The Village Sun | May 2023

F.C.C.: 5G towers need ‘preservation’ review

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

The city’s contentious rollout of 5G street megatowers is facing a new setback after the federal government mandated that the scheme must go through additional layers of review.

After weeks of prodding by Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, the Federal Communications Commission recently wrote to CityBridge, the private consortium the city has contracted with to install 2,000 of the 32-foottall towers. About one-third of the sci-fi-looking structures are slated to be erected in 13 “equity districts” around the city, including the East Village and Lower East Side. But there has been pushback from various quarters, especially from areas including historic districts, such as Greenwich Village, where nine of the towers are initially planned and where earlier this year Community Board 2 called for a moratorium on the new infrastructure’s rollout. Parts of Brooklyn have seen opposition, as well.

Greenwich Village residents turned out in force at the community board at the end of last year to declare they don’t need or want the monoliths, which they slammed as unsightly eyesores. Some also have concerns over the safety of 5G millimeter-wave, non-ionizing, electromagnetic radiation, said to be 100 times more powerful than 4G.

Yet, despite saying it would first consider

input from C.B. 2, in February the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation plowed ahead with work on two 5G tower sites on Washington Street — before local politicians repeatedly protested, causing the work to grind to a halt.

In his April 20 letter, Garnet Hanley of the F.C.C.’s Competition & Infrastructure Policy Division, informed Robert Sokota and Margaux Knee, CityBridge’s respective president and general counsel, that a so-called Section 106 review is required for the project.

“…[T]he Link5G program falls within the scope of the Commission’s rules for implementation of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),” Hanley stated.

“Accordingly, we expect that CityBridge will comply with these rules before constructing additional Link5G tower kiosk[s],” the letter notes.

For those towers that have already been constructed, the city must conduct “a post-construction review pursuant to…Section 106,” the letter says.

At the same time, Hanley said the F.C.C. backs the 5G rollout: “We support the efforts behind this project to close the digital divide… .”

The review reportedly must include any 5G towers located adjacent to historic districts or any individual landmarks, as well as towers sited within historic districts. Furthermore, the

study must consider the cumulative impacts of all the towers currently proposed, along with those that might be proposed in the foreseeable future.

West Village activist Zack Winestine, who heads the group Save Gansevoort and has been closely monitoring the 5G towers installation, hailed the F.C.C.’s intervention.

“This is great news,” he said. “In the past, the city has boasted that these intrusive threestory-tall towers would be subject to review by community boards and the borough president, and then completely ignored those reviews when they concluded the project would have serious negative impacts and should be paused. Now, finally, there will be an opportunity for public review of the impacts of these huge structures on the streetscapes within and surrounding our historic districts, and the city won’t be able to ignore the results.”

Frampton Tolbert, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said his organization was also heartened by the development.

“H.D.C. is pleased that the F.C.C. has found that the proposed installation of Link5G tower kiosks requires a Section 106 process under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA),” he said. “This will allow stakeholders from across the city to weigh in on the placement and appropriateness of the towers, especially within designated historic districts and immediately adjacent to individ-

ual landmarks. Stakeholders have been concerned to see installations already happening over the past several months with little to no public input.”

Village Preservation, which has also been a watchdog on the issue, praised the decision — but said their pushback won’t stop.

“Any tower proposed for a historic district or landmarked site will still have to go through the city’s public review process via the Landmarks Preservation Commission,” the organization noted in an e-mail blast. “However, we don’t yet know what that process will look like or how the appropriateness of the proposed siting will be evaluated. The city’s rollout of this program has been haphazard and inconsistent, and involves contradictory statements about where towers would go and why. We continue to push back on the need for and appropriateness of many of the proposed installations.”

An O.T.I. spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

There is no mandated timeline for the actual Section 106 process. They reportedly usually take at least several months to complete, sometimes longer. It’s also unclear if the review would be for the entire city, or district by district. One source predicted the process could last six months to a year. CityBridge and O.T.I. will need to prepare their presentations, set times for hearings to take place and times for public comment and review.

Amid ‘Trump scrum’ before ex-prez’s arraignment

BY MASON LEIB

Several thousand people gathered around Collect Pond Park’s swath of blooming yellow daffodils on the afternoon of April 4. Few eyes ventured down at the first clear signs of spring. Instead, eyes focused up at the signs either deriding or praising ex-President Trump. The loud, at times cantankerous, but overwhelmingly peaceful crowd gathered variously to cheer, jeer or observe the scene outside the courthouse where Trump was arraigned on nearly three dozen felonies. Differentiating between the supporters, crit ics, media and casual onlookers was challeng ing, even for the crowd members them selves.

