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VOLUME 29, NUMBER 4

Arrest in assault at The Battery

Brooklyn man was arrested in Lower Manhattan on Feb. 17 after he allegedly knocked out a tourist and fractured his skull in The Battery last week when the victim refused to buy tickets to the Statue of Liberty, police say. Police caught Brooklyn resident Robert Andersen, 25, early on Wednesday in the confines of the First Precinct, according to the N.Y.P.D. He was charged with felony assault for punching the 33-year-old victim in the face around 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 15, causing him to strike his head on the pavement, fracturing his skull, police say. The victim, Arkansas native William White, was at the Whitehall Ferry terminal with his wife, The New York Post reported. White was initially approached by Andersen’s girlfriend, who was hawking tickets and tried to sell him passes to see Lady Liberty, according to a source familiar with the case. White declined and got into an altercation with the woman, and was then slugged by Andersen, according to the source. White fell backward and cracked his head on the sidewalk, suffering a concussion and losing consciousness. Andersen has a record of breaking the law, including arrests for criminal contempt and criminal possession of a weapon, according to police. Although police have identified Andersen’s girlfriend, she hasn’t been arrested yet and might not be charged, according to a source. Meanwhile, one Staten Island man is putting together a task force to stop ticket vendors who harass tourists at the terminal, according to the Staten Island Advance. The paper reported that Dominick DeRubbio, president of the Staten Island Young Democrats, recently presented his plan to tackle the issue to Staten Island’s Community Board 1. Mayor Bill de Blasio also addressed the Battery beating at a press conference last Tuesday, vowing action. “If there’s something aimed at tourists or aimed at the Staten Island Ferry we will get at it very, very aggressively,” he said. “We had the highest number of tourists we’ve ever had last year — 58 million plus — and we want to keep it that way.”

—Yannic Rack

FEBRUARY 25 – MARCH 9, 2016

Beach bummer

Boosters blast ‘anti-feasibility study’ on opening Downtown’s only beach

Rendering by WXYStudio

Critics say that a feasibility study by the city’s Economic Development Corporation on turning Brooklyn Bridge Beach into a public park — as envisioned by the 2013 East River Blueway project — was focused on finding reasons not to open the beach to public.

BY COL IN MIXSON ocals are pushing back against a city agency they say is trying to shut the public out of Downtown’s only beach to reserve it for private developers. A recent feasibility study on turning Brooklyn Bridge Beach into a public park commissioned by the city’s Economic Development Corporation came under fire at the Community Board 1 Seaport Committee’s latest meeting, where locals accused the agency of looking for excuses to scuttle the effort.

“My reading of it was that it was more of an anti-feasibility study,” said CB1 member Marc Ameruso. “It appeared that every which way they could spin it, they do not want that beach to be used in any way, shape or form, and they came up with all sorts of bogus safety reasons as to why.” The study, conducted by Ocean and Costal Consultants for the E.D.C., pointed to several factors — including the presence of nearby combined sewage overflow outlets, intense wave action, swift currents, and nearby com-

mercial river traffic — as obstacles to opening the beach, which has long been fenced off from the adjacent East River Esplanade. In particular, the consultants cited the high cost of the “substantial interventions” they said would be necessary to reduce wave action, which erodes the beach and would undermine any efforts to extend it into a public space. But Downtown Boathouse president Graeme Birchall, who presented a detailed rebuttal of the BEACH BUMMER Continued on page 2

LAST CALL NOT LATE ENOUGH If you spied a flock of pigs flapping over the Hudson a couple of weeks ago, it was because a Bizarro-world version of Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee asked a local restaurant to serve alcohol even later into the eve-

ning than it had planned to. In a surreal reversal of its customary attitude toward late-night libations, the committee asked City Vineyard — set to open at Pier 26 this summer — to keep pouring alcohol past its proposed 11 p.m. closing time. “I’m gonna take a contrary position here: the later people are at the restaurant, the better for security in the park,” said committee member Bob Townley, whose Manhattan Youth organization runs concessions at neighboring Pier 25. “If someone in the summertime wants to go have a glass of wine or even a bottle of seltzer at 12:30, it brings more people to the park,” he added. The community board comments on liquor license applications, which include hours of operation, before they go to the State Liquor

Authority for approval. But committee members typically ask for shorter hours, to reduce noise impact on neighbors. The new restaurant, which is owned by City Winery, plans to open in the 1,150-square-foot glass-encased boathouse at N. Moore and West Sts., on May 1. It won’t host live concerts like its parent establishment, however. Ed Greer, the restaurant’s chief of production, told committee members the diners at the eatery’s two dozen tables would instead be serenaded by small-scale entertainment, like a “jazz trio or brunch guitarist.” The City Vineyard reps at the meeting were pleasantly surprised at the committee’s unusual request. “We’ll amend it right now,” joked the restaurant’s lawyer, Ravi Sharma,

after Townley’s suggestion, which got support from other members. In reality, the eatery would first have to get permission from its landlord, the Hudson River Park Trust, to stay open past 11 on weekdays, which its current lease forbids. And even though the committee’s resolution — which passed with one dissenting vote — recommends City Vineyard staying open until 12:30 p.m. seven days a week, the venue might still close up shop earlier. “If you want to give them the ability to operate later, either on the weekends or on weekdays — subject to landlord permission — that’s fine,” Sharma told the committee. “But I’m not going to say that my clients are going to commit to stay open anytime past eleven. Because there’s no point if it’s, like, horribly empty.”

BEACH BUMMER Continued from page 1

study to the Seaport Committee on Feb. 16, argued that the E.D.C., a quasi-governmental agency charged with promoting development throughout the city, was fishing for red herrings. He said the costly infrastructure envisioned in the study — such as floating breakwaters, wave fences, and even artificial islands — are needlessly expensive and impractical solutions to a problem that can actually be solved relatively cheaply. “They did a feasibility study, but they only came up with unfeasible solutions,” said Birchall, who operates a free kayaking program out of Pier 26 in Tribeca. Birchall said the wave problem could easily be solved with simple groins — essentially rock walls extending from the shoreline out into the surf — that are a time-tested and environmentally neutral solution to the problems noted in the study. “There are plenty of sandy beaches, in the Rockaways for instance, where groins are very common and effective, but the E.D.C. chose not to analyze effective solutions to deal with that,” he said. The consultants also wrote at length about the dangers of swimming in the East River around Brooklyn Bridge Beach — especially sewage overflows into the harbor and the river’s swift currents. But these arguments are misleading, according to Birchall, because swimming is prohibited at beaches throughout New York Harbor, and even wading is discouraged on the beaches at Brooklyn Bridge Park. “There’s no swimming on any beach in New York Harbor,” Birchall said. “Technically, there’s not even any wading, and if you go to Brooklyn Bridge Park, there’s a multiplicity of signs, including no wading sings. Nobody goes swimming, and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon. Beaches don’t have to be used for those purposes.” The beach-bummer study seemed so slanted that some locals speculated the E.D.C. is trying

February 25 – March 9, 2016

Photo by Graeme Birchall

Some locals suspect that the city’s Economic Development Corporation is determined keep the public shut out of the debris-strewn stretch of Lower Manhattan shoreline in order to reserve it for a private developer who wants to build a marina nearby.

to reserve Lower Manhattan’s only beach for private development, pointing to plans released in 2014 by the Howard Hughes Corporation that featured a marina adjacent to the coveted cove. “The only thing I can think of is the E.D.C. is crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s, and cow-towing to Howard Hughes and other developers,” said Ameruso, “because they want to build a large marina right next to it.” In 2013, then-Borough President Scott Stinger announced plans to spend $7 million turning Brooklyn Bridge Beach into a public park as part of the East River Blueway — an ambitious project to open up Manhattan’s eastern waterfront from E. 38 St. to the Seaport. Momentum for the Blueway fizzled as the E.D.C. threw a pale of proverbial sand on the Brooklyn Bridge Beach project, but there is still

strong support for the idea on CB1. In December, in response to the E.D.C. feasibility study, the board passed a resolution calling on the city to allow “unfenced, unfettered access” to the beach as soon as possible. CB1 has passed similar resolutions in 2008 and 2013. Last week the Seaport Committee decided to send a letter to the E.D.C. requesting a formal response to Birchall’s critique of the study. The agency would not comment specifically on Birchall’s rebuttal, but said it stood by the safety concerns outlined in the study. “We are working with community stakeholders to identify a project that improves waterfront access,” said agency spokesman Ian Fried. “Safety is our number one priority, and any project must take into account the parameters set forth by the feasibility study.” DowntownExpress.com

