The Villager • Feb. 25, 2016

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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

February 25, 2016 • $1.00 Volume 86 • Number 8

L.E.S. teen arrested for vicious slashing at Silver Spurs diner BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

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mid the seemingly out-of-control surge of slashings gripping the city, police collared a Lower East Side teenager on Tuesday in last week’s vicious attack at Silver Spurs that left a busboy needing more than 130 stitches on his face. Dominicio Howington,

16, was picked up at the Lillian Wald Houses, where he lives at 691 F.D.R. Drive, and charged with first-degree assault and criminal weapon possession. He likely won’t be getting out soon — bail was set at $50,000. It was reported that he is already on parole — for a 2014 robbery, SLASHING continued on p. 12

New Ludlow cinema’s simple motto: ‘Great films in a great location’ BY GARY SHAPIRO

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ights! Camera! Lower East Side! “Hester Street,” “Crossing Delancey” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” with Jim Carrey had parts filmed in this area of the city. Then there was the famous chase scene on the Williamsburg Bridge

in “Naked City.” The latest action-packed adventure, however, is unfolding on Ludlow St. in a former food storage warehouse. The curtain will soon rise there on a new cinema called Metrograph on March 4. For cineastes on the Lower East Side, it’s a celluloid CINEMA continued on p. 10

PHOTO ©PMC

Lady Gaga, with her hair in 1920s-style waves, with designer Marc Jacobs, was the woman of the hour at Jacobs’s catwalk show during Fashion Week. See Pages 34 and 35 for more photos.

‘An assault on our windows’; N’bors trash Triangle design BY YANNIC RACK

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group of agitated residents clashed this week with the designers of a memorial to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that is planned for the corner of Washington Place and Greene St., where 146 garment workers died in the infamous tragedy more than 100 years ago. At a town hall meeting organized by Community Board 2 on Tues., Feb. 24, members of the Greenwich

Village Block Associations, which includes 33 groups around the neighborhood, sounded off on the memorial design, which many of them see as too obtrusive, and which they criticized for lacking community input. “It doesn’t keep with the historical nature of the building. It’s a 21st-century application to a 20th-century tragedy,” said Edy Selman, a local resident who later added that the design seemed “Disney-like” to her. “We’re not looking for another glass-and-chrome ob-

scenity,” added her son. The memorial plan was drawn up by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a nonprofit staffed by volunteers that has been involved with the fire’s annual commemoration for years. The installation project’s two architects, Richard Joon Yoo and Uri Wegman, presented their plan to the residents at the meeting, in hopes of allaying some of the anger directed at them. “We didn’t want to create a TRIANGLE continued on p. 31

‘Spotlight’ on Soho’s Neal Huff....................page 11 Remembering Dahdah and Nantandy........page 14 Liang scapegoat scare....................page 6

www.TheVillager.com

crusty travelers who camp out next to the cheap pizza place each summer with their pit bulls, one of which tragically mauled Roberta Bayley’s late pug, Sidney, last year.) Elsewhere on the street, a landmarked townhouse at 4 St. Mark’s Place that was once owned by Alexander Hamilton hit the market in November for $11.9 million, the Real Deal reports.

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE: In local Assembly

races, Arthur Schwartz tells us that he has retained This knit artwork by artist London Kaye appeared on the fence and sidewalk veteran political consulat La Plaza Cultural community garden, at E. Ninth St. and Avenue C, last tant Hank Scheinkopf to week. Interpret it however you wish — or maybe not! handle his messaging and communications for his munity Action Alliance on N.Y.U. 2031, said, “I have challenge to Assemblymember Deborah Glick in not heard from the new N.Y.U. president, and do not the 66th A.D. Meanwhile, we hear that former City know of any non-N.Y.U. affiliates that have. We do Councilmember Margarita Lopez will be the field cohope that he will reach out to the community, and are ordinator for Alice Cancel’s campaign in the April 19 eager to have conversations with him.” The univer- special election in the 65th A.D. In addition, Schwartz sity’s spokesperson said their new leader, who hails said he supports term limits in Albany — either two from England, definitely will be making the rounds. four-year terms or four two-year terms — and also “As you know, Andy Hamilton has been in New York campaign finance reform. “I want public financing, and at N.Y.U. less than seven weeks,” John Beckman so longer terms would probably be better,” he said. said. “He’s looking forward to his future interactions “Not only would public financing make it easier to with members of the local community.” run for office, but the reporting requirements are heightened, and candidates have to account for every THERE GOES THE BLOCK: The Real Deal reports cent that they receive and spend,” Schwartz added. that investor Elliot Sohayegh is in contract to buy “Now, campaign accounts are piggy banks. Sheldon a “package” of four adjacent rental buildings along Silver paid his entire $2.5 million legal bill from his St. Mark’s Place for $44 million, or nearly $760 per campaign account.” Glick, who has been in Albany square foot. The walk-ups at 28-34 St. Mark’s Place, for more than 25 years, did not respond to a request between Second and Third Aves., include 80 residen- for comment on whether she supports term limits. tial rental units. Ground-floor retail tenants include However, she has previously said she does back camAfghani restaurant Khyber Pass and dollar-slice pizza paign finance reform. chain 2 Bros. In December, Mamoun’s Falafel signed a 10-year lease for 1,400 square feet at 30 St. Mark’s UN-ROSIE FUTURE: The Coalition for a District Place, and is relocating from 22 St. Mark’s Place. Ask- Alternative is wasting no time in getting behind a ing rents for retail on the block are about $250 per candidate to succeed Councilmember Rosie Mensquare foot. Meanwhile, a market-rate apartment at dez, who will be term-limited out of the City Counone of the buildings rents for $3,200 per month on cil after 2017. Even though the election is about a average, according to StreetEasy. About 40 percent year and a half away, CoDA is endorsing a candidate of the apartments are market-rate units; the rest are next month. We’re hearing District Leader Carlina rent-stabilized. The deal is expected to close in the Rivera’s name — and maybe Chad Marlow — but next couple months, and the buyer-to-be is planning no one else. Former Community Board 3 Chairperrenovations, sources said. (Also very possibly includ- son Harvey Epstein, we hear, has been told that “it’s ed with the purchase will be the inebriated homeless not his time.” “They pretty much cleared the field PHOTO BY SARAH FERGUSON

WAITING FOR HAMILTON: It’s already been two months since Andrew Hamilton took over as president of New York University. He’s been settling in at N.Y.U., but — as far as we can tell — hasn’t really reached out to the community and local leaders yet. Of course, The Villager is waiting to meet him, too, and help introduce him to the community. We remember that when John Sexton became N.Y.U. president, he held a meeting with the community at which he spoke, among other things, about respecting and protecting the Village’s historic “fabric.” Oh, well… . But that definitely would be a good idea — meeting with the community — and also protecting the Village’s fabric! “I’ve not met President Hamilton yet, but I hope to do so soon,” state Senator Brad Hoylman told us. “I understand he’s been busy with a listening tour, of sorts, with faculty and staff, and hope he expands that effort to include the wider Greenwich Village community. President Hamilton’s ascendancy is a chance for N.Y.U. to hit the ‘reset button’ on community relations, and I hope his administration will take full advantage of this opportunity.” Likewise, Councilmember Corey Johnson said he’s still waiting to meet Hamilton. “I haven’t heard from him,” he said. Sarah Sanchala, Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s chief of staff, reported, “Deborah sent a congrats and welcoming letter to the new N.Y.U. president after he started, and indicated a desire to meet when he is settled. We did receive a response that was appreciative and indicated it would happen soon after he did settle in.” John Blasco, Rosie Mendez’s communications director, similarly, said the councilmember — who is currently out of the country — had not met the new N.Y.U. chief yet, but is looking forward to it. Terri Cude, co-chairperson of Com-

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February 25, 2016

for Rivera. … She’s straight — it’s the only thing against her,” quipped our source, who is of the other persuasion. “It’ll be interesting to see if there’s someone north of 14th St. running.” Marlow, by the way, is no longer a CoDA member. We asked why, but he declined comment.

PATZ CASE, PART II: Jury selection starts Mon, March 7, for a new trial of Pedro Hernandez in the Etan Patz case. WINNING SHOT: Congrats to one of our contributing photographers, Milo Hess, who won second place in the Panasonic Lumix Winter Photo Contest for his great shot of a shaggy dog licking snow off its muzzle during the blizzard that we ran a few weeks ago (which we actually mistakenly credited to Tequila Minsky. Sorry Milo!). His prize was a new camera, extra lens and memory card. TheVillager.com

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February 25, 2016

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Witnesses testify in Carson murder case Named best weekly newspaper in New York State in 2001, 2004 and 2005 by New York Press Association Editorials, First Place, 2014 News Story, First Place, 2014 Overall Design Excellence, First Place, 2013 Best Column, First Place, 2012 Photographic Excellence, First Place, 2011 Spot News Coverage, First Place, 2010 Coverage of Environment, First Place, 2009

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February 25, 2016

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

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s the trial of Elliot Morales, the accused killer of Mark Carson, opens in Manhattan Supreme Court, witnesses are saying that the moments before Carson’s death were more confrontational than has been described in earlier press reports. “I was just trying to defuse the situation,” Oscar Robles testified on Mon., Feb. 22, the first day of the trial. “They were both screaming, so I just went back into the pizza shop.” Morales, 36, is charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, weapons possession and menacing. He allegedly shot the 32-year-old gay man in the West Village just after midnight on May 18, 2013. Police arrested Morales within minutes of the shooting and he had the murder weapon in his possession. Previously, the shooting has been described in press reports as less of a fight and more of Morales simply insulting, then killing Carson. Robles was with Morales and Joseph Matos that night. Robles’s partner is Matos’s sister, and the three men had some beer in Robles’s home before taking Matos’s car to the West Village. Once there, they briefly parked outside the apartment building where Robles works, then began heading north in the car on Sixth Ave. They stopped to get a bite at a $1 pizza place and that is where they first encountered Carson and Danny Robinson, his longtime friend. In video from outside the pizzeria, Carson and Robinson can be seen walking northbound side by side on the sidewalk and Morales forces them apart by walking between them. At that moment he is alleged to have said, “Look at you faggots, you look like gay wrestlers.” While Carson and Robinson, who were wearing brightly colored T-shirts, are out of the video, Morales and Matos are seen turning around, then Carson and Robinson come back into the video, which had no sound. While the men appear to be arguing, there is no physical contact. Morales’s tone was “cocky, aggressive,” Robinson said on the stand. “We turned back and walked toward him to ask what he said,” Robinson said. “It was mostly Mark doing most of the talking. Mark was saying, ‘You’re not going to do nothing.’ ” Carson and Robinson followed Morales as they resumed walking north on Sixth Avenue, with Morales continuing to insult them. “He was saying ‘faggot,’ slurs, angry slurs,” Robinson said. Morales stopped at the corner of Eighth St. and Sixth Ave. “He was standing there as if he was

PHOTO BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Elliot Morales, left, seated next to his legal adviser, Adam Freedman, on the first day of testimony in Morales’s trial on charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime in the 2013 slaying of Mark Carson at W. Eighth St. and Sixth Ave. near a $1 pizza place.

waiting for us,” Robinson said. At some point in this very brief encounter, the three men moved about five yards east on Eighth St. They were about 10 feet apart, and Morales had already displayed the gun he was carrying. “[Mark] was afraid,” Robinson said. “He froze, he wouldn’t move.” At that moment, Morales asked Carson, “Are you with him?” and Carson said, “Yes.” Morales allegedly then fired one shot at Carson’s head, killing him. Robinson said that he and Carson were not carrying weapons and they never threatened Morales. He did not complete his testimony on Feb. 22 and was expected back on the stand the following day. Morales, who is representing himself, appears to be banking on the jury seeing this as an alcohol-fueled dispute that turned violent rather than intentional murder driven by anti-gay prejudice. “You’re going to see that what happened was not an act of intent or bigotry,” he said during his opening statement. “You’re going to see that I never sought out Mr. Carson at any time.” So far, the testimony has not helped him much. Robles said they had “a beer or two” in his apartment when

questioned by Shannon Lucey, the assistant district attorney who is prosecuting the case. Upon cross-examination, Morales asked Robles if he saw Matos and him drinking Bacardi in the car as they drove to the West Village. Robles said, “I don’t remember seeing you drinking.” Robinson testified that he and Carson had a drink in his Brooklyn home before taking a cab to Manhattan. Each man had a second drink in the cab. After Kelly Wheeler, a Sixth Precinct detective, testified that she did not recall Morales being intoxicated, he presented her with a copy of a search warrant she had signed that read “slight odor of alcohol on his breath.” The prosecution is painting a picture of Morales as a man who was looking to use the gun that night. Morales will be confronted with testimony from a bartender, who is gay, whom he allegedly menaced with the gun moments before the shooting. In addition, Henry Huot, the police officer who arrested him, will testify that when he ordered Morales to stop on a West Village street moments after the shooting, Morales crouched, then “whips around,” but drops the gun, Lucey said in her opening statement. TheVillager.com

