both fall back asleep.)

No doubt, the city is changing.

I moved here when I was 18. I’m now 42 and a lot of the things I once loved in New York City have vanished (including dudes), replaced with banks, unaffordable bars and luxury housing. Don’t mean to overstate the obvious, but every day that I walk into my bathroom, it amazes me no one’s installed an ATM next to the toilet. But what am I gonna do?

Move? Hell no! As a New Yorker, it’s my duty to stay here and bitch about pretty much everything.

I’m also changing, physically and philosophically. I realize that due to medical science and advanced cosmetology, 42 isn’t that old. However, when you are a female and in showbiz, the world treats you as if you age in dog years. Maybe, if they do a remake of “Cocoon,” I can get a job as an unpaid extra and that’s actually about it. But really, I’m not that vain, though I would like to have my face Botoxed to a point where I look like a plastic Mattel version of myself.

I’d like to have ass fat removed and used to make prosthetic elf ears, then have my ass remodeled to look like a Kardashian’s. I want teeth whitening, laser facials and all grays eradicated from my scalp. But I can’t afford any .com

Photo by Joe Heaps Nelson

L to R: Reverend Jen Junior, Reverend Jen and Tina Trachtenburg defy age while doing their part to keep NYC weird.

of these things so I remind myself that lions don’t dye their hair and they are the most beautiful animals on earth. Of course they’ll all likely be extinct in 40 years, and I write this while staring at a bottle of hair dye on my vanity.

Aging is confounding but the payoff is in sight. When I was younger, I thought the world owed me something. Now that I am older I realize I owe the world something. This is a sentiment shared by four of my best friends, all of whom recently turned 50. So this is a column for them, about transformation, aging and the wisdom that comes from realizing

that, even if you live to be 100, your life is already half over!

Tina Trachtenburg, Bruce Ronn, Tom Tenney and Faceboy have all reached this pivotal year, trudging through the shit-show of life with aplomb, creativity and grace. All are involved in projects that make New York City fun despite the fun police (landlords) trying to ruin everything.

Let’s start with Tina Trachtenburg — who I first met years ago when she came to my open mike with her daughter, Rachel and her husband, Jason. They were the “Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players,” the first unsigned band to ever perform on

“Conan” and three of the coolest people I ever met. They invited me to be their opening act because, as Tina said, “You are so weird you make our family look normal.” We traveled the country together and eventually London, where I was gossiped about even more than I am here. All three are animal rights activists who don’t just talk the talk; they walk the walk.

Tina spent the winter building cat shelters out of storage boxes, which she insulated and provided with tunnels so the kittehs could enter and exit. She also just took a course on trap/neuter and release to help control the stray population and thus save many a kitteh from doom.

I met up with Tina in Washington Square, where she’s turned her passion for animals into art, selling handmade, felt-fabricated pigeon replicas of the winged New Yorkers to park-goers, thus garnering a bit of income while raising awareness about the oft-loathed species. “I always loved pigeons,” Tina said. “Ever since I moved here in the '80s. I didn’t understand the hatred. I have 20 pigeons on my roof. Some I’ve rehabilitated and released. Some I feed every day.” If you think of pigeons as “rats with wings” you might wanna Google “Cher Ami,” a female pigeon who saved more than 500 men in World War I. Or, just visit Tina in the park and she’ll school ya.

(Note: Tina’s pigeon-themed art installation is mobile so check out her Twitter: @motherpigeon, her website: motherpigeon.com and Instagram: @motherpigeonbrooklyn for info on where she’ll be.)

On to Bruce Ronn. If you read my last column, you know that he and I just started our own publishing imprint: Art Star Scene Press. We did this because we didn’t want to deal with big publishing companies who, today, would reject “Catcher in the Rye” or “On the Road” because they are stupid. The first title we put out is my filthy S&M novel, “June.” The

Continued on page 19 May 28 - June 03, 2015

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With Creativity and Drive, Aging Art Stars Keep on Truckin’ Continued from page 17 second, soon-to-be-released novel, “Talking About the Weather,” is by Bruce and focuses on a character suffering through Chicago’s '95 heat wave. Check us out on Facebook.

(We don’t know how to make a website!)

For Bruce’s 50th birthday, I threw a 1965-themed party at the Troll Museum, where we listened to '60s music and dressed like Beatniks. (Oh wait…we always do that…) Anyway, several guests hopped into the bathtub, which draws visitors because it’s in my kitchen. They then regaled in a sing-along to “Eve of Destruction” — which was written in '65 along with pretty much every great song ever composed, including “Satisfaction.”