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February 25 â€“ March 9, 2016

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CB1 shoots down city plan to give developers public space for retail BY YAN N IC RACK The city’s plan to give away two football fields worth of public space to landlords on Water St. hit a snag on Tuesday when Community Board 1 refused to support it. The Dept. of City Planning wants to hand over more than 110,000 square feet of public arcades — covered walkways along a building’s front — to the owners of 20 buildings along the street for them to build out as retail space, in return for fixing up the area’s public plazas. But CB1 voted down a proposed resolution of conditional support at its monthly meeting on Feb. 23, in part because the deal struck some as an uneven — and perhaps even unnecessary — exchange. “I don’t know why it has to be funded, effectively, by giving the developers an extra bonus, which this is,” said Roger Byrom, who led the opposition. “We should question why they wouldn’t do that anyway — why wouldn’t they want to make the arcades appealing and interesting to their residents?” The proposed zoning change is supported by the Downtown Alliance, which joined with City Planning to pitch the idea to a somewhat skeptical Community Board 1 committee meeting earlier this month, arguing that the arcades are a dark and deserted waste of space, and new retail, plus renovated open space, would be a fillip for an underappreciated neighborhood. “If this were the commercial strip

of almost any other city in America, it would be the commercial strip, and not just any commercial strip. It sometimes gets forgotten, and we think it doesn’t get its due,” Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin told CB1’s Planning Committee at its Feb. 8 meeting, where it drafted a resolution supporting the plan with a few caveats. The building owners originally constructed the arcades because zoning rules allow developers to build additional floor area if they provide public open space. The arcades around the Water St. buildings allowed for 2.5 million more square feet of floor area to be built, according to the city. “Those [arcades] were negotiated with the developers when the buildings were proposed, many of them a while ago, and the developer got a bonus for them — typically building higher,” said Byrom. “So for us to just say, ‘Oh we’ll now give you that public space back,’ is a bit unreasonable.” Giving it back would be a boon to landlords, who could get around $200 per square foot on average for groundfloor retail space, according to a local commercial broker, amounting to more than $250 million in annual rent for the building owners. Lappin made the case on Feb. 8 that the half-mile strip stretching from Whitehall St. to Fulton St. and South St. to Pearl St. needs more ground-floor retail. “There are about 12,000 residents who live nearby and around 100,000

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

Courtesy of the Dept. of City Planning

Under the proposed zoning text amendment, 20 buildings around Water St. would be free to fill their public arcades with retail in return for sprucing up the surrounding plazas. DowntownExpress.com

Photos by Yannic Rack

Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin (inset) wants to allow developers to put retail space into Water Street’s “uninviting and underutilized” public arcades (left) in exchange for sprucing up the area’s equally bleak public plazas (right), but Community Board 1 had other ideas.

office workers, which means that there is a lot of foot traffic, but not a lot of places for that foot traffic to go,” said Lappin. The arcades, meanwhile, actually serve little public purpose, she said. “I find them to be uninviting and underutilized,” Lappin said of the walkways under buildings such as 55 Water St., one of the city’s largest office towers, and Brookfield’s One New York Plaza. The arcades were supposed to act as protected pathways along the street, but their layout — often too deep or narrow, and complicated by thick and

close-set columns — means they seem more like dead-ends, argued Lappin. On a sunny day this week, the plaza in front of 55 Water St. was deserted, safe for a few office workers from the building taking cigarette breaks. Jose Rodriguez, who has worked at the All American Deli across the street for four years, said he would welcome the development. “There’s a lot of tourists around here on the weekends, so I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “Our customers would have more space to sit and eat

outside in the summertime.” The presentation to CB1 by Lappin and city planner Richard Suarez of the Dept. of City Planning was the first step in the 60-day public review period for the proposal, which will get a hearing at the City Planning Commission next month and a final Council vote by mid-June. The rezoning would mean any building owner renting out groundfloor retail space would have to provide amenities like plantings, tables, seats and drinking fountains on the plazas

surrounding their buildings — which cover a bit more than double the area of the arcades that would be built out. Building owners would also be required to install new flood proofing for their ground floors. Despite some concerns, the committee voted last week to approve the zoning change — as long as facilities such as schools, libraries and senior centers are encouraged for the empty spaces, and the community board has a chance to review and comment on every proposed arcade infill, which currently would only require signoff by the City Planning Commission or its chairperson. But the committee’s resolution failed to pass the full board at the meeting on Feb. 23. Byrom said the Planning Committee will meet again on March 10 to consider another approach, and would work with the city and the Alliance to find a plan the full board can support. “We should sit down and more carefully try to find a better way to both revitalize the arcades, but also, at the same time, recognize that in doing so, the public should not lose all of their amenities,” he said.

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

Overhang overruled Fidi school design team sent back to drawing board

B Y YA N N I C RA C K They can’t do the cantilever. The 500-foot, mixed-use tower planned for the former Syms clothing store site on Greenwich St. suffered a setback this week when the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected its design because it would literally overshadow a landmarked part of the project. At a hearing on Feb. 16, the commissioners rebuffed the developers’ plans, arguing that the proposed tower’s cantilevered upper floors needlessly loom over the landmarked Dickey House, which will become part of a new elementary school at the building’s base. Neighbors who testified against the design said the overhang would be worse than additional height. “We would sooner have a taller building than one overshadowing a landmark,” said Esther Regelson, who lives two blocks from the site. “When I first moved here, it was called no-man’s land. I just want you to please respect what’s left of the neighborhood,” she told the commissioners at the hearing. Regelson was there on behalf of the Friends of the Lower West Side, a preservation group that was instrumental in originally securing landmark status for the Robert and Anne Dickey House, a four-sto-

ry Federal-style townhouse built in 1810 that abuts the development at the corners of Trinity Pl. and Edgar and Greenwich Sts. The developers’ plans for the glass tower next door — which will host a long-awaited 476-seat elementary school on its lower floors — include three cantilevers extending the upper floors over the landmarked building. The first one, starting around 50 feet above the Dickey House, goes out just one foot, and the second, about 85 feet up, juts out another three feet. The last one extends another eight feet beyond that about 185 feet above the landmark. Owner Trinity Place Holdings also wants to spruce up the landmark so it can be used as part of the school. The proposal includes demolishing a one-story rear addition, modifying windows and doors, removing fire escapes, altering the roof to install a sunken, fenced-in play area, and taking out a wall to connect it to the adjacent tower. The commissioners questioned parts of the restoration plan, such as whether it was appropriate to return the building to the look of its tenement phase in the early 20th century, rather than its original incarnation. But the overarching issue — so to speak — was the cantilevers. OVERHANG Continued on page 12

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

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Planned Service Changes

BDFM Mon to Fri Mar 7-11, Mar 14-18 10 PM to 5 AM No BDFM service at 6 Av stations: 14 St, 23 St, 34 St, 42 St, 47-50 Sts, and 57 St. D and F trains are rerouted to the 8 Av line. B and M service ends early in Manhattan. • Manhattan-bound service in Brooklyn and Queens ends at approximately 9:30 PM • Service in Manhattan is available until approximately 10 PM Stay Informed Call 511 and say “Current Service Status,” look for informational posters in stations, or visit mta.info – where you can access the latest Planned Service Changes information, use TripPlanner+, and sign up for free email and text alerts.