“I just am the God guy,” said Gary Becker, who found himself on the Trump-supporting south side of the park. Becker said he was there only to share gospel tracts with Trump, though he was doubtful he’d achieve the goal.

The only defined lines of certainty at the park were two rows of metal barricades placed parallel to each other to separate the two groups.

As Becker spoke, murmurs through the crowd indicated the rally’s headliner, Marjorie

Another congressmember, New York’s Jamaal Bowman spoke to reporters shortly after Greene fled.

“Do your freaking job, Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Bowman shouted. “You don’t need to be in New York City talking that nonsense. Go back to your district,” he declared, emphatically clapping along as he spoke. “New York City stood up to Marjorie Taylor Greene to let her know… get the hell out of here.”

A sign reading, “STOP HATING EACH OTHER BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE,” could be seen poking out above the heads of the crowd.

Several feet higher waved a bright red and blue flag emblazoned with: “TRUMP OR

Pathological liar Congressmember George Santos briefly showed up to support Trump.

Photo by Milo Hess

Hillary claps back at Trump. Photo by Milo Hess

Trump booster Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was shouted down and left. Photo by Q. Sakamaki

Photo by Milo Hess

Photo by Milo Hess

Photo by Q. Sakamaki

Police Blotter

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A 57-year-old man was stabbed in the buttocks in the East Village in broad daylight, police said.

On Tues., April 25, around 11 a.m., the victim was in front of 85 Avenue A, at E. Sixth Street, when a stranger assaulted him from behind, in the behind, with an unknown object. The attacker fled down the avenue southbound on foot. The victim was removed by E.M.S. to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

The suspect is described as a male between the ages of 40 and 50, around 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a blue hat, blue hooded sweatshirt, tan pants and white sneakers.

A police spokesperson could not immediately say what the motive was behind the incident.

Police ask that anyone with information call the N.Y.P.D.’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Tips can also be submitted on the Crime Stoppers Web site at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on Twitter @ NYPDTips. Tips can result in rewards of up to $3,500. All tips are strictly confidential.

Gunpoint robbery

An elderly electronics store employee was pistol-whipped in an early-morning robbery, according to cops.

Police said that on Fri., April 21, around 7:30 a.m., two males entered an electronics store at Canal and Mercer Streets and approached a 72-year-old employee. One of them brandished a gun and struck the worker in the back of the head with it. Meanwhile, his sidekick snatched roughly $1,500 from the man’s

wallet. The pair also tried but failed to forcibly open a safe inside the store before fleeing. The victim was treated by E.M.S. at the scene.

The suspects dressed in dark clothes and wore hoods and face masks.

Police ask that anyone with information contact Crime Stoppers.

Soho bag battle

A young woman managed to hold onto her purse, even after a robber struck her in the face during an attempted robbery in Soho, police said.

multiple times. He wasn’t unable to steal anything before fleeing eastbound on Canal Street. The victim suffered minor injuries.

Police described the suspect as a male between 25 to 30 years old, with a medium build. He was last seen wearing eyeglasses, a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black-andgray Nike sneakers and carrying a green bag over his shoulder with “SUPREME” written in white letters on it.

Police ask that anyone with information contact Crime Stoppers.

Swoop-’n’-swipes

An e-bike riding duo has been snatching twentysomethings’ headphones right off their heads, police said.

In the first incident, on Thurs., April 6, around 5:30 p.m., a 27-year-old woman was walking in front of 286 W. Houston St., between Hudson and Greenwich Streets, in Hudson Square, when two guys on a gray CitiBike swiped her headphones off the top of her head. The perps then whizzed off west on Houston Street. The woman was uninjured.

According to cops, on Mon., April 10, around 6 p.m., a 25-year-old woman was approached by a stranger in front of 20 Greene St., between Grand and Canal Streets. The man tried to grab the victim’s purse from her shoulder, but she didn’t let go. During the struggle, the thief hit the victim in the face

The victim said her headphones cost $549.

A few days later, on Tues., April 11, just after 4:30 p.m., a 23-year-old woman was walking along Park Avenue South at 21st Street when the same duo riding a gray, electric CitiBike did a swoop-’n’-swipe of her headphones. She was unhurt. She told police her headphones were worth $500.

In both cases, it sounds like the headphones might have been the trendy “over ear” AirPods Maxes, which retail for around $500, and which have recently been targeted by robbers on mopeds and e-bikes.

