NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
washington square news Vol. 39, No. 31
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011
nyunews.com
St. Mark’s Bookshop nears final chapter
‘Forbidden NYU’ ready to bring in the laughs
By Hanqing Chen
By Jessica Littman
“Forbidden NYU” cast a lighthearted mood over Silver 703 as the cast rehearsed for its show opening tomorrow night. Cast and crew members joked and mingled as they donned their constumes and put the set together. “[The show] is really funny,” CAS freshman and cast member Torrence Browne said. Even after two months of rehearsal, everyone involved in the show was still appreciative of its humor, laughing as their fellow actors practiced. This will be the 12th annual performance of “Forbidden NYU” by the College of Arts and Science Theater. “A lot of songs have been in it since the beginning,” Gallatin senior and cast member Michael Brick said. “But there are some songs that are different every year because NYU changes every year.” This will be Brick’s third and
JONATHAN TAN/WSN
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The cast of “Forbidden NYU” puts the finishing touches on its 12th annual performance.
Brooklyn Museum finds success with new 1920s exhibit
JAMES CHAPIN
James Chapin’s work is displayed at the Brooklyn Museum.
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Governor Cuomo to let ‘Millionaire’s Tax’ expire By Jessica Schultz
By Cody Delistraty Even with some gimmicky exhibitions of Star Wars costumes and hip-hop music, the Brooklyn Museum hasn’t exactly fared well with critics or the public. But Friday’s opening of Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties drastically helped reverse its reputation of the dull, second-tier alternative to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bringing together 140 works by artists of the 1920s, such as Charles Demuth, Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe, the exhibit boasts the lesser-known works of these modern artists who dealt with the increasingly urban, industrial world. “The artists brought individuality to their environment,” curator Teresa A. Carbone said. “They expressed the aesthetic
Beneath a veil of quiet quirkiness, there exists a sense of urgency at St. Mark’s Bookshop — Greenwich Village’s 34-year-old, trademark offbeat bookstore. The store is on the brink of foreclosure as it is currently undergoing final negotiations with the Cooper Union administration, the landlords of the shop’s Third Avenue location. The current negotiations dovetailed from a saga of negotiations that started two months ago, when the bookstore owners originally filed a plea for rent reductions. Due to declining sales, the shop has been struggling to keep up with its $20,000-per-month rent fee and asked for a deduction of $5,000. Although Cooper Union rejected the plea on Tuesday, as of Friday, negotiations have resumed, and employees at the shop are back on their tightrope, still struggling to survive. “I think we’re all pretty freaked out,” Margarita Shalina, an em-
The 99 percent is now equipped with even more ammo in the income inequality debate. New York governor Andrew Cuomo continues to reject a renewal of the state’s ‘Millionaire’s Tax,’ which is set to expire at the end of the year. The surcharge tax, which was enacted in 2009, applies to those with incomes over $300,000 for married couples and with incomes beyond $200,000 for those who are single. Cuomo’s office estimates that the tax would provide an additional $4 billion at a time when the state government is facing a deficit of $2.4 billion. The current Occupy Wall Street movement, which has major camps in New York City and Albany, has been calling for an end to income inequality. But OWS members aren’t the only ones who support the tax that Cuomo is determined to let expire. A recent poll by Siena College found that 72 percent of registered voters in the state approved a renewal of the tax and a tax hike for those making more
than $1 million per year. “Many Democrats who support progressive tax policies will oppose the governor’s regressive tax policies as one more sign that the government is out of touch with the public demand for fairness in economic policy,” Steinhardt social studies education professor Robert Cohen said. According to a study done by The Fiscal Policy Institute in December 2010, New York State has the highest income inequality in the country, with the top 1 percent of the state’s population bringing home 35 percent of the state’s income that year. The top 1 percent in the United States made up 23 percent of the nation’s income last year. Cuomo, however, stood by his decision, claiming the tax will force residents and businesses to move out of the state. Many, including Richard Wolff, professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst and current visiting professor at The New School, believe that the governor’s anti-tax
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