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

Chin calls for leniency for ex-cop convicted in shooting BY LU CA S RO PE K Councilmember Margaret Chin has joined a large portion of the city’s Asian community in calling for leniency for a Chinese-American former police officer some believe was railroaded in his trail for a deadly shooting while on duty. Following the recent conviction of former officer Peter Liang in the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley, Chin issued a statement asking for a light sentence, and shifting blame for the incident to police procedures. “Today, I have asked my Council colleagues to join me to ask for leniency in the case involving Peter Liang,” Chin said in a Feb. 18 statement. “Two rookie police officers should never have been placed on a vertical patrol in an unfamiliar, darkened stairwell,” she said, referring to the periodic sweeps up and down the stairways of public housing buildings often relegated to new officers. Chin also blamed the “culture

of neglect” surrounding the city’s public housing for contributing to an “atmosphere of fear” that helped lead to Liang’s decision to fire. Chin is one of only two AsianAmerican councilmembers, the other being Peter Koo of Queens. Koo has also said in published reports that he believes both the New York City Housing Authority and the N.Y.P.D. should accept some responsibility for Gurley’s death, in that conditions within public housing and patrol methods must be improved. “It’s possible the grand jury were influenced by the prior decisions, and were afraid of stirring violence,” he said, referring to recent police-involved shootings that have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. One of Liang’s strongest advocates among elected officials has

been Assemblymember Ron Kim of Queens — the only Asian-American in the state legislature — who released a statement on Feb. 12, shortly after Liang’s conviction. “I do not believe true justice prevailed,” Kim said. “Our system failed Gurley and it failed Liang. It pitted the unjust death of an innocent young black man against the unjust scapegoating of a young Asian police officer who was frightened, poorly trained and who committed a terrible accident.” Nearly 15,000, mostly Asian-American protesters gathered in Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn on Feb. 20 to voice their anger and disbelief at Liang’s conviction. Many of them passed out leaflets urging that the Supreme Court justice who oversaw the case grant a more lenient sentencing for Liang.

Photo by Paul Martinka

(Above) Former police officer Peter Liang was convicted on Feb. 11 of manslaughter in the November 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley. (Left) Councilmember Margaret Chin has called for leniency for Peter Liang, saying that poor police training and neglect by the city’s public housing authority shared blame for the deadly incident.

LIANG Continued on page 19

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DESIGNER HAUL A thief with expensive taste picked up some designer bags off the street, according to police. The fashionable fiend lifted a shipping box packed with a pair of handbags and a backpack, worth $10,500 altogether, that was standing in front of the loading dock for the Chanel boutique at 139 Spring St. on Monday, Feb. 15, according to a report. He was caught on video grabbing his haul around 8 a.m. and then bolting southbound on Wooster St., police say.

ILLICIT JOYRIDE A man swiped a $55,000 sedan for a ride out of town last weekend, police say. The 2016 black Infi niti QX70 was checked out with a valid key card from the Enterprise CarShare garage at 10 Liberty St. at 7 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, according to police. When the car wasn’t returned, employees at the garage noticed that the credit card on file for the matching account didn’t work, police say. An employee told police that the Enterprise G.P.S. inside the vehicle was also disabled, but a license-plate camera registered the car leaving the Holland Tunnel around 1 p.m. the next day, according to a report.

PACKAGES PINCHED Some Fidi residents might be waiting a long time for their deliveries, after thieves stole three boxes out of a DHL van parked in the neighborhood last week. A driver for the shipping company told police that he parked his van in front of 85 Nassau St. at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18, according to a report. When he returned to the van to make a delivery, he noticed that there was damage to the rear door, but it was still locked, police say. Upon further inspection, however, he noticed that three boxes were missing from his load, according to a report, which didn’t note what items were stolen.

SENIOR STARBUCKS SWIPE A 70-year-old visitor from Wales was robbed of her wallet in a Civic Center Starbucks, police say. The woman was waiting in line at the coffee shop at 38 Park Row around 1 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 15, when someone snatched the wallet out DowntownExpress.com

of her open bag, according to police. The contents of the wallet included almost $1,000 in cash in dollars and euros, as well as batteries for the woman’s hearing aid.

LATE-NIGHT KNIFE ATTACK A 22-year-old man was slashed in the Financial District on Monday night, police say. The intoxicated victim was walking along Cliff St. near the corner with John St. around 11:30 p.m. on Monday Feb. 15 when he got into an argument with a man on the street, cops said. The passer-by pulled out a blade and slashed the victim, leaving him lying on the sidewalk with a four-inch cut to the abdomen, according to police. T he victim was rushed to New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital in stable condition and the attacker is still on the loose, police said.

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SHADY SHOPPING SPREE Three men were busted trying to buy a $300 suit jacket with a forged credit card on Monday Feb. 8, police say. The fashion-forward fraudsters, who hail from Brooklyn, Queens and Charleston, S.C., were arrested after trying to pay with the counterfeit card at the Suit Supply on Broome St. around 3:15 p.m., according to the police report. When the credit card was rejected, they tried to settle the bill with a Visa gift card instead — which also turned out to be fake, according to police.

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

Worth St. rip up Still scarred by crane wreck, Tribeca street wary of coming construction apocalypse BY YAN N I C RA CK Just weeks after a colossal crane crash brought terror to Tribeca, residents and business owners along Worth St. are worrying about the next construction project haunting their blocks — one that will drag on for years. Locals fear the Worth St. reconstruction project, which is scheduled to start this spring and run until 2021, will bring disastrous disruption to an area that is still reeling from the recent crane wreck. “I think the people in my building have just had enough. We’re just sick of it,” said Jason Tuchman, who lives at 13 Worth St., on the block where a 565-foot crawler crane keeled over and killed a man three weeks ago. “I understand that cities need to do work. But I think that the scale and the scope of this project is too much, especially after the crane collapse,” he said. The city is planning to tear up nine blocks of Worth St. between Hudson St. and Park Row to replace old water mains, catch basins, and sewers below the street, as well as reconstruct the street, sidewalks, and curbs. A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, the lead agency on the project, couldn’t confirm a full timeline for the work because the procurement process is “still in preliminary stages,” but she said construction would start in the spring. That’s considerably later than originally planned. Last spring, city officials told Community Board 1 that the $90-million project would start in late 2015. Back then, D.D.C. community liaison

Norberto Acevedo Jr. warned members of the board’s Tribeca Committee that there would be disruptions along the street to traffic, bus stops, parking, deliveries and ocasionally water service — which would be shut off for up to eight hours at a time. For business owners along the street, that spells disaster. “It’s very bad, you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Sammy Ayoub, the owner of Café Gusto at 111 Worth St., between Broadway and Lafayette St. Ayoub, who branched out to Tribeca from his original location on John St. in the Financial District a year ago, said he feared losing his regular customers if the street was closed off. “We live here week to week, to cover the rent. It’s going to be very tough,” he said. A block away, at the family-run T. Kang Taekwondo Center at 85 Worth St., owner Cristina Kang said she was wary of going through the same ordeal other businesses had on nearby Hudson and Chambers Sts. — which saw their own reconstruction projects drag on for years before they were finally finished last year. “Are you kidding? That’s going to be a really bad problem for us, like when they did it on Hudson,” Kang said. “A lot of parents drop their kids at the curb, or have the Uber drivers pick them up, so that’s going to be a big problem for us. It’s going to bother everybody,” she said. In the days after the crane crash earlier this month, Kang said many parents thought the center was closed and stayed away.

Photo by Tequila Minsky

After last month’s crane collapse, workers had to rip up parts of Worth St. to repair underground water and gas lines, in a bitter taste of what locals can look forward to when the city spends the next five years tearing up the entire length of the street to replace aging infrastructure.

February 25 – March 9, 2016

Photos by Yannic Rack

(Above) Café Gusto owner Sammy Ayoub worries that years of reconstruction work on Worth St. will drive away his regular customers. (Right) Cristina Kang, owner of T. Kang Taekwondo Center, says that the months of disruption expected from the project could drive her out of business.

“When they closed streets for the crane, our business went crazy, from Friday to Sunday,” she said, adding that facing the same disruption for months at a time would drive her out of business. The crane accident, which happened as the operator was lowering the crane due to strong winds, was enough to put off many residents on the surrounding blocks. Tuchman, who runs a small post-production company in his building, said the prospect of months of the same disruption the neighbors suffered after the crane collapse seemed unfathomable. “The noise in my office was unbearable, listening to the jackhammering and banging from these giant machines,” he said of the city’s cleanup operation after the accident. “If that’s what the construction will be like, it will be just torture for months.” Brian O’Rourke, who also lives at 13 Worth St. and whose wife runs a cooking school there, said city officials have told community members at a range of meetings that the work would be done in stages. “Their plan is eight months per block, [but] they’re going to have the streets running one way or the other,” he said. “But they won’t tell us if it’s only one block at a time, or even where it’s going to start.” O’Rourke has lived on Worth St. for 29 years and said the project on nearby Hudson St. was already enough construction hell for one lifetime. “It’s a disaster, we’re in constant reconstruction mode,” he said, adding that he was also concerned about security issues like the sensitive communications infrastructure inside buildings like 60 Hudson

