David Leslie is on the expansion committee and is helping them search for more space.
LITTLE MISH’S BIG NIGHT: The Little Missionary’s Day Nursery Sara Curry Awards and fundraiser last Thursday was definitely the best one yet in the last 11 years. The parents raised a cool $46,000 through an auction on Bidpal (an auction using smart phones). Comedian Jim Gaffigan — three of whose five kids have attended the school — was the hilarious headliner at the event, held this year at the new Grand Hall event space in the basement of St. Mary’s Church, on Grand St. Meredith Monk also performed, wowing the crowd with her ethereal tonal poetry, John Giorno riffed a poetic trip on God and atheism, and Herman Hewitt, the historic St. Mark’s Place school’s chairperson and a longtime leader at Community Board 3, was the evening’s “surprise honoree.” Hewitt, also the chairperson of the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association, took his turn at the mic to
PETROSINO LEO: Actor Leonardo DiCaprio will be making a movie about Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, the hero Italian-American cop who battled the notorious Black Hand, the Mafia’s precursor, more than 100 years ago. The organized-crime thugs preyed on Little Italy residents and were big on bombs, which led to the creation of the Police Department’s Italian Squad, later known as the Bomb Squad. Petrosino, nicknamed the “Detective in a Derby,” went undercover to Sicily, where he was gunned down by the mob while at a cafe. Apparently, DiCaprio will play Petrosino, though he might have to pack on a few pounds to portray the legendary lawman, who, built like a bull, was a bit stockier than him. The buzz is it could be an Oscar-winning role.
PHOTO BY LIZ MARIE SANDERS
Jim Gaffigan joked that after Donald Trump’s victor y, when he was walking around in the East Village, he felt people were thinking about him, “You did it!”
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May 18, 2017
blast President Donald Trump, though without mentioning him by name. “I’m an immigrant,” Hewitt, a Jamaican native, told the audience. “Each of us in this room is either an immigrant or descendant of immigrants. You don’t need anyone to tell you that you have to make America great again,” he declared to applause. Gaffigan somehow was able to poke fun at his wife, Jeannie’s, recent surgery. “My wife had a brain tumor, the size of a pear,” he said. “It’s gone, and so is my ability to win an argument with her. ... Why are tumors always compared to fruits?” he pondered, noting that big ones are called “the size of a grapefruit,” which is kind of tough on grapefruits. We enjoyed catching up with Little Mish parents Chris and Ally Ryan. Why, it wasn’t that long ago that we used to see Chris zipping around with the Critical Mass cyclists while videotaping the cops. He’s now a semi-mainstream dad — and his new gluten-free diet may well be contributing to his newfound “serenity.” As for Little Mish, Hewitt and the school’s legendary director, Eileen Johnson, confirmed that the school — which now serves kids ages 2 to 6 — is planning to add grades K through five. The school has huge classrooms, and will be able to do it by combining grades K/1, 2/3 and 4/5, she told us. “If demand grows we would need more space,” she said. “We’re looking to find more space for the coming years. Basically, we have three rooms that could serve as classrooms for the next few years.” Super-dad
NEW PARK BOSS: George Vellonakis, who designed the reconstruction of Washington Square Park about 10 years ago, has been tapped to be the park’s new administrator — as well as the executive director of the Washington Square Park Conservancy. He fills the dual roles previously occupied by Sarah Nielsen, who has departed for a new job at the Parks Department’s parks planning division. Nielsen was the park’s administrator since March 2013. Cathryn Swan, who writes the Washington Square Park Blog, raises some interesting points: “Her leaving the job brings up some questions — Was it her decision to leave? What role did the Washington Square Park Conservancy play here? And is the private organization seeking to sketchily expand its turf at the park now?” However, Rich Caccappolo, chairperson of the Community Board 2 Parks Committee, didn’t see any major conspiracy. “I was told that the opportunity that opened up in the Parks Department was more in line with what she had studied in school and had done previously in her career,” he told us. Vellonakis’s salary will be between $85,000 and $95,000. Of course, the park’s redesign — which included shifting the fountain slightly east to “center” it with the arch, a move many thought ludicrous — was fought bitterly by some, including with a lawsuit. Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, greeted the news of Vellonakis’s appointment with a blog post calling him the “Washington Sq. Park redesign nemesis.” Vellonakis also did the redesign for Abingdon Square, which some Westbeth activists fought tooth and nail, warning, among other things, that because some trees would be cut down, people on certain medications would get skin cancer. Vellonakis, who lives in the Village, is cool. But, from what we know of him, he won’t be a shrinking violet, so to speak, if park redesign-haters confront him. ... Well, this could be interesting. SCOOPY’S continued on p. 3 TheVillager.com