TheVillager.com

February 25, 2016

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Asian pols, protesters demand leniency for Liang BY LUCAS ROPEK

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ollowing the recent conviction of former Police Officer Peter Liang in the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley, City Councilmember Margaret Chin called for his sentencing not to be severe. “Today, I have asked my Council colleagues to join me to ask for leniency in the case involving Peter Liang,” the Lower Manhattan councilmember 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 method of policing that often places rookies in dangerous spots. Chin also blamed the “culture of neglect” surrounding New York’s public housing, which, she offered, contributes to an “atmosphere of fear” that helped lead to Liang’s decision to fire. Chin is one of only two Asian-American councilmembers in New York City, the other being Peter Koo of Queens. Similarly, in published reports, Koo has said he believes both the New York City Housing Authority and Police Department 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 the recent number of police-involved shootings that have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. A very strong advocate for Liang has been Assemblymember Ron Kim — 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.” An estimated nearly 10,000, mostly Asian-American protesters rallied in Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn, on Sat., 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 sentence for Liang. 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

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PHOTO BY ARTHUR DE GAETA

Thousands of Asian-Americans protested in Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn on Saturday that former Officer Peter Liang is being made a scapegoat.

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.” Support for Liang isn’t universal, however. CAAAV (Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence), a Lower East Sidebased activist group, 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,” CAAAV’s 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 stairway in East New York’s Pink Houses as Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, were doing a vertical patrol. Gurley, a Pink Houses resident, had decided to take the stairs because the elevator wasn’t working. For many, Gurley’s death became

PHOTO BY JASON SPEAKMAN

Counterprotesters said that the convicted Liang is a “killer cop” and deserves prison time.

yet another indication of a broken criminal justice system that unfairly victimizes low-income, predominantly African-American individuals. After Liang’s conviction by a jury on Feb. 11., however, the issue has taken on different racial connotations. 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. Though Gurley’s death can be seen as part of a larger problem of deadly police misconduct, it’s also something of an anomaly, considering that most officers involved in fatal shoot-

ings are never convicted, or even brought to trial. One of the most prominent recent examples is the Eric Garner case, in which police decided to arrest Staten Islander Garner on suspicion of selling untaxed loose cigarettes on the street. Garner — who was overweight and asthmatic — died during the arrest as he was brought down with a chokehold and police pressed down on his prostate body. Yet Police 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 the 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. TheVillager.com

Going...nowhere! Landlord blocked from removing lift BY JOAQUIN COTLER

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preliminary injunction was granted to the residents of 173 Henry St. on Monday, preventing the building’s landlord from shutting down the elevator for five months to replace it. The ruling came on the heels of a federal restraining order filed on behalf of tenants of the 43-unit Chinatown apartment building. Earlier this month, Legal Services NYC and Asian Americans For Equality filed a federal lawsuit, which led to the restraining order preventing the landlord, King Henry Realty Inc., from turning off the building’s only elevator. Immediately before the injunction hearing took place, a press conference was held at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan to raise awareness and protest subpar living conditions at the building. Members of the 173 Henry St. Tenant Association rallied behind Chee Sum Ng, a 64-year-old rent-stabilized resident suffering from end-stage renal disease, who cannot reasonably climb the seven flights of stairs to his apartment. The demonstrators demanded that, in addition to the restraining order preventing the elevator closure, the landlord also stop harassment, which they said is intended to force them to leave their homes. William Xu of AAFE introduced the speakers and gave a general overview of what he called the illegal and dangerous actions taken by King Henry Realty. “The landlord has continued to conduct construction without permits in the building as a form of harassment,” he said. “He has also failed to upkeep the building, and has allowed it to deteriorate into a state of disrepair, with substandard living conditions that pose a health and safety risk to our tenants.” Following Xu’s remarks, AAFE’s Donna Chiu translated the statements of several non-English-speaking residents of 173 Henry St. as they gave their firsthand accounts. The tenants detailed a slew of violations that they face on a daily basis, such as broken plumbing, lack of heat, unreliable gas and hot water and open construction zones. Brandon Kielbasa of the Cooper Square Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and creating environmentally healthy housing, noted that these conditions are by no means unique to 173 Henry St. “It isn’t an isolated issue,” he said. “We’re experiencing it at record levels. Alarming levels. Negligent TheVillager.com

management of construction can be the most violent form of tenant harassment. I’m glad to be standing in solidarity with 173 Henry. We need to overhaul the system to combat construction as harassment. We need the Department of Buildings to be a proactive player in addressing this issue.” Greg Holtz, representing the Stand for Tenants Safety Coalition, spoke about his experiences. A resident of 445 E. Ninth St., Holtz said that out of 10 units in his building, four have recently been vacated, their occupants forced out by unethical practices. Once vacated, the apartments underwent disruptive and unsafe renovation, which impacted the remaining residents. He had no gas in his apartment for more than nine months, and was tormented by dust clouds, debris, flooding and noise, he said. He tried for months to put a stop to the unlicensed construction, he said. “What will it take?” he asked, “another building explosion? Ten, 20, 100 people with permanent breathing problems because of a renovation? Where is the Department of Buildings? Where is the mayor?” Betty Eng, a 90 Elizabeth St. resident, cited her landlord’s unwillingness to post notifications in the languages spoken in her building as its own form of aggression. “After I fi nally lost my patience, they posted notices in English and Chinese,” said Eng, who is Chinese and Cuban-American. “The problem is, I don’t speak Chinese. My neighbors upstairs don’t speak English or Chinese. They’re Latino!” The demonstration ended with Councilmember Margaret Chin voicing her support for the tenants. “Our city agencies have to be held accountable,” she said. “They have to work together and coordinate and make sure tenants are protected.” After the rally, many demonstrators reconvened in Housing Court, to show support for Ng and the 173 Henry St. Tenants Association. According to Kate Whelan of Legal Services-NYC, the preliminary injunction was granted, preventing the landlords from removing the elevator without providing reasonable accommodations to Ng. “[King Henry Realty, Inc.] is also stayed from harassing Mr. Ng in retaliation for enforcing his rights,” Whelan said. “The preliminary injunction is in place until our next court date on April 25 at 10 a.m.” The landlord could not be reached for comment by press time.

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50 years after sip-in, another trip to the well BY ANDY HUMM

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he effort is on to make Julius’ bar in Greenwich Village the second New York City building landmarked because of its unique role in L.G.B.T. history –– as the scene of a pre-Stonewall civil disobedience action that won gay people the right to be served in public establishments. The Stonewall Inn, scene of the 1969 rebellion that catalyzed the modern L.G.B.T. liberation movement, was given landmark status by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission last spring. Julius’ role in L.G.B.T. history came three years earlier and, unlike the Stonewall, looks much as it did inside on that occasion almost 50 years ago. On April 21, 1966, four gay men from the Mattachine Society, a pre-Stonewall gay group, stood at the bar of Julius’ on W. 10th St. and Waverly Place and announced, “We are homosexuals. We are orderly, we intend to remain orderly, and we are asking for service.” They were refused on the grounds that the mere presence of gay people in a bar made it a “disorderly” premises subject to closure. After their famous “sip-in,” the men — Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, Randy Wicker and Dick Leitsch — challenged the State Liquor Authority regulation and prevailed, a crucial victory in the early gay movement. The New York Times headline on their action read, “Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” Wicker, whose gay activism goes back to 1958 and who is still at it, said, “Only Julius’ refused to serve us that day. Several others willingly obliged our request for a drink, but Julius’ did not want to become a known gay bar. They would police the door and if it got to be too many males inside, they would not let a man in unless accompanied by a female.” The bartender at Julius’ was particularly jumpy because the day before a minister had been arrested for soliciting another man there and a sticker had been placed on the door declaring the bar “a raided premises.” Rodwell went on to found the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967 and co-led the first Christopher St. Liberation Day March — now the L.G.B.T. Pride March — in 1970. He died of stomach cancer in 1993 at age 52. Leitsch, the leader of Mattachine then, is still alive and said he thought it was “a great idea” to landmark Julius’. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, led by executive director Andrew Berman, is petitioning the L.P.C. to designate Julius’ as a historic landmark before the 50th anniversary of the sip-in, which will be marked by a forum on April 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the nearby Jefferson Market Library, at Sixth Ave. and W. 10th St. Landmark status “will ensure that the building itself and the exterior are regulated and preserved,” Berman said. “It will also give recognition by the city of New York that this is a site of tremendous significance in our city’s history.” While there were several gay rights demonstrations around the country prior to this, Berman said the sip-in was “the very first planned civil disobedience for L.G.B.T. rights in the world.” Damaris Olivo, the Landmarks spokesperson, wrote in an e-mail that “the request is under review by the agency.” However, she noted that the bar is already protected as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, and that any changes to

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A recreation of the scene in April 1966 when John Timmins, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell and Randy Wicker were denied drinks at the Mattachine Society sip-in at Julius’ Bar.

its facade thus would require the commission’s approval. She did not respond to a follow-up question asking if the request might be calendared in time for the sip-in’s 50th anniversary. Berman said that the 1969 Village district designation report “makes no mention of the architectural or historical significance [of Julius’]. It goes through building by building, and it is the guide by which the commission regulates. If the report doesn’t highlight special significance, the building is potentially vulnerable to changes — even demolition.” When G.V.S.H.P. gathered support for the Stonewall designation in 2014, many of those endorsing it seconded the call for city landmark status for Julius’ — including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, state Senator Brad Hoylman, City Councilmembers Corey Johnson and Margaret Chin and the L.G.B.T. Community Center. In his recent letter to the commission, Berman wrote that, in 2012, “The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation deemed Julius’ bar as eligible for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places on the basis of its place in L.G.B.T. and civil rights history.” Julius’ has been a bar since 1864 in a building dating to 1826. It was a speakeasy during Prohibition. Its tables, chairs and bar were made out of wooden barrels from the Ruppert Brewery of Yorkville in the 19th century. It is the city’s oldest continuous gay bar, developing a reputation as such in the 1950s — even though gay customers, prior to the sip-in, were sometimes harassed. Some of its famous gay regulars included Rudolf Nureyev, Tennessee Williams, Vladimir Horowitz and Truman Capote. Berman said, “Certainly, the interior is an incredibly valuable time capsule. And we would like to see the bar continue to operate there in perpetuity, with as much of the interior remaining intact as possible. But landmarking generally applies

only to exteriors.” Helen Buford, the watering hole’s owner for the past 14 years — along with her husband, Eugene, until he died seven years ago — is “very excited” about the prospective landmark status. “I’m a caretaker of memories,” she said. “No one has to worry about it remaining Julius’ bar as long as I am here. My mission is to continue restoring it.” She said the eighth Mattachine Night party, billed as “spinning vintage vinyl from queer yesteryear,” is set for the bar for Thurs., Feb. 18, at 10 p.m., led by performers John Cameron Mitchell, Amber Martin and Angela Di Carlo. Tom Bernardin, 67, “the unofficial, self-described historian of Julius’,” in his own words, has been a denizen of the bar since 1974 — with some interruptions, coming back for good in 2000 and finding special solace in the community of patrons there after Sept. 11, 2001. He and the patrons raised $6,000 to get a period lamppost installed outside the bar. Bernardin said he welcomes landmark designation, noting that the sip-in was “an accelerant” in the progress toward the Stonewall Rebellion “three years and two months later.” Bernardin tells the sip-in story in an online video at youtube.com/watch?v=pSf7gZb8JIY. This reporter first went to Julius’ in 1972 at age 18 and frequented it more in the late ’70s as a place to repair to with groups of Dignity members after meetings. Father Bernárd Lynch of Dignity said, “It used to be my office in the early ’80s when I did my AIDS ministry.” He recalled that the place was very friendly to priests. He was there this past week, during a visit from his home in London, to meet an interviewer, and enjoyed one of the bar’s famous burgers. Lynch noted that the Gay Officers Action League held their early meetings at Julius’. “To me, Julius’ is a touchstone to our history,” Bernardin said, “a place that gay visitors from the U.S. and foreign visitors come back to. It seems not to change. It’s like going home.” TheVillager.com