St. across the street — where the collapsed crane was used — or the former AT&T building at 33 Thomas St. “I’m concerned about security, because all these things are right there and are going to become complications,” he said. “This thing is going to get slowed down, and that’s going to mean a much longer disruption for people. We’re just very concerned that this project will go on and on.” State Sen. Daniel Squadron, who has pressed the city for better construction oversight in the past, said his office would work with CB1 to bring stakeholders to the table and work out any issues with the project. "Lower Manhattan is no stranger to big construction projects. But they can also cause significant headaches for local residents and businesses,” Squadron said. “And as the recent crane accident tragically reminded, they can also raise serious safety concerns. I'm hopeful we'll be able to engage the city and bring about a smoother process all around at Worth Street." But O’Rourke, who has attended previous meetings with reps from the D.D.C., has little hope the community conversations will bring about meaningful relief. “They have no vision. There isn’t one schedule, or one person in charge,” he said of the city. “It is the Robert Moses mentality, and it pisses people off.” DowntownExpress.com

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

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Girl Scouts of team Cadet Super Girls — Robyn Murphy, 12, Lauren Hedge, 12, Alyssa Dass, 11, and Brianna Ortiz, 11 — show off their robotic contraption, Miracle Bot.

completing the tasks — it’s teaching it how to do so. The girls must not only build the bot, but program it too. Once it’s out of the gate, the girls can’t touch their machine, and it’s up to their coding skills to ensure that their creation completes its designated chore. “The key is they’re building coding skills and learning the building blocks of what the computer can understand,” said Sarah Pooley, the scouts’ manager of youth leadership and volunteer support. The process of taking a robot from design to completion is long and fraught, with numerous mishaps. Bots on trash pickup duties may by accident get caught up in a demolition routine, or the makers may misjudge the distance necessary to deliver an “octo-chick” — a Lego octopus-chicken hybrid serving as one team’s indigenous animal — to its natural habitat, leaving it on the beach instead of in the ocean. But the routine of trial and error cements important analytical and problem solving skills, and promotes a healthy sense of teamwork amongst peers, according to one scout. “We run into problems a lot,” said 11-year-old scout Alyssa Dass, a member of robotics team Cadet Super Girls. “But as a team. We work together, because there is no ‘I’ in team. We shout out ideas, vote on it, and pick the best idea. Then

we do trials and runs, and it worked out pretty well.” Once their contraptions are finally in working order, the girls then head into the arena of the NYC First Lego League, where their bots go head to head with other robots from teams throughout the city to determine whose machine is most proficient at the various tasks. The New-York-based scouts have fielded three competitive robotics teams this year, all of which will be heading to the NYC First Lego League championship in March, an outstanding achievement in and of itself for girls who only started competitive bot-building this year, according Dass. “It was very overwhelming,” she said. “We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into because this was our first year of competitive robotics, and a lot of people were so prepared and had been here for years and we were just newbies.” Now, as the girls put the finishing touches on their robots before the big event next month, one question lingers: will the endearing sight of green-vested girls selling cookies door to door endure, or are those young ladies even now engineering the means of their own obsolescence? “With all three of our competitive teams advancing to the championship, robotic cookie deliveries may not be far behind,” Rodriguez mused. DowntownExpress.com

TRANSIT SAM Thurs., Feb. 25 – Wed., Mar. 2 ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING RULES ARE IN EFFECT ALL WEEK River-lock strikes Lower Manhattan again with tunnel trouble ahead this week! Both Hudson River tunnels will be impacted by maintenance this coming week, causing latenight gridlock in the vicinity of the Holland Tunnel. In the Lincoln Tunnel, one New York-bound tube will be closed 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday. This will send drivers south to the Holland Tunnel, where one New York-bound lane and one New Jersey-bound lane will be closed during the same period. Expect late night delays and extra traffic on Canal and Varick Sts. In the Battery Park Underpass, there will be a full closure of the south tube from the FDR to West St. 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. each weekday night. Use the detour by going south on West St., left onto Battery Pl., continuing onto State T., and going one block north on Water St., then right onto Broad St. The North and South tubes will fully close in both directions from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each weekday night. For the northtube detour, exit onto South St., continue on to Whitehall St., turn left onto State St. to Battery Place, and then turn left onto Battery Place to West St. Saturday morning the south tube from the FDR to West St. will close 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. Use the detour during that time. In the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, one tube will close Monday through Friday nights 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. One tube will also close 1 a.m. to 8

OCULUS Continued from page 12

operational later this spring, the old P.A.T.H. station at Vesey Street will come down, according to Coleman, clearing the way for the much-anticipated World Trade Center Performing Arts Center planned for that site. Last November, the center’s board tapped Brooklyn architecture firm REX to design the structure, which it hopes will be ready to open in 2019. The Oculus will also eventually host the massive Westfield WTC mall — more than six football fields DowntownExpress.com

a.m. Saturday. During the closure, two lanes of traffic will remain in the open tube. On the Brooklyn Bridge Monday through Wednesda, the Park Row South exit will close 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. To access Park Row from the Brooklyn Bridge, use the Centre St. exit instead and continue along Chambers St. to Broadway. From the mailbag: Dear Transit Sam, My daughter recently moved out west and I’m considering moving to spend half the year with her and her kids and half of the year here in the city. Right now I have a New York State Driver‘s License and Registration. If I change my registration to California, would I need to do something documentation-wise when I’m in New York for half the year and driving? Al, East Village Dear Al, If you have a California license you can still drive in New York State with no trouble, as long as your permanent residence is in California too. Transit Sam Have a question about a parking ticket, traffic rules, public transportation, or street cleaning rules? If so, send me an e-mail at TransitSam@downtownexpress.com or write to Transit Sam, 322 Eighth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Follow me on Twitter @GridlockSam and check the website www. GridlockSam.com for the latest in road closures, festivals, and traffic news.

worth of retail space — which will make the transit hub Manhattan’s largest shopping center. But though the space is all leased, the 125 retailers won’t open until sometime in August, according to Westfield spokeswoman Molly Morse. Only 60 of the retailers have currently been announced, including Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Banana Republic, Hugo Boss, Sephora, Apple, Daniel Boulud, Eataly, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, John Varvatos and Stuart Weitzman, according to Morse. We’ll have to wait another six months to find out the rest.

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The city’s Asian community turned out in force over the weekend at a protest in Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn to call for leniency for Peter Liang, whom protesters believe was scapegoated and abandoned by the N.Y.P.D. because of his ethnicity.

A national movement has also emerged, called the Coalition of Justice for Liang. The group has staged protests and rallies in nearly 30 different cities across the country. Jack Ouyang, a spokesperson for the group, recently issued a statement justifying the coalition’s support for Liang. “In the wake of so many unfortunate deaths of unarmed African-American men in the hands of police officers, the tension between the police and African-American communities nationwide has reached an unprecedented level. However, it is totally wrong for the prosecutor to single out Mr. Liang,” Ouyang said. Support for Liang isn’t universal in the Asian-American community, however. The Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence, an activist group based on the Lower East Side, has posted a statement on its Web site defending the decision to convict the rookie. “The fact that Officer Liang is an Asian-American shouldn’t mean that Asian-Americans don’t call for justice for Akai Gurley,” the CAAAV statement said. “Quite the opposite — it should force us to examine how each of us is complicit in maintaining the status quo.” The group, which traditionally advocates for the protection of poor and working-class Asian-American communities, feels that Gurley’s shooting was indicative of a larger problem in law enforcement that needs to be addressed. Gurley, a 28-year-old African American man, was killed on Nov. 20, 2014, by a ricocheted bullet fired by Liang in a darkened stairDowntownExpress.com

way in East New York’s Pink Houses as Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, were doing a vertical patrol of the stairway. For many, Gurley’s death became yet another indication of a broken criminal justice system that unfairly targets low-income, predominantly African-American individuals. After Liang’s conviction on Feb. 11, however, the issue has taken on different racial connotations for some. Liang’s Chinese-American heritage has New York’s Asian community saying that he is being scapegoated for his actions because he is not white. Liang was immediately fired from the New York Police Department following the incident, and his conviction on second-degree manslaughter and several counts of misconduct now has him facing up to 15 years in prison. His swift firing and eventual conviction were something of an anomaly, considering that most officers involved in fatal shootings are never convicted, or even brought to trial. One of the most prominent recent examples is the Eric Garner case, when police arrested the Staten Island man on suspicion of selling untaxed loose cigarettes and he died during the arrest as he was brought down with a chokehold. Yet arresting officer Daniel Pantaleo was acquitted of all charges, despite the fact that an amateur video presented to the jury clearly showed him putting Garner in an illegal chokehold that compressed his windpipe. Because white police officers like Pantaleo have escaped punishment, politicians and community leaders in New York’s Asian-American community see bias in Liang’s conviction.