Can I please time travel to '65 for undiluted acid and the absence of “American Idol?”

Actually, '65 wasn’t exactly a trip to Cancun. Lyndon B. Johnson was in office and the Vietnam War was getting started. However, it’s appropriate that the party was held at the Troll Museum because Lady Bird Johnson was a troll collector.

Tom Tenney: Yet another of my friends who just turned 50 and ages like fine wine yet never slows down has launched a new, ambitious project along with Robert Prichard, producer of “Radical Vaudeville” and former proprietor of Surf Reality. The Bushwick-based Radio Free Brooklyn is an online station being broadcast from their studio in the basement of the Brooklyn-Velo Bike Shop on Dekalb Avenue, and can be heard on radiofreebrooklyn.com and mobile devices.

RFB offers both live and pre-recorded original programming created by the community of artists and performers that Tenney and Prichard have been a part of for decades. Some of the shows lined up for the first season include “Live from the Hipster Triangle,” hosted by comedian Liam McEneaney, “Lunch with Legs,” a live bi-weekly talk show hosted by burlesque artist Legs Malone, and “The Brooklyn Curmudgeon Hour,” a weekly round table on community issues, featuring a rotating panel of borough residents.

According to the station’s mission statement, “Radio Free Brooklyn aims to build a communication infrastructure to strengthen the commu.com

Photo by George Courtney

Bonnie Hall and her half-century-old son in Washington Square Park, at Faceboy’s happy, healthy, family-oriented birthday party.

Photo by Stacey Kramer Bowling

Though she was born a long, long time ago, your mother should know the songs on this list (from Amtrak’s magazine, not the AARP’s).

Photo by George Courtney

Rev. Jen plays football with Walter, adorable spawn of Art Stars Tia and Warren.

nity of artists who have been driven from the Manhattan neighborhoods we once called home before being scattered to the corners of the outer boroughs.” Note: I am still trapped in Manhattan. However, I made the trek out to Brooklyn for the RFB launch party at Lucky 13, where it seems more and more Art Star events are transpiring.

Radio Free Brooklyn will also feature a show hosted by Faceboy, my friend of over 20 years, who hosted

the infamous “Faceboyz Open Mike” at Surf Reality and helped me start my own open mike. “Art Star Scene Radio,” an hour-long weekly talk show with occasional musical guests, broadcasts live every Saturday at 7 p.m. In addition to promoting the many wild and wonderful things birthed from the Art Star Scene, Faceboy will also focus on serious topics like healing (ourselves, others and the planet).

This past week we celebrat-

ed Faceboy’s 50th birthday with a shockingly non-debauched picnic in Washington Square Park.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in drinking, smoking and screwing, we forget the simple pleasures in life — like sitting on the grass and noticing a round ball in the sky that provides us with a strange phenomenon called sunshine. Also, some of our friends actually have children now, so we can’t be bad all the time.

At said family-friendly picnic, I had the opportunity to borrow a football from a group of bros and teach two of my friend’s kids (Walter and Miranda) to play. Then we played Frisbee, played with water guns and walked Reverend Jen Junior. It was so much fun, I almost forgot the contraband rum and soda I’d snuck in. As Faceboy pointed out, if you’d asked him ten years ago how he wanted to celebrate his 50th, it would have been something “unprintable” — but the entire day made him supremely happy. Face also noted that Earth Day was founded in 1970, which officially makes him older than dirt.

To all my wonderful friends who are now older than dirt, I salute your creativity and drive.

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Keeping Up With Mr. Jones What was new 50 years ago, pussycat?

BY JIM MELLOAN Sometime in 1965 or '66, I recall seeing an album by Tom Jones in Baron’s, the local drug store in Westfield, NJ. I thought he was the ugliest man I’d ever seen. Looking back on his album covers now, I can’t imagine which one it was.

He doesn’t look at all bad to me now on his first album, released in the U.S. as “It’s Not Unusual.” Obviously I had a lot to learn about what appeals to women.

Fifty years ago, his first hit, the song by the same name, was climbing the Billboard Hot 100. On the May 22 chart, it was at No. 15, and it peaked in the U.S. at No. 10 the following week. In the U.K. it went to No. 1, helped to the top by heavy play from Radio Caroline, an offshore pirate radio station. It was a spectacular song that launched a spectacular career. Jones will turn 75 next month, and remains active.