Planned Service Changes

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February 25, 2016

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New cinema’s motto: ‘Great films, great location’ CINEMA continued from p. 1

dream come true. Metrograph, at 7 Ludlow St., is the brainchild of Alexander Olch, a successful Harvard-educated accessories designer who lives in the neighborhood. He conceived of the project over a period of six years, after spotting the storage warehouse. Olch is a filmmaker himself who made “The Windmill Movie,” about a former teacher. It played on HBO and at Film Forum. “I fell in love with movies in my youth,” Olch said. “There was something special about these theaters, which were in the process of fading away and did fade away.” The vision of Metrograph, he said, is to “reclaim that specialness and bring back a little glamour, too.” Filmmaker Andrew Lampert, the former curator of collections at Anthology Film Archives, predicts the place will attract movie lovers, with a twist. “Their audience will definitely draw from the cinephile scene who already habituate New York City’s other repertory theaters,” he said. “But it will also likely attract a new and different crowd because of its prime location among the eclectic boutiques and galleries of the Lower East Side, and the swirling hubbub of Chinatown.” “The state of cinema in New York is great and always needs new voices,” said Michael Lieberman, the theater’s publicist, who studied film with avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs at SUNY Binghamton. The block is relatively quiet, with a funeral home and a plumbing supplies store. Most extraordinary is the towering former Loew’s Canal Street Theater across the street. Metrograph has two screens, one with a capacity of 175 seats, including 25 on a balcony, the other, a smaller 47-seat cinema. The seats are red velvet with wood refurbished from the former Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg. Tickets will cost $15, while membership discounts will be introduced in the future. They are installing a retro vintage phone for the usher to speak with the projection booth. With two bars, a restaurant and a bookstore, the staff hopes that customers, after seeing a film, will find that they want to stay in the building and have something to eat. The restaurant is called The Commissary, a nostalgic wink at meals at old movie studio lots, like Paramount and others. Jacob Perlin, formerly programmer-at-large at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is Metrograph’s programming and artistic director. Aliza Ma, who has worked at the Museum of the Moving Image and Sundance Film Festival, is head of programming. Cinema experience

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February 25, 2016

The Metrograph theater is located in a former food storage warehouse at Ludlow and Canal Sts.

runs in the family: She was born in China, where her grandmother managed a national movie theater. Filmmaker Lampert said, “The line-up is expansive and exciting, which comes as no surprise given the involvement of programmer extraordinaire Jake Perlin and everyone on the team there. Their fantastic debut calendar includes certified classics by old masters, numerous contemporary masterpieces and curiosities galore by names on — and well under — our general radar.” Olch calls their programming “eclectic and global.” The schedule includes a series of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s favorite 10 movies, documentaries by Frederick Wiseman preserved by the Library of Congress, work by Hong Kong auteur Johnny To, and a series of must-see films “from A to Z,” beginning with Scorsese’s “Age of Innocence.” Metrograph will open — appropriately — with a showing of films that have crucial scenes inside movie theaters, such as “Taxi Driver” and “Desperately Seeking Susan.” “The theater we are creating takes the notion of experience and memory into account when organizing programs,” Perlin explained. “We are looking to create a venue where the space is a complement to what we are

screening. We want to have the audience feel that it has not only seen a great film, but that they have seen it in a great location — and that for them, the two will always be connected in memory. “Our interest in programming and presentation is born form being a spectator first,” he added. “This is what we always keep in mind.” In terms of Metrotech’s roster of films, Ma said she’s taking the larger view. “Having worked now for nine years in programming at various institutions, I’ve learned that it’s important to think about our task as programmers holistically, as opposed to seeing each program as one-off projects,” she said. In October 2015, Community Board 3 issued stipulations that were mostly about noise mitigation, which Metrograph has agreed to follow to get its liquor license. Metrograph will also do joint programming with the Henry Street Settlement. A few doors down at 21 Ludlow St. is a gallery and store called Central Booking that showcases artists who work with any aspect of the book form. Maddy Rosenberg, its founder, would in her youth take the train from Brooklyn to Bleecker St. to see

films. She happy to have the new Metrograph on the block. “I think Alexander has exactly what it takes to make it work,” she said. “He is enthusiastic and believes in the project.” Metrograph is a little more than four blocks from establishments such as the Tenement Museum. The nearby gallery owner Tracy Williams said there were a lot of artists living in the neighborhood. However, housing prices in the area have risen in recent years. A new independent cinema is never a sure bet, since many people nowadays prefer to kick back at home and watch Netflix. Olch said opening a theater is like making a film: “It’s a concoction of luck, timing, preparation and hard work.” But the Metrograph team also have something else on their side: location. Asked what makes the Lower East Side a fertile place to show films, programmer Perlin said, “The diversity of the community, the history of public performance on the Lower East Side that started on the stage, and an enduring vibrancy of life and culture in this neighborhood that will endure as long as people call it their home.” Tickets go on sale Feb. 29. For more information, about the Metrograph theater, go to http://metrograph.com. TheVillager.com

Spotlight on Soho’s Neal Huff, who stars in ‘Spotlight’ BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

S

oho actor Neal Huff is known to fans of “The Wire” as Michael Steintorf, chief of staff to Mayor Tommy Carcetti. Now, in the Academy Award-nominated film “Spotlight,” Huff plays a pivotal supporting role as Phil Saviano, a child sex abuse survivor who helps the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team blow open the hidden plague of pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese. The Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service based on the Spotlight team’s reporting. The film also stars Michael Keaton as Spotlight Editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as reporters Michael Rezendes and Sacha Pfeiffer and Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, the tough-minded new editor who pushes the team to tackle the story. Huff plays Saviano as frazzled and frustrated: He had pitched a story to the Globe years earlier about priest abuse in Worcester, but it only resulted in one article that was hardly far-reaching enough, and there was no follow-up. “Spotlight” is like a “Watergate” for our age, a fascinating look inside a journalistic investigation into a huge story. But the magnitude of the issue “Spotlight” focuses on — sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, which is a worldwide problem — makes the Watergate scandal pale by comparison. It’s a front-runner for Best Picture at this Sunday evening’s Oscars. Huff grew up just outside the Bronx, in Pelham, and attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he honed his thespian skills. “I loved it because I was finally getting to do what I wanted to do,” he said of N.Y.U. “We were, like, hermetically sealed. We were 17 students together for three years. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere else.” Huff was in the cast of “Take Me Out,” which won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2003. He was on seasons four and five of “The Wire” in 2007 and 2008. His character’s main role was to try to keep Mayor Carcetti’s hands clean, so that he could run for governor. Carcetti was said to be based on Martin O’Malley. “If you know anything about Baltimore, you know ‘The Wire’ was completely accurate,” Huff said. “President Obama has said in the past his favorite show is ‘The Wire,’ and Martin O’Malley said it’s his least favorite show.” Huff noted that DeRay Mckesson, an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, now looks like he is going run for mayor of Baltimore, “which I think is going to be wonderful,” he said. In researching his role for “Spotlight,” Huff viewed letters that concerned Massachusetts priests had written about sexual abuse that was occurring in the Church. Yet, the language was always very veiled and vague. “It’s amazing,” he said, “how archbishops talk around what was going on — even in letters among higher-ups to other higher-ups — about moving priests around.” During the making of the movie, Huff was in close contact with Saviano, who had started the New England chapter of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Robinson and Rezendes watched some of the filming, and walked up and complimented Huff after the scene where he plays Saviano in his first TheVillager.com

Actor Neal Huff as Phil Saviano — a leading whistle-blower on pedophile priests in Massachusetts — as he urges the Boston Globe Spotlight team to follow up on the research he has gathered.

encounter with the Spotlight team. They told him he nailed it. “Robinson said he thinks this is the final taboo,” Huff said. “There are so many taboos about speaking out against your family. He feels this is the next frontier, as an investigative journalist.” (In a similar vein, The Villager recently broke the story of legendary Lower East Side gardener Adam Purple’s previously untold history of sexually abusing his own daughters and former stepdaughters. As first reported by The Villager, Purple, real name David Lloyd Wilkie, served up to two years in prison in Australia for molesting his oldest former stepdaughter.) Huff admitted that “Spotlight” did have “a lot of special resonance” for him on a personal level. “I went to a Jesuit high school, Fordham Prep, in the Bronx,” he noted. “I was married by a Catholic priest. I also know of stuff that happened in our school. … And then when I knew I was going to be representing Phil [Saviano], I just felt a massive, massive responsibility — like a sacred duty.” On a more local level, while it’s certainly not a crime, gentrification virtually amounts to a sin, in Huff’s view, in the way it is so radically altering New York City’s landscape. He has lived on Thompson St. since his N.Y.U. days, and in the couple of decades since then, the neighborhood’s transformation has simply been overwhelming. “I am just so saddened by the gentrification of New York,” he said. “When do you say, ‘Enough?’... In this economy, there is never enough.” He closely follows the issues that the Soho Alliance community activist group is working on, and supports their fights — and also participates in some of them.

“I’ve been to Community Board 2 a bunch. Sean has been really helpful,” he said. “He tried to fight Trump Soho.” He was referring to Sean Sweeney, the Soho Alliance’s director, and the community’s fight against the developer-now-turned-presidential candidate’s massively oversized condo-hotel tower at Spring and Varick Sts. One of the first things Huff remembers from when he moved onto Thompson St. in college was an Italian-American social club fighting to keep from being evicted. “There were all these sheets on the fire escape: ‘Keep the Club — Keep Soho Safe,’ ” he recalled of the makeshift banners’ messages. “There was a picture of Pia Zadora and Frank Sinatra. There was a strange level of quiet and protection in the neighborhood that went away,” after the club was forced out. “Being a kid in school 20 years ago, it was a very different place,” he recalled. “You were able to have your own place. It’s very different now. So many storefronts are empty now — landlords are waiting for higher-rent tenants.” New high-rises keep on springing up. “It’s like the neighborhood has been on steroids for a long time,” he said. And yet, Huff admits he kind of likes the socalled “Little Flatiron Building” on the former gas station and car wash site at Sixth Ave. and Sullivan and Broome Sts. “I’ve got to say, it’s very attractive. It’s got that industrial feeling,” he said, though adding, “But it’s taking up so much sky for [its neighbors].” He is not a critic of God’s Love We Deliver’s new, enlarged building, either, mainly because he respects their mission of feeding the sick. “The fact that they’re still there, doing what they do, is amazing,” he said. “I thought it was going to be a monstrous tower. I’m glad it’s still there, the organization.” Huff loves the area’s many Italian restaurants — he readily rattles off their names and his favorite dishes at each one — while his favorite cafe is Local on Sullivan St. “Craig is amazing. I’ve been going there since they opened,” he said of Local’s co-owner, Craig Walker. The actor even has a grudging respect for cronuts, and total respect for their creator, Dominique Ansel. “It’s a crazy, annoying thing — the line,” he said. “But that place turns out amazing stuff. It’s not his fault he has the pastry equivalent of the Beatles.” One issue Huff has been following closely is Ladurée, ostensibly a macaroon place at the former Barolo restaurant spot, which has been throwing loud outdoor parties and which also put a massive A/C unit on the second floor. “Big money comes in with very little perspective. They don’t care,” he reflected. “They have a DJ twice a week and they rent it out. They’ve got a huge amount of corporate money behind them. When that thing is really slamming, nightclub style, you hear it. The issue is they continue to really crank out nightclub music several times a week.” Huff planned to attend a C.B. 2 State Liquor Authority Committee meeting about Ladurée earlier this month. Meanwhile, he and his neighbors have been organizing about it on their own end, too — at Local, of course. February 25, 2016

