0
15465
10500
9
The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Unio Union Square, iio o on n Sq q uare, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
May 31, 2018 • $1.00 Volume 88 • Number 22
Board 2 doesn’t buy plan for hotel next to Merchant’s House BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
T
he historic Merchant’s House Museum officially won the hearts of Community Board 2 last Thursday. The full board voted against a plan to alter zoning text and build an eight-story hotel next door to the 19thcentury house. “Having the full
board of C.B. 2 — all 41 members — vote unanimously to deny the developer’s application is heartening, to say the least,” said Margaret “Pi” Gardiner, the museum’s executive director for nearly three decades. “We couldn’t have asked for a stronger show of support.” MERCHANT’S continued on p. 9
Tanya Saunders, 82, owner of Cubbyhole, inclusive lesbian bar BY PAUL SCHINDLER
T
anya Saunders, a child refugee from Nazi Germany who owned a West Village bar since 1987 — the last 24 years under the name Cubbyhole — died April 29 at age 82. The cause of death, said Lisa Menichino, Saunders’s close
friend who worked with her for the past 18 years, was heart failure, after roughly a year of poor health. Though the Cubbyhole was widely thought of as a lesbian bar, both Saunders and Menichino preferred to dub it a “neighborhood fusion bar.” SAUNDERS continued on p. 8
‘Statue’ a real ‘Idem’ at Met ....p. 4
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Dancers got into the groove at the Loisaida Festival on Avenue C on Sun., May 27.
New special-ed school was a long time coming BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
W
hen Marjorie Die n s t a g ’s e l d e s t son, Alex, was in middle school in the 1990s, he had to commute back and forth from their West Village home to his school Uptown a total of two hours each day. Alex, who had a languageprocessing disorder, attended a middle school in District 75, which includes schools for students with disabilities and special needs. The lack of District 75 middle school seats Downtown altered the Dienstags’ lives.
Marjorie even had to hire a babysitter to wait for one child at the bus stop while she picked up her other son from a different school across town. “We were always rushing to get home,” she said. Spontaneity for playground time or buying an ice cream after school wasn’t in the cards for her day-to-day life raising Alex and Stefan, now 33 and 27 years old, respectively. “It changed my life completely,” she said. But this September — after nearly a decade in the making — that scenario could change for many Downtown families.
A District 75 middle school — P751, at 75 Morton St. — will open its doors just after Labor Day. Advocates for the school expect it to fill a gap of school seats for students with disabilities Downtown, especially in the Village. “I am thrilled that the new District 75 middle school at 75 Morton will open in September,” said Jeannine Kiely, the chairperson of the Schools and Education Committee of Community Board 2. “This will be the largest D75 middle school Downtown and provide a local opSCHOOL continued on p. 6
S.L.A. overrules C.B. 3 on Club Cumming ........p. 3 Sleazy rider getting whacky on the R train .......p. 5 www.TheVillager.com