Police ask that anyone with information contact Crime Stoppers.

The alleged suspect in the Avenue A stabbing NYPD

A surveillance photo of one of the alleged Canal Street robbers. NYPD

Police are looking for this man in connection with an attempted purse robbery. NYPD

An e-bicycle built for two…AirPods Max poachers. NYPD

Village Sun wins for news, headlines, editorial page

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

The Village Sun is Downtown Manhattan’s No. 1 award-winning newspaper. Don’t just take it from us — but from the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.

The Sun racked up six NYPA awards, including first place for best news story, second place for headlines and third place for editorial page and coverage of religion. The Sun even snagged first place for best promo “house ad.”

The honors were handed out in Albany on March 31 and April 1 at NYPA’s annual spring conference. One hundred fifty-four newspapers from across the state, mostly community papers, submitted entries to the contest, which covered 2022. This year’s entries were judged by members of the Colorado Press Association.

Lincoln Anderson, The Village Sun’s editor, won first place for News Story for his article “Security Upgrade: Block associations near Washington Square Park hire guards.” The report described how, last summer, two block associations near the park — frustrated with their streets being used as open-air “drug dens” and toilets — hired private security, and how the guards patrolling the block of W. Fourth Street between the park and Sixth Avenue were armed with handguns. The residents group was advised by a local security expert that the guards needed to be armed since the drug dealers are known to carry weapons.

The judge for this category wrote, “This is a very compelling story about Greenwich Village neighborhoods hiring their own security firms to do what residents think police are unable to do — curb homelessness and drug-related crime in the street. The most compelling aspect is the hiring of armed security guards. … Gunpoint gentrification? I want to read the follow-up.”

The small start-up Sun also won not one but two awards for Headline Writing — second place and honorable mention. This was in an open division for all of New York State, meaning the Sun was competing

against newspapers of all sizes, some with much larger staffs, resources and circulation.

Among the paper’s winning headlines, written by Anderson, were “Addicted to the pickle: New racket sport is totally whack” and “Holy sheath! Man brains straphanger with samurai sword in wooden scabbard.” Another was “Arsenic and saving face: City says tainted water tests at Riis Houses were all wet.”

“Lots of energy, great word play, nicely written and engaging,” the judge for this category wrote.

The Village Sun also won third place for Coverage of Religion. The articles included Mary Reinholz’s report on the traditional Latin Mass — a rite Pope Francis wants suppressed — being said in East Village churches, plus Anderson’s report on the New York Archdiocese allegedly trying to sell off the shuttered St. Veronica’s Church, on Christopher Street, according to a group of congregants who keep vigilant watch on the house of worship.

In a very prestigious award, The Village Sun won third place for Best Editorial Page. Again, this was a single, open-division cat-

egory — not broken out into several award divisions by circulation numbers — meaning the Sun was judged to have the thirdbest editorial page out of all the community newspapers in New York State.

The entry required editorial pages from three different months. The Sun launched a monthly print version only last September, so there were just four months to choose from — but it proved enough. (Most of the Sun’s contest entries were online articles posted on thevillagesun.com.)

Editorial pages include the editorial, letters to the editor, opinion columns or first-person pieces, plus photos, editorial cartoons or other artwork. The pages’ overall design is also a factor.

“Easy to jump into opinions all over these pages,” the judge for this category wrote approvingly of the Sun’s entry. “Perfect sprinkle of snark in the house edits [editorials] give these pages a strong and vibrant voice.”

The newspaper’s October editorial pages included a talking point by Bill Weinberg, “An argument against the anti-bike backlash,” plus an editorial on the importance of preserving cultural institutions and community centers in the East Village, including Theater for the New City, Theatre 80 St. Mark’s and the former CHARAS El Bohio.

The Sun’s November editorial pages included an editorial advocating for saving the

Elizabeth Street Garden in the wake of a judge’s annulling and voiding the city’s negative declaration that an environmental impact study was not needed to build the Haven Green housing project there. A talking point by Soho artist Harry Pincus, “What, me worry? Yes, all this too shall pass,” along with his accompanying illustration, was also part of the November editorial page. Mac McGill’s “The Politician” illustration added another touch of wry commentary.