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L.E.S. teen arrested in Silver Spurs slashing SLASHING continued from p. 1

and also has past arrests for assault, criminal trespass and petty larceny. Amid the recent wave of slashing incidents, on Wed., Feb. 17, at 8 p.m., Bobby Barbot, 25, a worker at Silver Spurs diner, at 490 LaGuardia Place at W. Houston St., was brutally sliced on the left cheek, allegedly by Howington, after he asked him to leave the place. EMS medics responded and transported Barbot to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition, where he received 137 stitches to close the gaping gash. According to the Daily News, half of the stitches were on the inside of his cheek, because the gash went all the way through. According to police, the youth came into the diner and began asking patrons for donations. He was asked to leave and complied. But he returned shortly after, slashed the victim and then fled northbound on LaGuardia Place. News reports said the teen had been soliciting donations for a “bogus basketball league” and “bothering customers.” The victim’s girlfriend, Nicole Fontanez, told CBS News that Barbot “just asked him to please leave. It was just a nice way, and then the guy was

Slashing victim Bobby Barbot in a photo on Instagram. PHOTO BY C4P

Dominicio Howington, 16, being led out of the Sixth Precinct, on W. 10th St., on Tuesday at 7 p.m., to be transported to Central Booking at Manhattan Criminal Court.

like, ‘Oh, whatever,’ and he got rowdy and he said, ‘I’ll be back.’ ” She said Barbot — who had not been confrontational to the man — escorted him outside Silver Spurs, which is when he was slashed. However, a report in the New York Post told a different story. According to the Post, Barbot is an aspiring Mixed

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Martial Arts fighter, and he and the suspect traded words and, eventually punches in their first encounter. The teen missed with his punch, but Barbot said, in his turn, he “knocked out” the younger man, sending him to the floor. The teen then left, but warned he would be back. Ten minutes later he returned and Barbot blocked his path. “I seen him pull out a boxcutter,” Barbot told the Post. “He was yelling, ‘Say I won’t cut you!’ I told him, ‘You’re a coward for pulling out a knife on at me.’ He just lashed at me with the knife.” However, George Pirgousis, a manager at the restaurant, told The Villager that although he wasn’t working at the time of the incident, he did not hear anything about there having been a physical confrontation with the assailant prior to the slashing. He said his understanding was that the suspect simply left and then returned and cut Barbot. As for Barbot’s interest in MMA, he said, “He practices on the side to

keep in shape.” Barbot has worked at Silver Spurs two to three years, Pirgousis said. “Eventually, he’ll be back,” he assured. Police provided a surveillance-camera image of the suspect and additional photos of three unknown teens — a male and two females — who were seen in his company on the date of the incident. Howington was caught based on a tip. In addition, in Soho, just a few blocks east from Silver Spurs, there was another bloody slashing the same day outside Supreme, the skateboard and clothing store on Lafayette St. near Prince St., where a new clothing line had just been released. A 21-year-old man was slashed on his right cheek — either for cutting the line or in robbery. “The amount of blood that just came out of it was unreal,” a witness said. With more than 570 incidents already so far this year, stabbings and slashings are up more than 20 percent — about 100 more than last year for the same period. Mayor Bill de Blasio assured that 2,000 new police officers will be on the streets this year and will help address the problem.

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POLICE BLOTTER Mass arrest A man, 68, witnessed another man steal a valuable religious book from Our Lady of Pompeii Church at 25 Carmine St. early Sun., Feb. 21, police said. According to a report, around 8 a.m., a man allegedly walked into the church and swiped the Book of Gospels — which the priest reads from at Mass and other services — from the altar and left the South Village church. The witness followed him out and asked him to return the holy tome, but he refused. The witness called police and upon a canvass of the area, they found the suspect in front of 378 Sixth Ave. Charlie Lopes, 32, was arrested for felony grand larceny.

End of the dream An officer observed a man engage in a hand-to-hand drug exchange in front of 136 W. Third St. on Sun., Feb. 21, around 2:30 a.m., according to a report. Upon further investigation, the man was found to be in possession of a razor “with the intent to use it unlawfully.” The man also had two small bags of alleged cocaine, one small bag of alleged marijuana and one deck of alleged heroin stamped with the label “Dream Chaser.” Police said he has been arrested many times for drug possession. Derrick Gary, 47, was busted for felony criminal possession of a weapon.

Caffeine fix A caffeine craver hoped to boost his mood for free at the Rite Aid on 501 Sixth Ave. last Friday, police said. The man walked into the store on Feb. 19 around 5 p.m. and removed Nescafé from the shelf and placed it in a plastic bag, then attempted to exit. Upon a search, police said they found a gravity knife on him, plus a hypodermic needle filled with unknown narcotics. The man had an active warrant and prior convictions. Steven Brand, 29, was arrested for felony criminal possession of a weapon.

Wrong-way tagger At 3:30 a.m. Fri., Feb. 19, a police officer reportedly observed a man riding his bike the wrong way down a one-way street. The cop stopped him at Seventh Ave. South and W. 10th St., and found the cyclist in possession TheVillager.com

of a gravity knife and spray can. The man has prior convictions for graffiti, police said. Jonathan Raftery, 25, was arrested for felony criminal weapon possession.

Hack attacked A taxi driver said a man kicked his cab and broke the front passenger door handle while the hack was letting out a passenger on Thurs., Feb. 18, at 4:40 p.m. at Sixth Ave. and W. Fourth St. The man also opened the driver-side door and kicked the cabbie in the leg, causing substantial pain, on top of causing more than $250 worth of damage to the vehicle. Police arrested Michael Nazario, 31, for felony criminal mischief.

Swiss Army threat An employee at the North Village Deli at 74 Eighth Ave. had a scary encounter with an unhappy customer on Mon., Feb. 8, at 4 p.m. After arguing with the worker, the man grabbed a multi-tool utility knife from his right pocket, causing the other man to fear for his safety. Police arrested David Lozano, 25, on Feb. 15 for misdemeanor menacing.

E.V. bank robber Police said that on Fri., Feb. 19, about 4:15 p.m., a man entered the Bank of America at 72 Second Ave., at E. Fourth St., and passed a note to a teller, demanding cash. But the individual fled without any cash. The suspect was described as around 5 feet 8 inches tall, 200 pounds, age 35 to 45, and wearing a padded navy coat, green hat, black hood, black pants and black footwear. Anyone with information is asked to call the Police Department’s Crime Stoppers Hotline, at 800-577-TIPS. Tips can also be submitted by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Web site, www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or by texting them to 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.

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Jumps in river On Fri., Feb. 19, a man was seen jumping into the water near Pier 51, at Jane St. in the Hudson River Park. A police Harbor Unit boat pulled him out. He appeared emotionally disturbed and was taken to Bellevue Hospital, police said.

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Robert Dahdah, 89, early Off Broadway writer/director OBITUARIES BY MAGIE DOMINIC

R

obert (Bob) Dahdah, a prolific writer and director who was a major contributor to the creation of Off Off Broadway theater in the 1960s, and continued writing and directing for more than 50 years, died Feb. 6 at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, where he was under hospice care. He was 89. Dahdah was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 8, 1926, to Lebanese parents. The family moved to New York City when he was a child and lived in Washington Heights. By the very early 1960s, Dahdah was writing and directing plays in venues in New York City, particularly, Off Off Broadway. In 1966 he directed what would become an iconic Off Off Broadway musical, and one that would be forever famous for starring a very young Bernadette Peters in her first New York musical, “Dames at Sea.” “Dames at Sea” was first presented at the Caffe Cino on Cornelia St. A tiny cafe theater operated by Joe Cino, The Caffe Cino is considered the birthplace of Off Off Broadway and lasted from 1958 to 1968. Dahdah wrote and directed and starred in several productions there. “Dames at Sea” was about 40 minutes long and was a takeoff on everything pure and innocent. It ran for

Robert Dahdah.

three months to over-packed houses. The room was officially full when two people were seated on top of the cigarette machine. It was the longest running show in Caffe Cino’s history and probably the longest running show in the history of Off Off Broadway at that time. Peters told Broadway.com, regarding Dahdah’s passing and his production of “Dames at Sea,” “He was a terrific director and basically got the show on at the Cino and imbued it with love that transported over the little postage-sized stage right into the audience’s hearts” Earlier, in a July 15, 2006, interview for Legends of Broadway, Peters said, “My first summer away from home, I did summer stock in Mount Gretna,

Pennsylvania, and I met a choreographer there who worked at the Caffe Cino. When I got back to the city, he called me and said, ‘We’re doing this show at the Caffe Cino, and I think there’s a role you’d be right for. Will you come in?’ I remember thinking that I had to find the Caffe Cino. Because it was on Cornelia St., which is one block long, and I had to find that. When I got there, Helen Hanft was on the stage doing [Tom Eyen’s play] ‘Why Hanna’s Skirt Won’t Stay Down’ for her relatives who were in town that afternoon. That’s where I met the director, Bob Dahdah, and everybody else. I don’t remember if I sang — I must have. Anyway, I took on the role, and I had the best time in my whole life. The audience was so great I couldn’t wait to change and get back onstage to say my lines.” The following year, Dahdah collaborated with the writer and actress Mary Boylan, with whom he frequently collaborated, and together they wrote the book and score for the musical “Curley McDimple,” a spoof of Shirley Temple movies. Dahdah also directed the production. “Curley McDimple” was produced Off Broadway in 1967, and Peters starred in the production. It ran for more than 900 performances. Dahdah directed plays by several New York playwrights, including early works by Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick and Robert Heide. “I was very close to Robert Dahdah,” Heide said. “He directed my play ‘The Bed,’ which was a big

thing at Caffe Cino. That was a year before he discovered Bernadette Peters. “He lived in Hell’s Kitchen, but he was always down here,” Heide said of Dahdah. “He worked at La MaMa. He was ‘Mr. Off Broadway.’ ” According to Heide, early in his career, Dahdah had an affair with Montgomery Clift. Magie Dominic, a writer who was part of the 1960s Off Broadway theater scene, said, “I have many personal memories of my friend Bob Dahdah. But my most cherished memory is that he was forever a courteous and supportive friend, and an honorable and true gentleman in a business where those traits are not always a given.” Similar to Heide, she said, “Bob’s apartment was on 46th St., but he spent his every waking hour on Cornelia St., or at La Mama or Theater for the New City.” In addition to writing and directing, Dahdah was also an actor and appeared in small roles in a number of major films, including “The Godfather” and “Three Days of the Condor.” Dahdah was a World War II veteran. He is survived by a nephew, Robert Dahdah, a niece, Rea McKay, and an extended family of friends. He was preceded in death by a sister, Margaret, and two brothers, Raymond and William. An April tribute is being planned in New York City. Details will be announced at a later date.

Nantandy, 88, Westbeth artist, 3-D canvas pioneer

N

antandy (née Wilda Nan Tandy), an artist and Westbeth resident, died on Jan. 23 at age 88 in New York City, where she had lived for the last third of her life. Nantandy was a painter, sculptor, muralist, gallery owner and educator who was born and raised in western Texas. She pursued her college degrees in California, and was one of the first artists to create sculptured three-dimensional canvases in the 1960s. Her art spanned many phases and genres over the course of a lifetime, from award-winning watercolors in the ’50s, to figure studies, portraits and sculptural canvases during her years of higher education and teaching. After retiring from education, Nan created Jackson Pollock-style abstract expressionist pieces, before concentrating most of her time during her later years honing her skills as a muralist. Nan was a vibrant, passionate, intelligent, creative force who left an impact wherever she went. Her artwork has been collected and shown both na-

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February 25, 2016

A structured artwork by Nantandy.