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

EDITORIAL

Don’t ‘brand’ sex offenders’ passports PUBLISHER

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February 25 – March 9, 2016

B Y L E NO R E S K EN AZY One day after Pres. Obama signed legislation that will brand the passports of sex offenders last week, a federal court challenge was filed against it. The International Megan’s Law is supposedly a way to alert foreign countries to sex offenders who may be traveling there for sex tourism or trafficking purposes. Of course, who isn’t against sex trafficking? We all are! But branding people’s passports isn’t going to do any good. The U.S. State Department itself found that the law’s rationale is “very misleading.” And after conducting a study, the General Accounting Office “found no evidence that the offenders used their passports to commit sex offenses abroad.” Got that? No. Evidence. But heck — what’s a complete lack of evidence compared to political grandstanding? The bill was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R–NJ) and passed both houses with only a single, brave lawmaker, Rep. Bobby Scott (D–VA), speaking out against it. He said that he endorsed the bill’s provisions to notify foreign countries about sex offenders’ travel plans, but was repulsed by the idea of the “unique passport identifier” — government-speak for passport branding. “It is simply bad policy to single out one category of offenses for this type of treatment,” Scott told the House. “We do not subject those who murder, who defraud the government or our fellow citizens of millions and billions, or who commit acts of terrorism to these restrictions.”

Terrorists? Pffft. It is only sex offenders who must declare their past deeds this way. And that is what the court challenge hinges on. “We don’t want those ‘identifiers’ on anybody’s passport,” says lawyer Janice Bellucci, president of the group California Reform Sex Offender Laws, who is filing the federal challenge on behalf of four sex offenders. “Our strongest argument is that it violates the First Amendment, because that ‘unique identifier’ is compelled speech.” In other words, “The government is making you say something you don’t want to say.” Bellucci has been down this legal road before. Twice she argued against California towns forcing sex offenders to put “No trick-or-treating” signs on their doors, and twice she won. A third time she sued the California Department of Corrections for the same thing. The department had told registrants they had to put that sign on their doors on Halloween. And if they didn’t have a home and lived in a tent, well by golly, they had to put a “No trick-or-treating” sign on their tent flap. And if they were living in a sleeping bag at the side of the road, they had to put a “No trick-ortreating” sign on their sleeping bag, too. Presumably this would help fend off

the hordes of children seeking bite-size Snickers from the homeless. Bellucci won that case, too. Like Halloween-activated predators in sleeping bags, the problem of registrants traveling abroad for sex tourism is also not a common one. Chris Smith has written that, “currently tens of thousands of offenders could be traveling abroad as child sex tourists.” But they aren’t. The U.S. Justice Department itself says that about 10 Americans a year are convicted of “sex crimes against minors in other countries.” Meantime, there are more than 800,000 people on the Sex Offender Registry — about a quarter of them minors. This means that the vast majority of registrants are not sex tourists. And yet we won’t give them the basic right of traveling this great earth. The United States has never branded anyone’s passport until now. Somehow we have survived 200+ years of giving all citizens the right to serve their time and then go on with their lives. Former drug dealers can travel south of the border. The Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 crews can hop on a plane to Monaco. But sex offenders, including teens who sexted and former flashers now in their 80s, will be branded with the scarlet S and kept in internal exile. It is for the sake of the children, of course. It always is. Lenore Skenazy is founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids, and a contributor at Reason.com.

Posted To (SKENAZY:DON’T ‘BRAND’ SEX OFFENDERS’ PASSPORTS FEB. 18) Not all sex offenders involve children! Someone caught masturbating in a public restroom would also have their passport branded! AWFUL! They have also passed a bill that will rescind a persons passport if they owe the IRS MONEY! These moves are FASCISM at its WORST! kts Only two other nations have placed marks of infamy on the passports of unpopular groups. Anyone care to guess the two nations? Hint-- one was a cold war nemesis, the other was a certain Axis power synonymous with the systematic extermination of

millions of unpopular people. Once again, American exceptionalism rears its ugly, arrogant head. Derek Logue of Once Fallen I'm amazed at the overwhelming support HR 515 received in both the Senate and House. It's just another case of full-time politicians with full-time staffs writing bills that keep getting votes. It's about punishment, fear-mongering and feel-good legislation. It's not about public safety in the U.S. or any other country. J P Welch These registration laws need to be done away with all together it creates a myth of safety and it creates a UNNECESSARY fear in our community's sex offender's are

the least people should fear. It is our government and law makers we should fear (I mean would you want a politician living next door to you). It is time to do something about this. The people will stand together on this issue nowadays most know it is a waste of money and resources isn't there a way to file a suit that would end all registry reporting and let the courts handle sentencing instead of a automatic life sentence of life on the registry! Rhonda Soon there will be a mark on the passport to indicate any and all crimes as well as health related dangers. Welcome to the new world order but don't worry before too long they will just tattoo it on your heads. Dave DowntownExpress.com

Posted To Lenore thank god there are people like you who see through this sham. Yes trafficking anyone is horrible. I have been on the "list" for nearly 20 years. During that time I have rebuilt my career, sent my two oldest to college with a third following in their footsteps and now 20 years later the government is announcing to other countries I am too dangerous to travel with my family. No due process just a new prison inside the good ‘ole USA borders. Hopefully Jamice is successful and registries start to come down. Steve Even those who no longer have a requirement to register will be effected. Some are lawyers. So, the number of 800,000+ just went up to over one million! After counting family and friends who it could also affect, we're talking millions and millions of people. What group will be next? I am so sorry that it took so long for me to realize just how corrupt our country is. It makes me sick to my stomach. Jill The American people are just sick of our government officials making laws that just don't make sense. Who do they think they are protecting? Because it sure isn't me. I'm a 58yr old woman from the midwest, and I assure you that if some man thought he might want to sexually assault me, Good luck. I'm sick to death of our lawmakers thinking they can waste their time on this. Flint, Michigan can't use there water, filled with lead. Our southern states Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia and Washington D. C. are some of our poorest states in America. Surely those people in Congress have something they could be doing to help these people with their living conditions. Maybe there is some tax laws they can review to help these people. Flint is in desperate need of water, that's something they could be working on. Instead some idiot found branding sex offenders was more important. Surely there is a hell for these men and women who claim they are working in Congress to protect Americans. Tell that to the people in Flint, Michigan. elizabeth DowntownExpress.com

BY JANEL BLADOW

BYE BYE BERTI…

Hard not to notice that Nicholas Berti, the fun, friendly, and lively manager and partner of Acqua Restaurant & Wine Bar, hasn’t been rushing out the door with cheek kisses, happy handshakes, friendly back pats or a Royal hand wave to people passing across Peck Slip or Water Street. That’s because Niki, as we all know him, made a tough decision around Christmas season — it was time for something new. So he packed up his new bride — his long-time girlfriend Kathleen Richards — and spent the winter with his two loves: of course the lovely Kathleen, and skiing. They logged a lot of time shushing on the slopes at Belleayre Ski Center and Plattekill Mountain in the Catskill Moutains. This spring he starts as assistant food and beverage director of the private ski club at Stratton Mountain Resort in VT. “I’m in charge of wine and beer,” he told me. “We host a lot of weddings in the summer and I’m really looking forward to that. “ Berti, who worked in food and restaurants growing up in Italy, came to New York City 11 years ago on a one-way ticket from Tuscany. His first gig as a waiter was at Gnocco in the East Village. He got his real education at Keane’s Steakhouse in Chelsea. “That’s where I really learned everything about the restaurant business. Their training is like earning a degree.” He came to the Seaport nine years ago, first for four years at Il Brigante, the trattoria that was once on Front Street, as assistant manager. “We were busy from the start,” he remembered. He signed on as manager at Acqua five years ago and became a partner in 2014. At both eateries he was a guiding hand, steering the chefs to create delicious, authentic Italian pastas, pizzas and regional dishes. And at both spots he made their casual, rustic looks feel warm and cozy. Then came Hurricane Sandy. “It was heartbreaking to see the destruction. We started rebuilding, not knowing what was going to happen to the neighborhood. When I’d come across the Brooklyn Bridge on dark, winter mornings, the whole neighborhood was dark. It was scary.” At Acqua last fall, he opened the doors in the morning for coffee, croissants and wifi. It was an instant hit with neighbors, tourists and parents dropping their kids at the new Peck Slip School. “I just want to say goodbye to everyone,” he said. “I wish I could have told everyone in person. I’ll miss them and this wonderful neighborhood.” Arrivederci, good neighbor!

