The local paper for Downtown wn LIBRARY AT SEA < CITY ARTS, PAGE 12
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
4 2014
OTDOWNTOWN.COM
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LOWER EAST SIDE RESIDENTS JOIN FORCES
In Brief HIGHLINE EXEC UTIVE DIRECTOR STEPPING DOWN FROM POST
NEWS Frustrated residents band together to form Tenants United Fighting for the Lower East Side BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
LOWER EAST SIDE Residents on the Lower East Side are banding together to form a new tenants’ organization focused on the specter of overdevelopment and lack of affordable housing. The six-member board of Tenants United Fighting For the Lower East Side, or TUFF-LES, invited local and state officials to their recent inaugural meeting. Their primary concern is achieving “actual representation,” by which they mean they’d like tenants in their buildings speaking out on issues affecting their community on the Lower East Side – Two Bridges, Lands End 1 and 2, and the Vladeck, Smith, LaGuardia and Rutgers Houses, along with Gouverneur Gardens and Knickerbocker Village. “We’ve not developed a means of reaching out to the much smaller multi-family dwellings along Madison, but as we build capacity we hope to consider ways of broadening our base,” said board member Marc Richardson, who lives at Lands End 1. So far, the six board members live in the two Lands End buildings and the Two Bridges Tower, but they’re talking with tenant leaders in the other buildings. Richardson said this group is different because a typical tenants’ group will only represent residents in a single building or development, while the aim of TUFF is to bring together representatives from all the buildings. To the best of his knowledge, he said, such a group is “unprecedented” on the Lower East Side. Richardson said board member Tanya Castro deserves credit for starting CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers’ downtown location has been squeezed out after a rent hike and will soon close. Photo by Gabrielle Alfiero
A BOOKSTORE NOT TO BE SAVING SMALL BUSINESS Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers takes its final bow on Broadway BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
When Margot Liddell started in 1987 as the manager of the new Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers on lower Broadway, near New York University, not even the books were safe in the now-upscale NoHo neighborhood. “It was wild,” Liddell said about the neighborhood in her low, raspy voice. Book thieves weren’t uncommon, she said, and ran from Shakespeare & Co. to the nearby Strand Bookstore or St. Mark’s Bookshop to the east with stolen merchandise, hoping to sell the paperbacks for a
small profit. “I used to chase people,” Liddell said. “I’d chase them myself, with my staff.” After serving the changing neighborhood and NYU community for 30 years, Shakespeare & Co. is closing. The longstanding shop, which Liddell remembers was once neighbored by vintage clothing shops Unique Boutique and Canal Jeans Co., lost its lease and saw a spike in rent, and closes for good on Sept. 6. “We’re sort of the last bastion of élan,” said Liddell, who noted that big-box retailers such as Kmart, Banana Republic and McDonald’s are now more common in the area. “And now we won’t be here, either.” Liddell retained hope for the future of the store when a prospective investor wanted to add a café to the existing shop, but he lost a bidding
war to the new tenant, Foot Locker, which already operates a store on Waverly Place a block away. “That’s what I guess people are lamenting,” Liddell said about the customer outcry she’s heard since the news hit. “Who wants another shoe store?” Shakespeare & Co. opened its first shop on the Upper West Side in 1981, where Liddell worked before helping open the Broadway branch, and expanded to include locations in Gramercy, on Whitehall Street, on Lexington Avenue near Hunter College and near Brooklyn College. The stores served students by carrying textbooks for courses at many of the city’s colleges. With New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts just across the street, the Broadway branch catered to a performing arts crowd, and carried the second largest selection of plays in the city, behind The Drama Book Shop in Midtown. Over the years, many Tisch students stocked the store’s shelves and worked the registers. Now, only the Lexington Avenue store remains, though the future of that outpost doesn’t seem certain. Liddell would only say that the lease and ownership of the remaining
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Jenny Gersten, who began her tenure as executive director of Friends of the Highline at the beginning of this year, has announced her resignation from the conservancy group. Gersten, who comes from an arts background, said in a letter to the board on Sept. 2 that she plans to return to a career in the arts. “As much as I have enjoyed this exceptional opportunity and the talented people who make this organization so extraordinary, I have come to the realization that my real desire is to return to full-time work in the arts, focusing on the kind of arts institution and cultural programming which I love most,” Gersten wrote. Friends of the Highline confirmed that Gersten will stay on through the opening of the Rail Yards section of the park and will be retained as a creative consultant through the end of the year. Co-founder and president Josh David will assume oversight of the organization as the board searches for a new executive director.
IN FIRST, MEMORIAL WILL BE OPEN ON NIGHT OF 9/11 The Sept. 11 memorial plaza will be open on the night of the attacks’ anniversary this year, the first time the general public will be able to visit ground zero on the commemoration date. The plaza will be closed to the public during the remembrance ceremony and much of the rest of the day, but it will open from 6 p.m. to midnight for those who want to pay respects and view one of the most evocative observances -- the twin beams called the Tribute in Light -- from an especially “meaningful vantage point,” memorial President Joe Daniels said in an email to victims’ families.