PHOTO BY MILLS TANDY

Nantandy on her scooter, a familiar site in her neck of the West Village.

tionally and internationally, receiving many awards during her 70-year career in Texas, California and New York. Nan was predeceased by her husband, Harold S. Ronson, parents, Dr. and Mrs. H. B. Tandy, and older brother, Bland J. Tandy. She is survived by her brothers, Kerry S. Tandy of Arizona, and Robert Mills Tandy of Costa Rica. Nan is also survived by her four children, Wesley West of New Mexico, Barbara DeWoody of California, and Wilda Won and Jim West of Texas, as well as eight grandchildren and many cousins, nieces, nephews and great-grandchildren.

She is also survived by her decade-plus healthcare aide, Morlin Gittens, who was a godsend to her, and dear friends John Peters and Lynn Pacifico. “She was a familiar site in the neighborhood on her scooter, with her big smile,” Pacifico said. “She knew many of us. Nan told me that she was the first artist to do structured canvases, but being a woman artist, both she and her work were overlooked back then.” A small memorial with her children and friends was held at her beloved home in Westbeth Artists Housing, and a larger family reunion/memorial will be held in Texas in early summer. In honor of her father’s memory, Nan donated her remains to New York University medical school to assist with the training of future doctors. In lieu of flowers, please donate to a fine-arts education program, medical school or hospice-care program of your choice. The family wishes to thank Visiting Nurse Service of New York hospice for their exemplary assistance during Nan’s final days. TheVillager.com

Crime is down in the East Village’s 9th Precinct BY LUCAS ROPEK

A

handful of locals turned out at the Ninth Precinct Community Council meeting on Tues., Feb. 16 to hear Deputy Inspector Peter Venice speak on the topic of local crime and safety, despite a torrential downpour earlier in the evening. “Thank you everybody for coming out on this very rainy, dreary day,” Venice said, before giving some good news. The precinct’s crime rate is down 27 percent over all for the month. Specifically, robberies are down 57 percent, felony assaults are down 46 percent, burglaries are down 25 percent, and grand larceny is down 24 percent. The only spike, said Venice, was stolen vehicles — five this month, compared with only one during the previous month. The precinct’s crime rate is down 5 percent over all for the year. Most of the crimes in the precinct have been grand larceny — the result of people leaving their property (often credit cards) somewhere and it being stolen. An I.R.S. scam has also been going around, in which residents are being called and told that they owe

back taxes and have to send money or they will be arrested. Phishing scams like this are quite common during tax season, and Venice clarified the situation for residents. “The I.R.S. does not solicit money over the phone,” he explained. “If you have an issue with the I.R.S., they are not going to call you up and say, ‘Send us a check.’ So just be aware of that.” Violent crimes are also down. The case of Julian DeJesus, 25 — a mentally unstable man from the Jacob Riis Houses who was shot and wounded by police on Jan. 26, after charging them with a knife — is the only violent incident the precinct has experienced during the past month. Otherwise, January and February have seen no major criminal activity. “In the last month there have been no robbery patterns or burglary patterns,” Venice affirmed. Despite the mostly good news, some locals still expressed safety concerns. In particular, several residents brought up the rash of slashing and knife attacks that have plagued the city for the past few months. Officers sympathized with residents’

concerns while noting that the slashings are random, and therefore, no single prescription exists to combat or avoid them. Another resident alerted officers to the fact that transients have been camping under the scaffolding surrounding the Immaculate Conception School’s entrances on E. 14th St. near First Ave. The sidewalk bridges’ presence is causing congestion during the children’s dismissal time from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. “We don’t want to call 911 and get people arrested,” a resident said, expressing sympathy for the homeless, yet also conceding that they had become a problem. It was agreed upon that several officers would be sent over during dismissal time and the transients would be asked to leave. The meeting concluded with a short announcement by Brian McCullough, a community outreach coordinator with the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, who notified residents that the C.C.R.B. is stepping up its involvement with local organizations. “If there’s a captive audience, we’ll be there,” he said, explaining how the C.C.R.B. would be connecting with schools, civil ser-

vice agencies, youth and probation groups, churches, community boards, L.G.B.T. groups and many others. The C.C.R.B. is empowered to receive, investigate and mediate complaints against police officers alleging the use of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority, discourtesy or the use of offensive language. Interactions between police and communities of color, in particular, are a key issue for the board. McCullough explained that the agency has made several recent changes. A policy unit was established last summer that makes recommendations to local police precincts on how to improve officers’ interactions with local communities. In addition, the agency’s investigator unit has been restructured to better help resolve citizens’ complaints. “Over all, the rate of complaints we’ve been receiving has been going down, but our rate of resolution of those complaints has gone up,” he said. McCullough also notified residents that the board’s meetings are public and that the community is welcome to attend.

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February 25, 2016

TheVillager.com

Pier 57 project kept changing, without new bids TALKING POINT BY TOM FOX

T

he Pier 57 project has had a thousand lives, and a thousand different faces. The effort to redevelop the pier has dragged on for more than a decade and there have been many iterations of the plan. The Hudson River Park Trust issued the first request for proposals, or R.F.P., for Pier 57 in 2004 and the winning bidder was not able to make their redevelopment plans work. In 2008, a second R.F.P. was issued and a new developer was selected in 2009. It is now 2016, Pier 57 has lain fallow for 12 years and, after all the discussion and delay, I am still left with three basic questions. First, isn’t it strange that the Trust allowed the winning bidder of the 2008 R.F.P. to delay their proposed development for six years and add new principal partners? And isn’t it even stranger that the Trust then modified the allowable uses and program elements, and significantly lengthened the term of the lease, but did not release a second R.F.P. for public bidding? The 2008 R.F.P. for Pier 57 precluded commercial office development. The Hudson River Park Act of 1998, which had not been amended at that time, ruled out commercial office development anywhere in the park. The winning bidder, Young Woo & Associates, was selected in 2009 and their plans for a retail development at Pier 57 underwent an extensive environmental impact statement, or E.I.S. The developer tried for years to make the project economically viable with the retail activity originally proposed. However, they could not make it work in a way that gave the developer, and the Trust, the financial return they wanted. In 2014, the Trust allowed Young Woo to bring in a major new partner, RXR Realty. Scott Rechler, vice chairperson of the Port Authority, leads RXR, and its president is Seth Pinsky, the former president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Including commercial office development and extending the term of the lease were recommended as changes that would make the Pier 57 redevelopment project more economically viable. The Trust lobbied the state Legislature to change the Hudson River Park Act to allow both, significantly altering the plan for Pier 57. So, the Pier 57 development team has changed, the allowable uses TheVillager.com

The current plan for Pier 57, at W. 16th St. on the Chelsea waterfront, 11 includes a rooftop public park, an international hawkers food market and substantial commercial office space, including for Google, among others.

on the pier are different than those initially proposed, and the lease term has been extended from 49 to 99 years. Despite all this, the Trust chose not to reissue a new R.F.P. after the Hudson River Park Act was amended. One would think that New York State procurement law would require the Trust to go back to the market to see what type of interest this new set of development guidelines for Pier 57 would generate. At that point in time, tech industries were moving further west and the Whitney Museum of American Art was being completed on Gansevoort St. With the inclusion of up to 300,000 square feet of commercial office space in Pier 57, there should have been plenty of developers interested in bidding on the project and the Trust may have gotten a much better deal. This may be an inconvenient truth, but the Pier 57 project now moving forward is very different than the project that was initially offered for public bid by the Trust. It appears that the public procurement process is being subverted and the Pier 57 project should be rebid in the state’s best interest. Will Pier 57 include a marina — and if so, how large and what type and where will it be located? I’ve seen many renderings of Pier 57 over the past six years. Some of the design plans have a large marina on the south side of the pier and others on both the north and south sides of the pier. The most recent rendering RXR presented to Community Board 4 had no marina at all. What marina facilities are planned for Pier 57? If there is a marina at Pier 57, has the environmental review of its in-water impact recognized the cumulative impacts that would occur with the Trust’s plans to build the Pier 55 project, immediately to the

south of it, at about the same time? Did the environmental review for Pier 57 assess the project as if it were being constructed independently from the development of Pier 55? Initially that was the Trust’s plan. But with the delays in redeveloping Pier 57, that project will be under construction at about the same time as the adjacent Pier 55 project is planned to start.

Did the supplemental E.I.S. for Pier 57 — which should have been done last year when allowable uses were changed — consider the proximity of the Trust’s planned construction of Pier 55 as a 2.7-acre over-water island in the adjacent inter-pier embayment between Pier 54 and Pier 56? The Trust is the landlord and beneficiary of both projects, which will be built more or less concurrently. Has this state-city park authority assessed the impacts of each of these in-water incursions being built in an estuarine sanctuary as if they were segmented into two separate projects? Or have they been assessed as basically one project? The in-water impacts of both would seem to be cumulative. Fox was a citizen appointee to the West Side Task Force in 1986, and the West Side Waterfront Panel from 1988’90; the first president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy (which completed the Hudson River Park’s concept and financial plan) from 1992-’95; a member of the Hudson River Park Alliance (which supported the Hudson River Park’s founding legislation) from 1996-’98; and a founding board member of Friends of Hudson River Park. He is also a plaintiff in a current lawsuit against the Pier 55 project.

d a l g h a y t Arch ’n r u o y g n i d a to be re ? r e p a p s w e n y t i n u m m co Don’t miss a single issue! ! r e g la il V e h T o t e ib r c s b Su Call 646-452-2475 February 25, 2016

17

Coyote, Crow and Co. migrate back to the park A brief recent spell of sun and warm weather brought out spring wishful thinking and street musicians, like Coyote & Crow, left, and sun worshipers in Washington Square Park.

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Grateful to have had Dad To The Editor: Re “John Farris, bohemian poet who chronicled life on Lower East Side” (obituary, Feb. 11): My dad was an anarchist. He could be rough around the edges, often speaking his truth without censure or care for social mores. But to me he was more than John, the rebel artist. He was my father. I strongly believe that

EVAN FORSCH

he loved his daughters. For the last 12 years of his life, we spoke at least twice a week. His voice was often gentle, he rejoiced at my son Richard’s journey with music, always curious to follow every progress and success. He always told me that he loved me. He introduced me with pride to his friends, always highlighting that I was a doctor, and that his grandson was a great musician-in-the-making. He loved hearing Richard play the saxophone.

As a child, he would pick me up on the weekends and he would take us to the children’s art carnival in Brooklyn, where he worked, and teach us how to draw and play with instruments. What he believed in the most — art — he cared to teach us to love and understand. He also helped me to be open-minded. Dad made me laugh. He had a playful, joyful side. He used to walk down the streets playing the flute. My father was a survivor. He always found a way. Choosing to live on the margins of a social system he discredited and despised, he remained keenly observant and accepted the consequences of his choices. Mahatma Gandhi said, “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonesty.” My father was honest. My father spoke the truth. My father was very wise. I will never forget, in a pivotal and painful moment of my life, when he said just what I needed to hear: “What’s done in the dark comes to the light.” I felt protected and understood by my father. I believe my dad hid his gentle side because he had been too hurt by life. He hadn’t experienced much love growing up, and he developed prickly, steel walls that could easily ward off human connection. He grew to enjoy solitude. But the few he allowed to get close to him (me, Andrew, Maggie, Dalton and Vanessa, for example) got more than his visions and creations, but experienced and knew his loving, gentle and sensitive side. It was a grand gesture of love that dad left his LETTERS continued on p. 26