TOWERING INFERNO…

Everyone is talking about this slick move. The Howard Hughes Corporation was forced to scale back its dream of a super tower rising from Pier 17 by city officials after lots of local protest. Now another plan is in action and the company scored big. Last winter, HHC paid $100 million for 80 South St., just outside the designated historic Seaport area. Its plan was to build a 50-foot tower and the City Planning Commission had already approved a 1,000-foot tower at that site. In August, a Beijing-based company, China Oceanwide Holdings, announced it bought the South Street property.

In order to erect a downtown supertall 1,000-foot skyscraper, the Chinese needed more air rights. No problem. HHC owned those too! It bought up all available air rights a while back at rock bottom prices. The City Planning Commission approved the transfer of air rights at the beginning of this month, granting an additional 426,940 square feet of development rights to Oceanwide. The planned building will have 817,784 square feet of floor space, slightly more than half for residential, the rest for retail, office and hotel. Some locals are amazed at the windfall for HHC — and the audacity. In less than a year, the corporation made nearly $190 million profit!

LEARNING THROUGH HISTORY…

Local community group Save Our Seaport plans a special meeting to talk about educational and fun opportunities provided by the South Street Seaport Museum. As most readers know, S.S.S.M. already has hugely successful programs for toddlers and preschoolers, such as Mini Mates, but they want to explore more ideas for a wider audience. Parents, residents, waterfront fans, history buffs and all New Yorkers are invited to this S.O.S. meeting on Monday, Feb. 29, 6:30–8:30 pm, at 66 Frankfort St., in the Southbridge Towers’ inner courtyard.

SHIPS AHOY!...

Speaking of the Seaport Museum, next month it launches its first major exhibition since Hurricane Sandy — Street of Ships: The Port and Its People. The exhibition showcases art and artifacts from the museum’s permanent collection that relate to the 19th Century history of the Port of New York, especially the role of South Street — known as the “Street of Ships” — as the city’s busiest port. The exhibition’s centerpiece is a look at the life and current restoration of the 1885 full-rigged sailing cargo ship, Wavertree. The big payoff comes in July 2016 once the impressive iron-hulled sailer returns to its home port after a 15-month, $13 million, city-funded restoration. “It’s a project unlike any undertaken in a generation,” Captain Jonathan Boulware, executive director of the museum, said of the ship’s rebuilding. Street of Ships: The Port and Its People opens on March 17, 2016, Wednesday - Sunday 11am-5pm, at the Museum's main lobby, 12 Fulton Street through December. Admission is free for S.S.S.M. Members. Tickets are $12 for adults; $8 for seniors (65+), Merchant Mariners, Active Duty Military, and students (valid ID); $6 for kids (ages 6-17) and free for children ages 5 and under. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org.

MUSICAL NOTES…

Check your calendars for two events by the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra. First, on Monday, Feb.29, is the superglam Supreme Justice Soiree-Fundraiser with guests soprano Lucy Shelton and cellist Christine Kim with composer Michael Bacon (also of the Bacon Brothers Band), at Pier A. Go to knickerbocker-orchestra.org to buy tickets or make a donation. Second is the premiere of two musical pieces: Supreme Justice: The Battle for Gay Rights with music and libretto by KCO director Gary S. Fagin, along with Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra composed by Michael Bacon and performed by Christine Kim. That’s on Friday, March 18, 7:30 pm, at Pace University’s Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, 3 Spruce St. Call the box office at 212-346-1715 for tickets. February 25 – March 9, 2016

Discover a new state of Tennessee Late Williams works embrace ‘bigger than life, juicy characters’ BY T RAV S.D . It’s been over 30 years now since the great American playwright Tennessee Williams passed away. Little did anyone (least of all him) suspect in 1982 that the early 21st century would be a time of reevaluation and elevation of his late works. Most efforts from his last two decades were uncelebrated, to put it mildly. Most were unproduced in his time. Those that did see the light of day were panned by critics, unfairly compared to his early masterpieces like “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” But that has been steadily changing. In recent years, New York has seen critically acclaimed productions of such late Williams works as “In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel,” “Green Eyes,” “Clothes for a Summer Hotel” and “In Masks Outrageous and Austere.” One key player in this Williams Renaissance has been Romanian-born stage director Cosmin Chivu. Among his credits are a revival of the 1981 play “Something Cloudy, Something Clear” in the 2011 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, and his 2013 hit production of Williams’ 1966 oddity “The Mutilated,” starring Mink Stole and Penny Arcade. Two years ago, Chivu sat on a Tennessee Williams panel sponsored by the Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company. This lead to his directing a Sept. 2015 staged reading of John Guare’s “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” for the company, which resulted in Playhouse Creatures hiring him to direct “Tennessee Williams 1982.” The production — which features the late-career oneacts “A Recluse and His Guest” and “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde” — is running at Walkerspace through Mar. 13. “A Recluse” is a Scandinavianflavored parable about an outcast woman who briefly finds love and safety in the arms of a half-witted, skittish hermit. “The Remarkable Rooming-

February 25 – March 9, 2016

Photo by Antonis Achilleos

L to R: Patrick Darwin Williams, Kate Skinner, Declan Eells and Jade Ziane in “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde.”

House” is a punk-era black comedy, with detectable overtones of Samuel Beckett, Joe Orton, John Waters, and Derek Jarman. Miraculously, Chivu and his set designer Justin West have built a space for both plays to live in that is at once warm, cluttered, elemental, and timeless. “These two plays work together on stage surprisingly well,” says Chivu. “Though set in very different worlds they have extraordinary things in common. ‘A Recluse and His Guest’ is unique and unprecedented, unlike anything else Tennessee Williams has written. It may surprise the audience. It’s written like a fable or a folk tale, set in an unspecified Northern Europe — we’re imagining it somewhere north of Norway. ‘The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde’ is a rough political commentary, seen through the eyes of characters in an attic in London in the 1980s.”

Photo by Antonis Achilleos

L to R: Ford Austin, Kate Skinner in “A Recluse and His Guest.”

TENNESSEE Continued on page 24

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Art and poetry on the same page

Poets House exhibit teams two artistic temperaments B Y L I N D SAY B U Visual art and poetry may not always share common ground, but they do exhibit commonalities. Both rely heavily on the audience to interpret what is presented before them, and to consider the full story behind a single image or a line. But grappling with visual art and poetry is very different when the two are combined. At Poets House (10 River Terrace), the exhibit “Metamorphosis: The Collaboration of Poet Barbara Guest & Artist Fay Lansner” features a creative dialogue between the two women, by presenting a number of Lansner’s portraits of Guest, as well as her charcoal and pastel pieces that incorporate lines of Guest’s poetry. The poetry of Barbara Guest (1920–2006) began to rise in prominence during the late ’50s, when she was considered among the New York School of Poets — whose other members included John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, and James Schuyler. Influenced by surrealism and abstract expressionism, Guest’s work is characterized by the lyricism and musicality of her words; a painterly impulse that evokes gentle but poignant images. Fay Gross Lansner (1921–2010) was a prolific member of the abstract expressionist movement. Affiliated with well-known artists such as Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, Lansner was committed to figurative painting and symbolic imagery. Though a definitive timeline of how their friendship began is unclear, the first visual record of their relationship dates to the 1950s, with a series of portraits Lansner completed of Guest. One of the large oil portraits from the ’70s (“Portrait of Barbara Guest”) is on view at the Poets House exhibit. In it, Guest — clad in a lavender skirt and black top — sits with her legs crossed against a dark blue backdrop with visible paint strokes. Her hands are pink squares, and Guest’s straw-blonde hair contrasts with the striking blue behind her. According to Poets House Artistic Director Stephen Motika, their relationship might have been spurred by frequent interactions in the professional art world (they both published DowntownExpress.com

Courtesy Poets House

Fay Lansner: “Sadness and Felicity” (1989. Charcoal and stamps on paper, 22 x 30 in.).

