NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
WASHINGTON SQUARE NEWS Vol. 41, No. 87
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013
Students protest Barneys
nyunews.com
LS sophomore rescued from between buildings
By KEVIN BURNS, EMILY BELL and NICOLE BROWN
LS sophomore Asher Vongtau was trapped between Lafayette Street residence hall and a parking garage before New York City Fire Department rescue workers removed him from the two-foot wide space on Nov. 3. Vongtau was placed in an ambulance at 6:36 p.m., after an hour and a half-long rescue, and taken to Bellevue Hospital. His sister, Zoe Vongtau, said he was in stable condition as of 9 p.m. “We just ask for continuous praying and love sent his way,” she said. Vongtau was reported missing late Nov. 2, NYU spokesman John Beckman said. Public Safety officers had been searching for him since that time. As of press time, reports about how Vongtau became trapped were not confirmed. “One of the public safety officers was the person who found him in a very small space between 80 Lafayette St. and a [neighboring] garage,” Beckman said. “And he alerted the NYPD and the FDNY,
By LARSON BINZER and AFEEFA TARIQ
A small group of demonstrators gathered on Nov. 2 outside Barneys New York on Madison Avenue to protest the department store’s alleged racial profiling of shoppers. This year, two black shoppers were detained after making expensive purchases. Both shoppers were not convicted, but one was arrested and is now suing the department store for racial discrimination. At the store, co-organizer NYUPoly sophomore Justin Sutton said the protest aimed to bring attention to racial profiling. “I hope to accomplish bringing more attention to the issue of racial profiling and systemized abuse of police authority and power,” Sutton said. Sutton said he was less interested in seeing a change in WILLIAM MARTIN/WSN
SIT continued on PG. 3
LAFAYETTE continued on PG. 3
Gallatin alumna, junior collaborate for film starring Broadway actor By RITANSHA JALAN
RACHEL CABITT/WSN
Gallatin junior Tommy Craven is collaborating on the film ‘Blonde.’
Short films by NYU alumni are relatively common, but few can claim to have Broadway stars involved so quickly after their graduations. Joanna Strange, who received her master of arts degree from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in spring 2013, recently began shooting the short film “Blonde” alongside Gallatin junior Tommy Craven, the assistant producer. Originally, Strange had written “Blonde” as a short story but
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Court of Appeals halting stop-andfrisk improvements The city was on the road to amending stop-and-frisk policies before the court stopped the process.
STORY on PG. 7
said it was easy to transform the story into a screenplay. The short story was originally published in the quarterly magazine Vitrine: A Printed Museum. Strange described the movie as the genesis of a young woman who turns out to be a serial killer. The female protagonist’s name is Blonde and the male protagonist is simply named The Man. “Giving a name to a character creates a whole story about them and I wanted it to be as clean as possible,” Strange said. “We know nothing about [Blonde], and she
has no background issues.” NYU students are not the only members of the film’s cast and crew — Broadway star Max Von Essen acts in a starring role. Blonde is being played by Gallatin junior Annabelle Attanasio and The Man by Von Essen. “We knew we wanted somebody who we could tap into the audience of,” Craven said on signing Max Von Essen as The Man. Both Strange and Craven wanted somebody who would be interested in the project. Von Essen turned out to be just the person
who not only fits the role but is also passionate about the film. “Although the underlying theme of ‘Blonde’ is quite complex and perhaps disturbing, I was drawn to the simple human desires of my character, The Man,” Von Essen said. “We’re all grown children wanting to find love and connection. He may mask his desires with an air of confidence, but he deeply wants to fall in love.” Blonde and The Man were written to seem like stereotypical in char-
GALLATIN cont’d on PG. 4
Violets finish second at UAA championships By SYDNEY PEREIRA
The NYU men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to Pittsburgh this past weekend, as the UAA Cross Country Championship took place on Saturday, Nov. 2. The hilly course in Schenley Park did not hinder the teams’ perfor-
mances, with the men’s (49 points) and women’s teams (60 points) finishing second to Washington University in St. Louis (26 points) and the number-nine ranked University of Chicago (54 points), respectively. This is the fourth consecutive second place finish for the men’s team.
Graduate student Dylan Karten has performed well consistently for the men’s team, and is ranked seventh nationally. At the UAAs, Karten placed third in the eightkilometer race with a time of 25:24.6. Senior Ross Wistar and ju-
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