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February 25, 2016

TheVillager.com

Slicing through the Meat Market project’s jargon TALKING POINT BY MICHELE HERMAN

F

un Village history fact: Some of the prototypical two-story buildings in the Gansevoort Market are actually tenements that had their top floors knocked off during the Depression. According to the 2003 Gansevoort Market Historic District Designation Report, landlords couldn’t rent the apartments. So, facing foreclosure, they lopped them off, leaving the street-level space for refrigerated meat or produce and the second story for office space. This fact was fun for me when I learned it last fall at the Community Board 2 presentation by the developers who have aim to upzone the entire south side of Gansevoort St. between Ninth Ave. and Washington St. But I’ll bet it was even more fun for them when they first realized they could use this obscure history to justify tearing down some of those surviving structures — in the heart of the landmarked historic district — and replacing them with tenement-height structures, albeit ones that will be the opposite of tenements in every other conceivable way. Another piece of information from that report, less fun but I would think more salient for Landmarks (italics mine): “The first of the two-story, purpose-built market buildings in the district were erected in 1880. These…structures typified the lowrise market buildings constructed in the district over the next 90 years: produce (or, later, meat) handling on the ground story, shielded by a metal canopy over the sidewalk, and offices on the second story.” This is surely the only instance in the history of modern Manhattan where landlords voluntarily reduced their rentable space. It has the Landmarks commissioners a little confused. The question the commissioners are ostensibly asking is which of the Gansevoort Market’s many historical periods is most worth preserving? The question they are really asking, though, is which historical period should we grant the developers the right to evoke as they try to maximize their considerable investment? As my husband has said, as long as we’re talking about picking and choosing elements from the past to justify development, why not bring back the Ninth Avenue El? We certainly could use a transit line in the neighborhood. At the presentation, I snap to attention when the developers describe Washington St. as an avenue. True, it runs north-south. But I live steps from it, and I’m sorry, but it’s a street, a narrow one with almost no traffic lights. For the most part, low-rise buildings line it. They call it an avenue because everyone knows that buildings are allowed to — are even SUPPOSED to — get taller when they approach avenues. The building on the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Sts. that the developers want to tear down is one story tall. It’s the gateway to the district, bringing light into it. It’s pictured on the cover of the Gansevoort Market Historic District Designation Report. It’s the iconic meat-market view out the eastern windows of the Whitney. The proposed replacement is six stories high with a penthouse on top. The developers make it sound almost balletic, the way their reimagined block would begin low at the east end and gracefully rise to meet the level TheVillager.com

VILLAGER FILE PHOTO BY YANNIC RACK

No “curation” or “typologies” needed, this is what low-scale Gansevoort Row, between Ninth Ave. and Washington St., looks like today — which is exactly the way most locals want to keep it.

of the West Coast apartment building, the former Manhattan Refrigerating Company complex, on the far side of Washington St., the tallest building in the entire district. I jot down some of the developers’ phrases: There is “a robust dialogue” between the old and new that characterizes the district. The way “it has been curated” is much admired...evoking past “typology.” I make a mental note to tell my son, who is enrolled in a graduate architecture/urban planning master’s program: “I don’t care if all your professors and all your peers talk like this, please don’t do it.” Later I look up the word “typology.” As I suspected, it doesn’t mean “building styles.” It means “the study of types, symbols or symbolism.” Another phrase keeps popping out the developers’ and commissioners’ mouths: “no-style style.” That is, a building facade that has either lost its original style and been replaced with something uncategorizable, or still has an original facade that doesn’t fit into any known historical period. “No-style style” means there is wiggle room for demolition. I imagine how I might react if my life had traveled a different trajectory — one I can easily imagine it having traveled. Let’s say that instead of living a couple of blocks south of far W. 14th St., I live a couple of blocks north, in the low-income public housing developments. Would I be laughing or crying at what I am witnessing? — a bunch of adults earnestly debating whether the developers should make an architectural distinction to evoke the old two-story roofline they’re about to destroy, on the facade of the new five-story structure they’re asking for permission to build, to allow for the historical memory of passersby to “read” both time periods. No wonder, I think, Bernie Sanders is surging in New Hampshire. The commissioners are a little flummoxed being asked to weigh in on an entire block front at once.

They’re used to deciding whether a single structure fits with a given area’s mishmash of styles, sizes and vintages. Now they have to rule on a single architect’s “curation” of a block front, one that’s attempting to manufacture, all at once, the charm and variety that result from time and many overlapping players and uses. Not to mention that what the developers are really trying to do is maximize the return on their considerable investment. The head of the commission, who speaks somewhat preemptively, makes clear from the start that there will be a compromise. “I don’t think one period of history is more important than the others,” she says. “I think the applicant’s approach is sound and consistent with the street typology,” she adds. “The district is very dynamic with lots of adaptive reuse.” I keep repeating the name of the commission to myself: “Landmarks Preservation.” Doesn’t that mean preserving landmarks? Once you designate a historic district, doesn’t that mean you have already decided that existing streetscape has historical significance and should be preserved? I remember back in the fall when I attended a presentation of this project at Community Board 2, how one of the architects grew dewy-eyed talking about how the penthouses in their plan evoke the city’s great, beautiful water towers. All except the part that they were small, necessary and full of water and these will be big and house a couple of rich people. The commissioners, I am happy to report, are unanimous: The penthouses have to go. I’m reminded of a cartoon in my dentist’s office that showed a patient in the chair with her mouth stuffed full of gauze and equipment. The dentist says, “Can you open your mouth a little wider, Mrs. Smith? I just want to see if I can stuff this tennis ball in.” The penthouses were clearly the developer’s tennis balls. February 25, 2016

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Collaboration a core strength of Baryshnikov Arts Center

Poetry, dance merge in icon’s performance at namesake venue BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC

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ometimes the germ of an artistic idea takes time to bloom. Take, for instance, the upcoming “Brodsky / Baryshnikov” collaboration. Joseph Brodsky (US Poet Laureate, 1991–1992) and iconic dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov were very close friends — both men were born in the Soviet Union, and then came to the United States. “Joseph Brodsky was a hugely influential artist in Misha’s life,” explained Georgiana Pickett, executive director of the Baryshnikov Arts Center, in a phone interview (“Misha” is Baryshnikov’s nickname). Pickett said the two men had discussed a project that would include Brodsky’s poetry and Baryshnikov as a performer. Due to Brodsky’s passing in 1996, that artistic endeavor didn’t happen, but the idea stayed with Baryshnikov, she said. Enter Alvis Hermanis, the director of the New Riga Theatre in Riga, Latvia. Hermanis approached Baryshnikov about doing a project, Pickett said, and that seed sown long ago sprung to mind. Together, Hermanis and Baryshnikov created an original script built on Brodsky’s work. “I think that’s very interesting — the idea of taking this huge body of work and trying to weave it together from a different perspective,” Pickett said. “But of course, the beauty and resonance of Joseph’s writing is very, very prevalent in the show.” TheVillager.com

PHOTO BY FRANCIS DZIKOWSKI

Founded in 2005, the Baryshnikov Arts Center counts Lincoln Center, PS122 and the Irish Arts Center among its cultural partners.

“Brodsky / Baryshnikov” premiered in Latvia in October, and had its second run in Tel Aviv. It will have its US premiere from March 9–19 at

the Baryshnikov Arts Center (450 W. 37th St.). “It’s a hugely important show for us, because Misha doesn’t usually

perform here at the Baryshnikov Arts Center,” she said. “He never wanted this place to be perceived as an organization that he built to support his own career, and so he’s been very, very careful not to perform here that much, because he made this center for other artists.” Pickett added, “It’s good for us because he’s a remarkable artist, and it elevates our program when somebody of his caliber performs on our stages. We’re very happy that he’s decided to do the show here, and that to do it in his own home, I think, is very fitting for a work that’s so personally important to him.” She noted that Baryshnikov is not reciting Brodsky’s poetry, and that the one-man show will be performed in Russian. There will be English surtitles, which are subtitles that are projected onto surfaces on the set. Coincidentally, there is another solo show in the Baryshnikov Arts Center’s season: “A Girl Is a Halfformed Thing,” running from April 20–30. Based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Irish author Eimear McBride, the show follows a woman — played by Aoife Duffin — who navigates her life after encountering some traumatic experiences when she was young, Pickett explained. The production marks the New York debut of The Corn Exchange, a well-regarded Irish independent theater company. Both “Brodsky / Baryshnikov” and “A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing” are BARYSHNIKOV continued on p. 25 February 25, 2016

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Art and poetry on the same page

Poets House exhibit teams two artistic temperaments BY LINDSAY BU

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isual 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 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

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COURTESY POETS HOUSE

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

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. COURTESY POETS HOUSE Various lines, taken from differFay Lansner: “Sadness and Felicity” (1989. Charcoal and stamps ent parts of the poem, are written on paper, 22 x 30 in.). in seemingly random diagonals. There are pink cloud-like shapes interesting is the liberty Lansner took in re-creating drawn throughout the page, thick, bright yellow these lines — the words are clustered together in a lines underneath certain words, small patches of teal way that does not preserve their original line breaks. grass in corners, and a picture of a black dandelion Perhaps this was an issue of space, but perhaps it is resting in a skinny bottle at the bottom of the canintentional. vas. It’s a rather strange combination — the whimThis careful selection of which lines to present in the sical colors, reminiscent of Easter Sunday and baby charcoal work gives the viewer an opportunity to trushowers, and the actual words themselves. ly consider the significance, the ebb and flow, of each “Barbara is known for her abstract work. It’s not word. The curls of the script — from the shaky “s” to the loopy “y” — bring the weighty burden behind the POETRY continued on p. 25 word “sadness” to life. Even more so than translators TheVillager.com

Just Do Art petition, 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 overall placement at Switzerland’s 2015 Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition.

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

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.

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.

BENEFIT PERFORMANCE OF “PENNY PENNIWORTH”

“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.

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. TheVillager.com

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.

ARTWORK BY KATIE SANBORN-PRICE

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

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

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 Com-

winning vocalists from 2015’s Thelonious Monk International Jazz Com-

JUST DO ART continued on p.24

Theater for the New City • 155 1st Avenue at E. 10th St. Reservations & Info (212) 254-1109

For tickets & info, please visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net or visit

www.SmartTix.com

Skip to My Songs of the The Sorcerers Written by: Harlem River Lou Serge Goriely Written by: Steve Romagnoli

Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00PM Sundays at 3:00PM

Tickets: $18

TNC Celebrates Black History Month

Translated and Directed by: David Willinger

Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 PM Sundays at 3:00 PM

Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 PM Sundays at 3:00 PM

Tickets: $18

Tickets: $18

Speakeasy "A surreally sexual phantasmagorical trip"

Written by: Danny Ashkenasi Directed by: Lissa Moira Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 PM Sundays at 3:00 PM

Tickets: $18

February 25, 2016

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Just Do Art JUST DO ART continued from p. 23

pany aspirations,” was an Off-Broadway hit in 2010 and 2012. As directed by Mark Finley, the original cast returns for a benefit performance that will help fund the Drama Desk-nominated 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 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

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February 25, 2016

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 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.

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 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.

COURTESY CINEKINK

Don’t get roped in by sexual politics — celebrate what turns you on, at CineKink’s film screenings and mixers (Mar. 1–6).

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. TheVillager.com

Irish and Baryshnikov arts centers all in on ‘Half-formed’

PHOTO BY JANIS DEINATS

PHOTO BY FIONA MORGAN

Worth waiting for: “Brodsky / Baryshnikov” is the realization of a collaboration discussed years ago. A line forms at the box office one hour in advance for tickets to the sold-out Mar. 9–19 performances.

Aoife Duffin stars in Irish independent theater company The Corn Exchange’s adaptation of “A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing,” Apr. 20–30 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

BARYSHNIKOV continued from p. 21

“tough works, with strongly emotional content, but very commanding performances,” Pickett noted. Pickett said “A Girl is a Half-formed Thing” is also an important project, as it marks the center’s fifth collaboration with the Irish Arts Center (553 W. 51st St., btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). “Collaboration is a very important part of our institutional philosophy,” said Pickett, who mentioned the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Lincoln Center and PS122 as other important cultural partners. Founded in 2005 in Hell’s Kitchen,

the Baryshnikov Arts Center has had a consistent mission, said Pickett, who has been its executive director for four and a half years. “I think the growth hasn’t been around any change of the [Center’s] original intention, but just in the volume and the work that we’re able to do, and the depth of which we’re doing it,” she said. “But this place was always conceived of — by our founder Mikhail Baryshnikov — to be a place that supported working performing artists to make work, to perform, to develop new ideas, and to collaborate across disciplines.” Pickett said the center, which has around 30 residencies a year, pro-

vides the tools and mechanisms — such as space and resources — to help artists develop and perform their work. There is also marketing and documentation support, writing about the artists’ work, and producing video pieces. “There’s a great level of care and investment that goes on with every single resident artist that we have here,” she said. “We don’t just give them a key to a room and then disappear.” The nonprofit is currently focused on building an endowment, said Pickett. The Baryshnikov Arts Center recently received its first one: a $3 million gift from the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation.