Courtesy Poets House

Fay Lansner: “Hot Turns” (1982. Pastel on paper with collage, 38 x 44 in.)

reviews in ARTnews, a popular art magazine), as well as the similarities in their personal lives. “They’re these two friends who circled each other creatively in this world together, and had a great deal of respect for each other’s work. They both also had daughters, and they lived in Long Island for part of their careers. I would imagine that that’s maybe how their friendship

really bloomed,” Motika observes. It was only in 1982, however, that their collaborations began to take shape, with Guest’s poem “Tessera” inspiring multiple artworks by Lansner. Lansner’s “Sadness and Felicity” (1989), for instance, is a work of charcoal and stamps on paper, depicting a woman with curly hair coiffed in an up-do, and a large bird sitting atop the

right side of her head. The woman’s expression is not easy to decipher, Her large eyes look rather melancholic, but her mouth upturns into the slightest smile. Around this image of her face are different lines scrawled in script from Guest’s poem, such as “I’m here in the land of sunbeams/and silk oak,” and “Sadness and felicity/you’re coming back.” What’s perhaps most interesting is the liberty Lansner took in re-creating these lines — the words are clustered together in a way that does not preserve their original line breaks. Perhaps this was an issue of space, but perhaps it is intentional. This careful selection of which lines to present in the charcoal work gives the viewer an opportunity to truly consider the significance, the ebb and flow, of each word. The curls of the script — from the shaky “s” to the loopy “y” — bring the weighty burden behind the word “sadness” to life. Even more so than translators of poetry, Lansner serves as a determined broker between Guest and the reader — one who can decide to emphasize certain lines, or make the reader subconsciously experience certain words differently based on how they are presented. Yet, the title of the exhibit, “Metamorphosis,” is especially suited for this series of art on “Tessera.” Guest has another rendition of “Sadness and Felicity” (1990s), among many others, that is startlingly different than the aforementioned version. This charcoal and pastel on paper exudes life and color. Again, Lansner pulls excerpts of Guest’s poem, but here they seem to be the focus. Various lines, taken from different parts of the poem, are written in seemingly random diagonals. There are pink cloud-like shapes drawn throughout the page, thick, bright yellow lines underneath certain words, small patches of teal grass in corners, and a picture of a black dandelion resting in a skinny bottle at the bottom of the canvas. It’s a rather strange combination — the whimsical colors, reminiscent of Easter Sunday and baby showers, and the actual words themselves. “Barbara is known for her abstract ART & POETRY Continued on page 24

February 25 – March 9, 2016

Exile and survival are key in two by Tennessee TENNESSEE Continued from page 22

Each work is set in a location that, Chivu notes, is “unusual for Williams,” with a tone that is “far from realism. Both plays have the recurring theme of life in imposed exile and fear of accepting love. And at the bottom of both is a familiar theme from Williams’ work: how a woman survives. Each of the two plays complements the other. They are like windows into Tennessee Williams’ soul.” With European training in the experimental theatre and a master’s from the Actors Studio, Chivu sees the late work of Tennessee Williams as “a perfect combination requiring both approaches. It’s written with experimental precision, but very well-structured. It’s full of ideas and free imagery, which excites me as a director. All these challenges. You read it on the page and you say to yourself, ‘How am I going to do this?’ He has a character hanging from a hook for 45 minutes and then falling down. How do you do that without compromising the voice of the playwright? As a director, I think hard about how to honor what the playwright

wants first and try to stay focused on that. At the same time, I’m not afraid to make changes that bring his visions to fruition, to create a three-dimensional experience, to give it flesh and bones.” Chivu also embraced an opportunity to explore “these bigger than life, juicy characters” found in the pair of oneacts that comprise “Tennessee Williams 1982.” That element was always to be found in his plays, says Chivu, “but he stopped apologizing for it in his later work and just went for it.” Two of the actors to watch out for in the present production are Ford Austin and Kate Skinner. Austin recently fought his way back from a near fatal accident and a prognosis of total paralysis in 2013, to give an amazing, moving performance as Ott, the titular “Recluse.” Skinner demonstrates tremendous range as both Ott’s sweet, needy “Guest,” as well as the sexy, serial-killing Mme. Le Monde, underlining the evening’s thematic throughline. It’s a thought-provoking and moving evening of theatre, and this observer intends to continue watching Chivu’s work with great interest.

Photo by Antonis Achilleos

Kate Skinner demonstrates tremendous range as a sweet, needy visitor in “A Recluse and His Guest” and as the sexy title character in “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde” (seen here).

“Tennessee Williams 1982” plays through Mar. 13. Wed.–Sun., Feb. 24–28, Mar. 2–6 & Mar. 9–13 at 7:30 p.m. Sat., Feb. 27, Mar. 5 & Mar. 12 at

3 p.m. At Walkerspace (46 Walker St., btw. Broadway & Church St.). For tickets ($40 general, $50 premium), visit playhousecreatures.org or call 800-838-3006.

Experiencing Guest’s poetry through the lens of Lansner’s art ART & POETRY Continued from page 23

work. It’s not like Frank O’Hara; it’s not like images of New York or anything. It’s more of an internal and modern work, inspired by other poets like H.D. [Hilda Doolittle]. But these paintings [by Lansner] are often playful, and colorful, and live,” says Motika, “and it’s like these two temperaments are coming together.” Lansner’s artwork is on display throughout the second floor. Poets House has an intimate exhibition space ideal for showing manuscripts and small works on paper; larger works must be installed in the reading and conference rooms. Motika stated that the exhibition’s layout gives appropriate space to the various chronologies, as well as the themes explored through the artists’ productive relationship. “Barbara had a remarkable body of work. It grew sharper — its lyricism deepened and became unparalleled in American poetry,” says Motika. “We don’t know exactly why they decided to make so many renditions of the same poem [“Tessera”], but I do think it’s really interesting when you work and respond to something visual very differently [than you would with text]. I can’t think of that many cases where there’s this interesting exploration or reverberation of different textures and colors in relation to words.” “Metamorphosis: The Collaboration of Poet Barbara Guest & Artist Fay Lansner” is on view through Apr. 23, at Poets House (10 River Terrace, at Murray St.). Hours: Tues.–Fri., 11 a.m.–7 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Closed Sun. & Mon. Free admission. Call 212-4317920 or visit poetshouse.org. For artist info, visit faylasner.com.

February 25 – March 9, 2016

Courtesy Poets House

Fay Lansner: “Portrait of Barbara Guest” (1970s. Oil on canvas, 60 x 36 in.).

Fay Lansner: “Tears go into the Urn” (1987. Charcoal and pastel on paper, 50 x 38 in.).

DowntownExpress.com

Just Do Art Artwork by Katie Sanborn-Price

The West Village Chorale sings songs of hope and freedom, at their Mar. 6 winter concert.

Photo by Arthur Cornelius

L-R: Mateo Moreno and Robert Honeywell in the stage adaption of Paul Auster’s “City of Glass,” through Mar. 12 at The New Ohio.

B Y SCO T T ST I F F L E R CITY OF GLASS In the convoluted world of noir gumshoe tales, he who picks up the phone often does so at great personal risk — and so it goes, in “City of Glass,” the first entry in author Paul Auster’s pulpy “New York Trilogy.” The trouble starts when unassuming Daniel Quinn receives a call, then takes a case in the name of the man he’s mistaken for: Paul Auster. But the newly minted PI soon regrets that decision, when he’s plunged into an Upper West Side world of men without language, femme fatale protectors, and fathers with murderous intentions. Described by producing entity Untitled Theater Company No. 61 as a “meditation on the nature of identity…wrapped in a surreal mystery,” director Edward Einhorn’s adaptation — in which strange situations unfold via video projected onto surfaces of cracked glass — promises to deliver a down-the-rabbit-hole experience every bit as post-modern, uneasy, and ambitious as its source material. “City of Glass” contains nudity and adult themes. Through Sat., Mar. 12: Wed. at 7 p.m., Thurs.–Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. Added performance Sat., Mar. 12 at 2 p.m. No show Sun., Feb. 28 or Wed., Mar. 2. At The New Ohio (154 Christopher St., btw. Greenwich & Washington Sts.). For tickets ($25-$30), visit untitledtheater.com or call 888-596-1027. DowntownExpress.com