Jones, born Thomas Jones Woodward in Treforest, South Wales, hooked up with manager Gordon Mills, also from South Wales, in 1964. Mills, who co-wrote “It’s Not Unusual” with Les

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Reed, had Woodward change his name to Tom Jones to capitalize on the popularity of the 1963 movie of that name. It was the first of several iconic tunes that epitomize what Jones does best: brassy bombast.

“It’s Not Unusual” was followed up by the even more audacious “What’s New Pussycat?” — the Bachrach/David theme song to the first movie scripted

by Woody Allen. That one went to No. 3 in the U.S. “Thunderball,” the theme to the James Bond movie, was written by John Barry and Don Black in an admirably similar thunderous vein, but it did not do very well, and so for a while Mills turned Jones to country songs, with the biggest hit being “Green, Green Grass of Home,” a No. 1 hit in the U.K. at the end of 1966. My family lived in London from 1966 to 1970, and I remember my mom bought that one (not sure if it was a present or because she liked it).

Wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I have since enjoyed performing it myself; it’s easy to play.

In 1967 Jones first played Vegas,

where he met Elvis Presley, and the two were good friends until Presley’s death in 1977.

It was here that his stage presence developed: gyrations, unbuttoned shirts, and tight pants, which provoked female hysteria of a much more sexual sort than that enjoyed by rarerecords.net The Beatles. The panties “It’s Not Unusual” has reached the half-century and hotel keys started to mark, having aged just as well as Tom Jones. be flung onstage. Jones estimates that for a while lot of country material, including nine he was bedding about 250 groupies a year. He stayed mar- songs that made the U.S. Country chart, ried to the girl he married at age 17 but there were no crossovers. But then, (they had a son, Mark, Tom’s only off- in 1988, he came back with a venspring, in 1957). Once, though, she beat geance, teaming up with The Art of the shit out of him for his infidelities. Noise to cover Prince’s 1986 hit, “Kiss.”

Among his hookups was Mary Wilson The video shows him in fine form, sure of The Supremes. Cassandra Peterson, of himself, full of himself, and onto better known as Elvira, says she lost her himself. That song made No. 5 in the U.K. but didn’t chart here. In 2000 he virginity to him.

In 1968 Jones returned to form with released a similarly self-aware hit with the magnificent “Delilah,” followed by “Sex Bomb,” a “duet” with a German “Help Yourself.” His TV show, “This Is DJ/producer named Mousse T., who Tom Jones,” ran on ITV in the U.K. and mutters along to the words and does ABC in the U.S. from 1969 to 1971. seem to wear a lot of mousse, and bears You want a hot party? Check out his some resemblance to Charlie Sheen.

Jones has had a couple more Top Ten duet with Janis Joplin on “Raise Your Hand” from that show. As the culture U.K. hits since then, and since 2012 he continued at fever pitch into 1970, he has been a coach on The Voice U.K. Wow, you really do know what’s hapwas a guest on an extravagant Raquel Welch special “Raquel!” along with pening, don’t you, Mr. Jones? showbiz stalwarts John Wayne and Bob Jim Melloan is a writer, actor, Hope.

In 1971, “She’s a Lady” — one of musician, and editor. He does occamany “Lady” songs from that era — was sional columns for this publication perhaps a futile attempt to appease fem- on pop music from 50 years ago.

His radio show “50 Years Ago This inists by raising the pedestal.

And then, for a long time, not much. Week” airs Tuesdays from 8–10 p.m.

From 1980 to 1988 Jones released a on RadioFreeBrooklyn.com.

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Just Do Art

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

THE UPPER ROOM What happens to the back-to-theland movement when the sea threatens to claim the soil meant to sustain its participants? Set on an island off the north coast of Maine, the members of a one-thriving commune can all fit around a lone table. There, they gather to confront the changing environment — in the form of rising waters, and unexplained ailments sustained by certain members of their dwindling ranks. Employing dark humor, spiritual meditations, antique scuba suits, overhead projections and a musical score that’s mixed live, “The Upper Room” is spearheaded by the husband-and-wife team of Jeremy Bloom and Brian Rady. Their Rady&Bloom Collective Playmaking projects emphasize high energy, mythological storytelling, stripped down production values and raw material created not just in collaboration with the ensemble, but strongly influenced by their individual strengths and eccentricities.

Through June 12. Tues.–Sat. at 8 p.m. At the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher St. btw. Greenwich & Washington Sts.). For tickets ($18, $15 for students/seniors), visit NewOhioTheatre. org or call 888-596-1027. For artist info: RadyAndBloom.com.