“We’re always striving to find ways to provide more support to empower artists, she said, “…to stabilize their lives, because there’s not enough support here in our city. We need to find more ways to continue to attract artists and to keep them here.” “Brodsky / Baryshnikov” is performed Mar. 9–19 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (450 W. 37th St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.). The run has already sold out, but a wait list will begin at the box office one hour prior to each performance. Tickets are $35–$45. “A Girl Is a Halfformed Thing” is performed April 20–30. Tickets are $25. For reservations, visit bacnyc.org or call 866-811-4111.

Experiencing Guest’s poetry through the lens of Lansner’s art POETRY continued from p. 22

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 TheVillager.com

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 212-431-7920 or visit poetshouse.org. For artist info, visit faylasner.com.

COURTESY POETS HOUSE

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

COURTESY POETS HOUSE

Fay Lansner: “Tears go into the Urn” (1987. Charcoal and pastel on paper, 50 x 38 in.). February 25, 2016

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Continued from p. 18

apartment to my musician son. I am so grateful to have had an incredible, complex, genius, funny and loving dad. “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly,” Franz Kafka wrote. My father, John Farris, did just this. Chinyelu “Bibi” Duxbury

A fine tribute to Farris To The Editor: Re “John Farris, bohemian poet who chronicled life on Lower East Side” (obituary, Feb. 11): What a fine, moving tribute by Sarah Ferguson for the poet John Farris. The photo portrait by Maggie Wrigley captures both an inner and outer beauty. Cranky he was, but generous and charming also. My first real memory of John was when I read at the Life Cafe in 1983. During the open mic, a shy youngster gave a blistering reading of scatological oratory. It was fiercely innovative and successful but disturbingly nihilistic. I was moved. I was sitting next to John and as the audience applauded, he asked if I liked what I’d heard. I said that it was powerful indeed. And he said, “Why don’t you tell him.” A year later I found out that the kid had overdosed. I’ll always be grateful to John for suggesting I compliment him. Another time, I asked John if I could publish one of his drawings in Live Mag! I went over and chose a truly brilliant cartoon of a hearse and its entourage entering a cemetery. Above the entrance gates was the phrase: “The Scythe’s the Limit.” Then his famous crankiness came out: Almost immediately he left a nasty message on my phone, hounding me to get the drawing back and accusing me of trying to steal it. I was rather put out. As soon as I could, I scanned the work and returned it. He was back to being charming and his petulance was forgotten. Last time I saw him was at the Bowery Poetry Club. Everybody treated him like royalty, like the East Village royalty he was. I’m very glad to have known him and to have had a chance to publish his work. His legend lives on. For some, the scythe is not always the limit. Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Amen for good coverage To The Editor: Re “Countering ugly rhetoric with spiritual sounds” (news article, Feb. 11): Thank you so much, Villager. You seem to be the only press in New York City interested in shining a little light on the courage of these faith leaders to cross divisions others uphold, and to learn about and embrace each other. We all in the East Village are honored by them,

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February 25, 2016

and appreciate you, The Villager, for devoting the time and space. Anthony Donovan

Out-of-kilter pacifists To The Editor: Following the 9/11 attacks on our country, too many members of the peace movement determined to oppose their sister and brother citizens in the war against terror. This was a departure from the probative approach of American pacifists after the attack on Pearl Harbor, after which we entered World War II. At that time, pacifists, in the words of the executive committee of the War Resisters League, took the honorable stand of pledging, “...under no circumstances do we have any intention of obstructing or interfering with the civil or military, or in [interfering with the] carrying out [of] the will of the government or [condemning] the point of view of those of our fellow citizens to whom war presents itself as a patriotic duty... .” Today, on the contrary, all too many pacifists and activists are opposing the world people’s desire to defeat the Islamic terrorists who are endangering humanity with what the pope describes as “a piecemeal World War III.” One example of the above are the dismaying protests at airbases, where pacifists, including some of the Catholic Worker people, seek to demoralize the decent pilots of unmanned aircraft — the drones. This is an ignoble departure from the W.W. II-era pacifist moral position of declining to obstruct or interfere with the wartime efforts to save humanity. During the Second World War, the pacifist community in the U.S. resolved to act responsibly. They understood that the fate of the collective may not be tethered to the personal codes of living subscribed to by the pacifists. The fundamental recognition is one that should be borne in mind by the more out-of-kilter pacifists in our community. Robert Reiss

Dug that daguerro photo To The Editor: Re “Just my (daguerreo)type” (photo, Feb. 18): Fantastic photo. Beautiful church. May they never allow hideous glass towers to ruin its presence, sadly happening in so many areas of the city. See 56th St. and 23rd St. for new examples. Larry Trepel

Bookstore’s final chapter To The Editor: Re “It’s a closed book: St. Mark’s Bookshop is going out of business” (news article, Feb. 18): As a Villager for many years, I was as disappointed as many of us (and not all of them Village people) to see the bookstore close, move, open again and who knows what else in the immediate future.

I was actually taken aback to learn — via the New Yorker and The Villager’s update — how totally Mr. Contant “shunned ideas to change the business model.” Frankly, it’s probably rough to make it in the independent bookstore business. But what I remember is a grumpy man walking around his emptying bookshelves, totally ruining the good vibes of a bookstore I remember being an oasis in the past. There were two to three bookstores in the area through the ’70s, so one could always go in and have his or her spirits lifted by looking at a new title, and even rushing to buy a book or magazine spontaneously. But all I remember of the last days of the bookstore in my ’hood was my mounting guilt at not being able to afford the price, and hopping up to find the same book at the Strand for one-third the price! And why not? Instead of bitching and grumbling, it seems to me, the owner, so well depicted in Ms. Minsky’s photograph — full of pride that he may be — would do much better in another business. In the meantime, there are a couple of new bookshops in the Apple, and you just can’t expect the march of times to roll backward! Ruth Breil

Teen scammer trouble To The Editor: Regarding the slashing incident at Silver Spurs last Thursday: Groups of young people, clearly from the other boroughs, have been wandering the Village for years, selling candy, gathering signatures or asking for donations to questionable causes. Not only is it obvious somebody is exploiting them, but they seem to have little or no adult supervision. This isn’t the first time they’ve been associated with crime. The Sixth Precinct should have cracked down on these scams long ago. Stacy Walsh Rosenstock

Not for the faint-hearted To The Editor: Re “Parking the car could really drive you crazy” (notebook, by Scott Oglesby, Feb. 11): This was hilarious. I have never been to New York City and can imagine that the strength of character that I witness when I meet someone from there is sculpted from these everyday challenges. What about the snow? You must have a very large wine cellar. Vicki Anastasion E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 Metrotech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published. TheVillager.com

The Meatpacking night of the breakfast battle BY BETH KAISERMAN

I

t’s Sunday morning, and the restaurant is quiet and calm. You turn on the ovens in a haze of bodega coffee and flashbacks of the 500 burgers you cooked the night before. It’s time to prep the kitchen for brunch service. The idea of a breakfast challenge may sound daunting to anyone who hates mornings, but especially for restaurant industry folks who would prefer never seeing an omelet or mimosa again. Who wants to bother being competitive before 10:30 a.m.? Enter the Meatpacking District’s upcoming Battle of the Breakfasts, which will be held Monday night Feb. 29 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event will put restaurants head to head to see who can create the tastiest breakfast for dinner. The list of culinary competitors includes STK, Dos Caminos and Untitled (at the Whitney Museum), along with breakfast staples like BEC, Doughnuttery and Bubby’s. The idea is getting people to realize there’s more to the neighborhood than just nightlife, Lauren Danziger, executive director of the Meatpacking District Management Association, which runs the Meatpacking Business Improvement District, said. (Locals don’t use the nickname “MePa,” she confirmed.) People moved into the Meatpacking District in the 1820s due to epidemics in the main section of the city. Markets began appearing in the 1840s, mostly for produce, and two acres of the area became known as Gansevoort Market. There were 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants by 1900, but today only a few meat businesses remain in operation. Billed as a “24-hour neighborhood,” the area has changed drastically over the last 20 years, especially since the 2000s when the High Line park was created — the first section opened in 2009 — and the recent opening of the relocated Whitney Museum of American Art. “Fashion and design is huge, and art and culture with the opening of the new Whitney,” Danziger said, though adding, “There’s a really amazing food and hospitality culture.” Of the New York Times’ 2015 Best Restaurants list, neighborhood spot Santina serves coastal Italian cuisine from Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznik. There’s no shortage of other celebrated restaurants in the neighborhood. “It went from being a destination where people came to eat to a destination to where top chefs came to eat,” Danziger said. “We didn’t want just another tasting event. Who TheVillager.com

Bodega Negra, on W. 16th St., is counting on its huevos rancheros to win the day — or rather, the night.

Doughnuts, from Doughnuttery in the Chelsea Market, will definitely be hard to resist.

The breakfast creations of Creamline, in the Chelsea Market — like this peanut butter and jelly yogurt shake — are mouthwatering.

doesn’t love breakfast for dinner?” Tyler Austern, executive chef of The Chester, located in the Gansevoort Hotel, will serve up his take on lox, eggs and onions. His Japanese version will have ikura (Japanese salmon roe), quail egg and scallions. The Chester serves breakfast every day and is open 24 hours, sporting a popular beer garden in the back. “It’s a unique atmosphere with the beer garden, an indoor/outdoor feel,” Austern said. “We pride ourselves in being that kind of blue-collar, relaxed environment in a more built-up, ritzy kind of scene.” The event will also feature brunch cocktails and live music. Doughnuttery will bring the sweet fried delights, but owner Evan Feldman says the event is about more than being No. 1. “I’m really not approaching it as a competition,” he said. “I’m more into showcasing our product to people who may not have had it before and just having a good time with it.” A good time can include mini doughnuts in flavors like the Purple Pig — with maple, bacon and purple potatoes — or tasty classics like rainbow sprinkle. Doughnuts are made to order at the Doughnuttery stall in Chelsea Market. “We think doughnuts can be eaten at any time of the day,” Feldman said. “It makes a great dessert item throughout the day.” The neighborhood is unique because it’s pretty much all commercial, so businesses are very supportive of each other, Danziger added. The BID district is bounded by W. 17th St. on the north, Horatio St. on the south and the West Side Highway and Eighth Ave. on the west and east, respectively. “We’re hoping New Yorkers come and experience Meatpacking in a way they haven’t before and get a true taste of the hospitality that’s here every day,” Danziger said. Austern agrees that there’s a lot to be explored in this tucked-away neighborhood that he’s called home for about a year and a half. “There are misconceptions about every neighborhood,” he said. “It’s tough to know unless you’ve truly seen and experienced it all.” Prices are $59 for a tasting ticket to every restaurant’s breakfast menu, plus cash bar, while for $80, you get a tasting ticket to all the breakfast menus, plus an open-bar wristband for unlimited Bloody Mary’s, Mimosas, screwdrivers and Sixpoint beer. Tickets are not refundable. For more information and tickets, go to http://www.meatpacking-district.com/events/breakfast-for-dinner. Any unsold tickets will be available at the door. February 25, 2016

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STATE OF MICHIGAN COUNTY OF MACOMB CIRCUIT COURT

Case No.

ORDER

2015-003936-CB

Planet Stage Productions, LLC 75251

Attorney: Pamela M.Sossi P#

Plaintiff(s)

vs Masonic Temple Association of Detroit, Inc., 450 Temple, Inc., Michael Smith, and Matthew Mazer, Jointly and Severely.