WEST VILLAGE CHORALE WINTER CONCERT: “OH, FREEDOM!” Songs of hope, freedom, and inspiration from around the world give glorious voice to the triumph of human decency over social and political oppression, in this winter concert from the 45-member, nonsectarian, West Village Chorale. The program includes a concert arrangement of selections from the “Les Misérables,” spirituals, freedom songs, and the premiere of “In Honor of Martin.” A tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the choral piece was created by renowned sacred music composer and organist David Hurd, who recently stepped down from his academic and musical leadership posts after 39 years at General Theological Seminary. Malcolm J. Merriweather, the Chorale’s new artistic director, conducts. Sun., Mar. 6 at 6 p.m., at Judson Memorial Church (55 Wash. Sq. South, at Thompson St.). For tickets ($25, $10 for students), visit westvillagechorale. org or call 212-517-1776. MONK IN MOTION: THE NEXT FACE OF JAZZ “These are people under the age of 30 who’ve devoted most of their lives to the craft, in the same way that Charlie Parker or Chet Baker once did.” That excerpt, from an article we published back in 2014, is exactly why we’re always singing

the praises of BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center and the Thelonious Monk Institute’s annual “Monk in Motion: The Next Face of Jazz” event. This year’s three-part concert series showcases winning vocalists from 2015’s Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, who perform with their own bands. Feb. 20’s installment featured the First Place Winner — 23-year-old Jazzmeia “Jazz” Horn, a Harlem resident currently putting the finishing touches on her latest album. On Mar. 5, it’s Runner-Up Veronica Swift — who, at 21, is already headlining around the country. The series concludes on Mar. 19, with Second Runner-Up, Vuyo Sotashe — a 23-year-old South African who moved to NYC in 2013 and has gone on to win honors at a number of other prestigious competitions — including the Audience Prize Award and second over-all placement at Switzerland’s 2015 Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition. Sat., Mar. 5 & 19, at 7:30 p.m., at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center (199 Chambers St., btw. Greenwich & West Sts.). For tickets ($25, $15 for students/seniors per concert), visit tribecapac.org or call 212-220-1460. For info on the Institute, visit monkinstitute.org.

BENEFIT PERFORMANCE OF “PENNY PENNIWORTH” All’s well that ends well — but not until this 70-minute, Victorian England-era farce (purporting to be a lost Charles Dickens epic) has subjected its young protagonist to all manner of strange relationships, as dirt poor but plucky Penny Penniworth finds herself alone in the world, after her childhood love is chased out of town for his involvement in a near-fatal incident involving a wealthy businessman. Playwright Chris Weikel’s ridiculous tale, performed by a “short-staffed theatre troupe with Royal Shakespeare Company aspirations,” was an OffBroadway hit in 2010 and 2012. As directed by Mark Finley, the original cast returns for a benefit performance that will help fund the Drama Desknominated Emerging Artists Theatre’s New Work Series — which provides artists of different disciplines the opportunity to present a work in progress that solicits audience feedback directly following the performance. See the direct results of your kind DO ART Continued on page 27

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and leave your home or office “Spick & Span!” Excellent work at a low price! Experienced, Reliable & Trustworthy! (917) 415-7465 (718) 894-1233 (fax) February 25 – March 9, 2016

February 25 â€“ March 9, 2016

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DO ART Continued from page 25

support, when the New Works Series returns, Feb. 29–Mar. 20, to the venue that plays host to this oneshot revival of “Penniworth.” Mon., Feb. 29, at 7:30 p.m., at TADA! Theater (15 W. 28th St., 2nd Fl., btw. Broadway & Fifth Ave.). For tickets ($75, which includes post-show mingle with the cast, hors d'oeuvres and a cocktail), visit brownpapertickets. com and search for “Penny Penniworth.” Artist info at newworkseries.com and emergingartiststheatre.org. CINEKINK FILM FESTIVAL Just as one person’s junk is another’s treasure, what constitutes kink is purely in the eye of the beholder. Everyone, after all, likes something specific when it comes to what goes down in the sack — or dungeon, or rooftop, or kitchen counter, or “furry” anthropomorphic animal costume. Proudly dedicated to providing alternatives to a culture that sells sex while shaming those who embrace it, the CineKink Film Festival wants to help you celebrate your own “pervy” predilections, while broadening your horizons. The screenings and special events (some mildly spicy, others downright explicit) include “S&M Sally,” a humorous look at lesbians exploring BDSM; “The Pleasure of Rope,” a Japanese documentary about practitioners of bondage; “Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Sex Workers’ Words and Wisdom,” a panel whose members (Jiz Lee, Stoya, Chelsea Poe, Colin and Angie Rowntree, Morgana Muses) get personal about their chosen profession; the porn film showcase “Bring It!”; “Rites & Roles,” a collection of shorts exploring rituals and roles in sex play; and the closing film, “Schnick Schnack Schnuck,” a “sun-dappled homage” to 1970s porn. Kickoff gala and fundraiser (with music, sexy performances, cinematic gems) on Tues., Mar. 1 at 8 p.m., at Taj (48 W. 21st St., btw. Fifth & Sixth Aves.). Wed., Mar. 2– Sat., Mar. 5, festival screenings at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave., at Second St.). On Sun., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., awards celebration. At 9 p.m., AfterGlow party (both events at Bowery Bliss; location provided to ticketholders). Screenings are $10, $8 for students/seniors. Kickoff gala, $20 at door, $15 in advance. Awards celebration free, with RSVP. AfterGlow party: $30/individual, $40/couple, $50/ triad; no door sales. All-access pass: $85, $65 for students/ seniors. For reservations and info, visit cinekink.com. THE FRIGID FESTIVAL Horse Trade Theater Group has cleared the decade mark since they first drew names out of a hat (then, in subsequent years, a plastic pumpkin) on Halloween night, for a very democratic determination of who makes the cut for this annual collection of solo shows, music, cabaret, and experimental oddities. Among the offerings: Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters go old school, or, more specifically, schoolhouse, in “Lil’ Women: A Rap Musical.” Presented by Orlando, FL’s Lil Theatre Company, it tells the classic story in contemporary (i.e., hip-hop) style. Sick beats and the spitting of rhymes are rock solid certainties. At The Kraine Theater: Thurs., Feb. 25 at 7:10 p.m., Sun., Feb. 28 at 3:30 p.m., Tues., Mar. 1 at 8:50 p.m., Fri., Mar. 4 at 5:10 p.m., Sat., Mar. 5 at 3:20 p.m. Writer/performer Brad Lawrence and director Cyndi Freeman — the couple responsible for Downtown’s long-running, tribute-themed “Hotsy Totsy Burlesque” (currently ensconced at The DowntownExpress.com

Courtesy Monk in Motion

The voice of tomorrow, today: jazz vocalist Vuyo Sotashe, one of the “Monk in Motion” winners, gets his solo concert on Mar. 19 at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Photo courtesy Horse Trade Theater Group

Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters, as seen through a hip-hop prism — in “Lil’ Women: A Rap Musical,” through Mar. 5 at the FRIGID Festival.

Photo by Ned Thorne

L to R: Jamie Heinlein and Christopher Borg will revisit their “Penny Penniworth” roles, in a Feb. 29 benefit performance for Emerging Artists Theatre’s New Work Series.

Slipper Room) — team up for “The Gospel of Sherilyn Fenn”— a nod to the long, alternately debilitating and empowering shadow cast on young Mr. Lawrence by all manner of 1980s pop culture and political events. At UNDER St. Marks: Sat., Feb. 27 at 3:50 p.m., Thurs., Mar. 3 at 5:30 p.m., Sat., Mar. 5 at 10:30 p.m. Estranged pals Kate and Eddie have a chance meeting at a therapist’s office, in “Thank You For Waiting,” at The Kraine Theater: Sat., Feb. 27 at 6:40 p.m., Wed., Mar. 2 at 10:30 p.m., Sat., Mar. 5 at 12 p.m. Highly recommended is a favorite of this publication: swishy storyteller (and tongue-twisting ace of alliteration) Dandy Darkly, whose “Trigger Happy” tours an American landscape where PTSD, gentrification, and celebrity worship get the horror treatment, with hilarious and disturbing results. At UNDER St. Marks: Fri., Mar. 4 at 10:30 p.m., Sun., Mar. 6 at 1:50 p.m. FRIGID Festival shows are at the Kraine Theater (85 E. Fourth St., btw. Bowery & Second Ave.) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Pl., btw. First Ave. & Ave. A). For tickets ($8–$15), visit frigidnewyork.info. February 25 – March 9, 2016

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February 25 â€“ March 9, 2016

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