TYONDAI BRAXTON: HIVE Experimental musician Tyondai Braxton’s upcoming three-night residency presents a new work marking his debut as a recording artist on the Nonesuch label. The eight pieces on Braxton’s “HIVE” album (his first

Courtesy Rady&Bloom Collective Playmaking

The tide is high, but they carry on. In “The Upper Room,” dwindling members of a commune gather to confront strange changes, inside and out.

release in six years) have been in development since 2013, with live performance stops at the Guggenheim, the Sydney Opera House and London’s Barbican Centre. This series, at The Kitchen, is accompanied by a site-specific work by mixed-media artist Grace Villamil, and has Braxton and his fellow musicians sitting cross-legged atop their own space-age oval pods. Light emitting through the perforated pod walls changes according to the sonic mood created by the performers, whose singular purpose and deep connection embodies the hive mind and the “HIVE” music.

Wed., June 4–Sat., June 6, at 8 p.m.

At The Kitchen (512 W 19th St. btw.

10th & 11th Aves.). For tickets ($20), visit thekitchen.org or call 212-2555793. Artist info at tyondaibraxton.com.

WELCOME HOME SONNY T As members of Staten Island’s African-American and Mexican communities face mounting gun violence, an older generation must confront their own legacy. “Sonny T” spotlights the social impact of alienation and unemployment on young black males, as well as the declining influence of the church. Part of a seven-member cast, Richard Pryor Jr. (son of the comedian) plays a prominent black minister and

former '60s radical grappling with his own inability to restore order. The first in a five-part “Gunplay” series, this staged reading is followed by a talkback session with the cast and playwright/ director William Electric Black. With part two in the series (“When Black Boys Die”) having recently closed a run at Theater for the New City, part three (“Body Bags or Why Calvin Wants A Superhero”) will premiere in 2016.

Visit gunplays.org for more info.

“Welcome Home Sonny T” happens Mon., June 1, 7 p.m. at the Castillo Theatre (543 W. 42nd St., btw 10th & 11th Aves.). Tickets are $10. For reservations, call 212-941-1234 or visit castillo.org.

Photo by Dusdin Condren

Photo by Lee Wexler

Experimental musician Tyondai Braxton celebrates his new album with a residency at The Kitchen (June 4–6).

A mother grieves over the death of her son, in “Welcome Home Sonny T.” The first in William Electric Black’s “Gunplay” series will have a June 1 reading.

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May 28 - June 03, 2015

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WE’VE GONE WEEKLY Aquarius Like a lost explorer, you will mistake a wrong turn for the right destination. Plant your flag with caution, and try not to destroy the native culture.

Pisces Proceed with caution, bold Pisces, when a charismatic stranger pitches his “can’t-lose” business plan. Few survive falls from a pyramid!

Aries You will become invigorated, then scared, then full of righteous resolve when a crucial workplace task is increased twofold.

Taurus Uncharacteristic actions taken on your summer vacation are like Fleet Week hook-ups: pleasant diversions best not to be repeated or turned into general audience slide shows.

Gemini Laundry static, needy friends, stupid superstitions and leather pants that no longer fit: these are things whose cling you must conquer.

Cancer Structure is the last thing you need this week. Keep plans, morals and standards loose, and an epic adventure will be your reward.

Leo Like the most solid slab of granite, a mental roadblock will yield to the power of persistent hammering. Lucky numbers: 8, 78, 32, 27, 9.

Virgo On the second Wednesday of next month, the universe will gift you with the ability to glean investment tips from the third word in the slogan on a distant billboard.

Libra Beware the beguiling new barista, shopkeep, humble newsie or sassy seamstress who tempts you to stray from a proven routine.

EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING & WE WANT YOU TO BE PART OF IT

Scorpio Odd details from an uneasy dream about your role in a popular traveling circus act will provide a window into the motives of a casual acquaintance.

EXPANDED WEEKLY DISTRIBUTION FROM 14 TH STREET TO 57 TH STREET

Sagittarius Why keep dancing down brick roads, questing for wizards and compulsively clicking your heels? You’re already home, silly Sagittarius.

Capricorn A breakthrough realization this Thursday afternoon has you ready to get on the bus — but choose your route carefully, and wisely, cautious Capricorn.

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ASK ABOUT BUSINESS SPOTLIGHTS TO TELL YOUR STORY NEW EXPANDED ARTS COVERAGE

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