70408 Jason R. Abel and Gary & Attorney: D. Merigan

Defendant(s) At a session of the Court, held on

P# 24782

February 1,2016 Granting Plaintiffs Ex-Parte Motion to Modify Court’s December 1,2015 Order Regarding Alternative Service for Defendant Matthew Mazer ORDER OF

Title of Order

IT IS ORDERED: That Plaintiff’s Ex-Parte Motion to Modify the Court’s Order Regarding Alternative Service for Defendant Matthew Mazer is hereby GRANTED. The Court finds that service of process by publication of the ‘notice of the action’ pursuant to MCR 2.106(C), is the best available method of alternative service of process on Defendant Matthew Mazer. Plaintiff may serve process of its action on Defendant Matthew Mazer by publishing the following notice pursuant to MCR 2.106(C) once per week for a period of three (3) consecutive weeks in a newspaper, as defined by MCR 2.106(F), that is published in a county of the Defendant Mazer’s last known address: “An action seeking money damages regarding a certain live concert event that occurred on or about November 23, 2012, in the City of Detroit, County of Wayne, State of Michigan, has been commenced by Plaintiff Planet Stage Productions, LLC, against Defendants Matthew Mazer; Michael Smith; Masonic Temple Association of Detroit, Inc., and 450 Temple, Inc., in the Macomb County Circuit Court for the State of Michigan, Case Number 2015-003936-CB, and Defendant Matthew Mazer must answer or take other action permitted by law within 28 days after the last date of publication. If Defendant Matthew Mazer does not answer or take other action within, the time allowed with the Macomb County Circuit Court, a judgment may be entered against him for the relief demanded in the Complaint’’· FEB 01 2016 (5125/04) Approved as to form and substance by: Pamela M. Sossi Signature of attorney for plaintiff

Signature of attorney for defendant

FILED by Macomb County Circuit Court 2/3/2016 11:12:47 AM Service, Submitted, and File

STATE OF MICHIGAN JUDICIAL DISTRICT 16th JUDICIAL CIRCUIT COUNTY PROBATE

Original - Court 1st copy - Defendant

2nd copy - Plaintiff 3rd copy - Return

CASE NO. SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT

Court address

2015-003936-CB Court telephone no.

40 North Main Street, Mount Clemens, MI 48043

(586) 469-4351

Plaintiffs name(s), address(es), and telephone no(s). no(s). Planet Stage Productions, LLC, A Michigan Limited Liability Company

V

Defendant’s name (s), address(es), and telephone Matthew Mazzer, An Individual, Jointly and Severally.

Plaintiff’s attorney, bar no., address, and telephone no. Law Office of Jordan J. Rassam, PLLC By: Jordan J. Rassam (P75874) & Pamela M. Sossi (P75251) 400 Monroe Street, Suite 280 Detroit, MI 48226 313-962-0000 ISUMMONS I NOTICE TO THE DEFENDANT: In the name of the people of the State of Michigan you are notified: 1. You are being sued. 2. YOU HAVE 21 DAYS after receiving this summons to file a written answer with the court and serve a copy on the other party or take other lawful action with the court (28 days if you were served by mail or you were served outside this state). (MCR2.111[C)) 3. If you do not answer or take other action within the time allowed, judgment may be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint. Issued 02/03/2016

This summons expires Court clerk /S/ CARMELLA SABAUGH 03/04/2016 *This summons is invalid unless served on or before its expiration date. This document must be sealed by the seal of the court. | COMPLAINT| Instruction: The following is information that is required to be in the caption of every complaint and is to be completed by the plaintiff. Actual allegations and the claim for relief must be stated on additional complaint pages and attached to this form. [x] This is a business case in which all or part of the action includes a business or commercial dispute under MCL 600.8035. Family Division Cases [ ] There is no other pending or resolved action within the jurisdiction of the family division of circuit court involving the family or family members of the parties. [ ] An action within the jurisdiction of the family division of the circuit court involving the family or family members of the parties has been previously filed in Court. The action [ ] remains [ ]is no longer pending. The docket number and the judge assigned to the action are: Docket no.

Judge

Bar no.

General Civil Cases [ ] There is no other pending or resolved civil action arising out of the same transaction or occurrence as alleged in the complaint. [x] A civil action between these parties or other parties arising out of the transaction or occurrence alleged in the complaint has been previously filed in Macomb County Circuit Court. The action [ ] remains [x] is no longer pending. The docket number and the judge assigned to the action are: Docket no. Judge Bar no. 2014-002758-cb Katherine A. Viviano P 60219 |VENUE| Plaintiff(s) residence (include city, township, or village) Wayne County

Defendant(s) residence (include city, township, or village) Wayne County and New York, New York

Place where action arose or business conducted Wayne and Macomb County 02/01/2016 f you require special accommodations to use the court because of a disability or if you require a foreign language interpreter to help you fully participate in court proceedings, please contact the court immediately to make arrangements. MC 01 (5/15) SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT MCR 2 .102(8) (11). MCR 2.104, MCR 2.105, MCR 2.107, MCR 2 .113(C)(2)(a). (b), MCR 3.206(A)

Vil: 02/11 - 02/25/2016

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February 25, 2016

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To Advertise Call: 646-452-2490 LegalAds@TheVillager.com Deadline – 12 noon Wednesday

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To Advertise Call: 646-452-2490 LegalAds@TheVillager.com Deadline – 12 noon Wednesday

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February 25, 2016

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Legal Notices

Neighbors call Triangle memorial a visual assault To Advertise Call: 646-452-2490 LegalAds@TheVillager.com Deadline – 12 noon Wednesday

Why Pay More?

TRIANGLE continued from p. 1

monument, we wanted to create a memorial — something that works on a more personal level,” Wegman said. The current design calls for the installation of three reflective stainless-steel panels. One of these would run along the sides of the building at 29 Washington Place at pedestrians’ hip level, telling the story of the fire in a single line etched into the metal. A few feet above this panel would be a second one running parallel to it, with the names of the fire’s 146 victims stenciled into it and reflected in the lower panel. A third reflective panel would run vertically up the building’s corner to its eighth floor. The relatively simple design, however, which was shown on a scaled-down model of the building at the meeting, garnered unfavorable reviews from the locals. “How does this memorial honor the victims? It’s just dressing up the building,” complained Mary Johnson, a resident of 14 Washington Place. “It does nothing for me.” The plan for the memorial started forming years ago, around the time of the fire’s centennial commemoration in 2011. A design was chosen in November 2013, as a result of an international design competition that solicited 170 entries from more than two dozen countries, according to Joel Sosinsky, the coalition’s secretary. This past December, the group received a promise of $1.5 million in funding from Governor Andrew Cuomo, which would pay for the memorial’s construction. But at least $1 million would still need to be raised in order to pay for an endowment of the installation — a requirement from New York University, which owns the building, now filled with university science labs. Many residents in surrounding buildings fear the reflections from the memorial’s stainless-steel panels would shine into their apartments across the street. Even though the architects tried to calm those concerns with the help of a light study that was supposed to show only minimal sun reflection from the panels, the attendees remained unconvinced. “It’s an assault on our windows,” said resident Barbara Quart. “It’s a really bad choice.” Anita Brandt, who is a member of the C.B. 2 Landmarks Committee, said she actually liked the design, but would prefer to see it tested on location beforehand, so that the impact could be studied first-hand. “I think, conceptually, it is quite beautiful,” she told the two architects. “But I think we have to see a full-scale mockup to see if it really works.” But the main point of contention was that many felt they had been left out of the conversation, in a neighborhood that is used to having a say in all manner of issues — especially when it comes to local landmarks. “One of the major issues here is that we were never informed,” said Connie Dondore, who heads the tenant association at 15

Residents worry that stainless-steel panels in the Triangle Fire memorial plan would reflect light into their homes. One panel would rise eight stories high on the building’s southeast corner, as seen in above rendering.

Call noW 646-452-2490

Washington Place. “You have no right to just come in and say, ‘This is what we’ll do,’ ” added Johnson. Sosinsky reminded everyone that the group had come to a community board meeting years ago, and that he had thought the next step would be to present the proposal to C.B. 2’s Landmarks Committee, which gives input on landmarks alterations before they are considered by the city. He added that the group hoped to bring their design before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission before the end of the year. How the memorial coalition reacts to the residents’ concerns, and whether the current proposal will see significant changes before becoming a formal application, remains to be seen. “This was largely what I expected coming in here tonight,” Yoo said after the meeting. He added that he appreciated the feedback but thought that a lot of the criticism stemmed from misconceptions. “A lot of things are up in the air right now,” he said. C.B. 2 Vice Chairperson Terri Cude, who moderated the meeting, agreed that the ball was in the coalition’s court now. “We’re hoping to get more community input,” she said afterward. “We may need another meeting on this, we may not.” “The architects have shown some degree of openness and willingness, so this was a starting place,” Cude added. “This is an important site, but the people who live there have to live with it, too.”

to advertise all your legals and naMe Changes

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February 25, 2016

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February 25, 2016

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Sullivan home landmarked, finally, after 4 decades wait BY YANNIC RACK

T

he city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission this week voted to recommend a two-century-old townhouse on Sullivan St. for preservation, but dumped three other historic buildings in the area from its calendar after some of them have languished in landmarks limbo for decades. As part of the agency’s initiative to address the 95 properties stuck in its backlog, L.P.C. fasttracked designation of the 1816 Federal-style house at 57 Sullivan St., which was first considered for landmark status in 1970. “It is deeply gratifying that, after nearly a half-century, the 200-year-old house at 57 Sullivan St. we fought for years to landmark will now finally receive the protections it deserves,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. At a public meeting on Tues., Feb. 23, the commission dealt with its entire backlog of buildings across the city, voting to either prioritize them for landmark designation by year’s end, permanently remove them from the list or issue a No Action Letter, which allows them to be placed back on L.P.C.’s calendar at a future date. The commissioners voted not to recommend three other Downtown Manhattan sites — including two other Federal-style houses at 138 Second Ave. and 2 Oliver St., as well as the former James McCreery & Co. Store, known as “The Cast Iron Building,” at 801-807 Broadway. “We are disappointed that the commission has chosen not to recommend these extraordinary historic buildings for landmark designation,” said Berman. Without protection for the buildings, the owners are now free to apply to alter or demolish them — which has not been

The Federal-style townhouse at 57 Sullivan St., on the L.P.C. backlog for years, has been designated — but two other historic Downtown buildings didn’t make the cut.

allowed since 1966 in the cases of 801-807 Broadway and 2 Oliver St., which were first considered for designation back then. The L.P.C. meeting followed four special hearings last fall about the backlog, which gave preservationists and the public an opportunity to make a last plea to protect the calendared properties. The agency originally planned to dispose of the entire backlog in 2014, prompting an outcry from preservation groups citywide. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who gave testimony on many of the buildings, said on Tuesday that the procedure was a success. “Today’s votes mark a real achievement: the Landmarks Preservation Commission is clearing its backlog through a transparent, public, accountable process,” she said. “I thank the commission for working with me to devise this process and for diligently following through. Working together, we’ve proved the system can work.” Items prioritized for designation will now be returned to the commission for a vote by the end of this year.

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Lady Gaga and Marc Jacobs.

PHOTOS ©PMC

Gaga makes waves, Day is Day-O.K. at Jacobs show

S

ingers Lady Gaga and Andra Day headlined Marc Jacobs’ catwalk show last Thursday at the Park Avenue Armory during New York’s Fashion Week. Gaga wore an oversized trench coat, a black fur shawl and silver python-skin platform shoes (no PETA protests were reported), with black lipstick and her hair done in 1920s-style waves. Day, who looks a bit like Rihanna, sat in the front row. Wearing a red head tie and large hoop earrings, she sported a cinematically themed top and skirt. Also on hand were the likes of Sandra Bernhard, Zosia Mamet, Christina Ricci, Debi Mazar, Kiernan Shipka, Amandla Stenberg...and Milk! For more photos of New York City events by Patrick McMullan, go to http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/index.aspx .

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February 25, 2016

Singer Andra Day rocked a cinematic look.

Zosia Mamet of “Girls” fame.

Got Milk? You betcha! TheVillager.com

Taking in the catwalk show, from left, Andra Day, with actresses Ashley Benson (“Pretty Little Liars”), Odeya Rush (“Goosebumps”), Amandla Stenberg (“The Hunger Games”) and Kiernan Shipka (“Mad Men”).

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From left, Gabriele Corcos, creator and host of “Extra Virgin,” his wife, actress Debi Mazar, Cicely Yasin Bernhard and her mom, comedian Sandra Bernhard. TheVillager.com

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