The December editorial pages included an editorial, “Elephant on a scooter,” about Ydanis Rodriguez, the Department of Transportation commissioner, meeting with editors and reporters from the city’s community and ethnic newspapers, and stressing to them that cars are no longer tenable in space-starved New York City and that more people should walk and bike for their health. But Rodriguez was then bombarded with questions and complaints from the local media about how one of their readers’ top concerns is the explosion of e-bikes, mopeds and scooters going every which way on the streets and sidewalks. December also featured a notebook piece by writer Michele Herman about how the Harry Potter movie in November 2001 was an uplifting relief — for children and parents alike — after the devastation of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

A homeless transgender woman lay on W. Fourth Street last summer, a heroin syringe clutched in her blood-encrusted hand. Photo by W4M6BA

Hot wheels (again): Skateboard battery ignites

BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Just before 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, April 22, the Fire Department received a call of an “e-bike fire” in the East Village. Several units responded to in front of 45 First Ave. at E. Third St., including hazardous materials trucks. Firefighters quickly extinguished what turned out to be an electric skateboard blaze. They put the smoldering battery into a metal barrel, which was then filled with fire-suppressant granules and sealed for proper disposal.

A Fire Department spokesperson said no injuries were reported.

As of this March, there have been 33 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, resulting in three deaths and 42 injuries. Last year saw 220 e-battery-related fires, causing six deaths and 147 injuries.

In March the City Council passed, and Mayor Adams signed, a series of e-bike laws requiring that devices powered by lithium-ion batteries meet UL safety standards. The new law also bans reselling the batteries and restricts reconditioning of used batteries.

“They are not just regular fires,” Adams said at the time. “They are basically explosions and they spread so rapidly, and it’s more than just water [that is needed] to take them out.”

There are an estimated 65,000 e-bikes currently in use throughout the city.

Firefighters extinguished an electric-powered skateboard that caught fire on First Avenue on April 22. They removed its battery and put it into a metal barrel filled with fire suppressant.

Photos by © Siegel

Mayor scopes out River Project at Pier 57

Mayor Adams gave remarks at the March 30 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the ground floor of Pier 57. Located on the Chelsea waterfront at W. 15th Street, the adaptively reused space includes a food hall and educational facilities. Seen here, Adams checked out the River Project’s part of the educational component. He got some pointers from Noreen Doyle, the president and C.E.O. of the Hudson River Park Trust, which runs Hudson River Park, which contains Pier 57, among its two-dozen piers.

Photos by Caroline Willis/Mayoral Photography Office

Otways evicted from St. Mark’s Theatre 80

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Lorcan and Genie Otway left St. Mark’s Theatre 80 on April 5. It wasn’t clear if they would ever be allowed back inside the place again. Nevertheless, as The Village Sun’s May print edition went to press, they were continuing to fight on to try to retain the remarkable building and the unique cultural, community and activist space that they created there.

They still had a month left to raise more funds to pay off their full $12 million debt owed to a lender, Maverick Real Estate Partners. They had commitments to cover more than half the debt, but still needed several more million dollars. The Otways — who still owned the building — were desperately trying to raise the needed cash by the May 2 deadline. A private online auction of the property was slated for May 9. They were still hoping for a miracle.

In a major, last-minute boost to their cause, just a week earlier, a new nonprofit — Historic 80 St. Mark’s — had been approved to accept tax-deductible donations. It was hoped that would encourage more deep-pocketed, culture-loving “angels” to help the Otways from losing the place.

A “Save Theatre 80” petition on change. org, started by Kenny Toglia of the Guardians of Loisaida, had garnered more than 7,600 signatures as of April 26. The Guardians were also asking people to write Governor Kathy Hochul and urge her to intervene and help

An eviction from one’s longtime home is always a traumatic experience. It doesn’t get any easier as the years go by and one advances in age. Lorcan is 70 and Genie is 69. He lived there since he was 9, helping his father as a young kid to scoop out the basement’s dirt floor to deepen the theater.

Around 1 p.m. on April 5, a U-Haul truck was parked across the street from the theater. It was being loaded with whatever valued possessions the Otways had hurriedly been able to pull together. Genie walked out of the building carrying a stack of ancient-looking paintings, held face down. Since they were unframed canvases, they probably weren’t the portraits of some of the Anglo-Irish Otway barons from Templederry in the old country that lined a wall in the theater’s lobby. She said she had been focusing on saving things like family photos, things that hold special meaning for them.

ways’ eviction eviction, maybe just “the muscle,” there to protect the trustee. He would not identify himself to a reporter.

A locksmith had been there a bit earlier to install a new lock on the theater’s front door. Gathered outside on the sidewalk in front were a small group of friends there to offer support. Among them was Eric Rassi, a former East Village squatter activist who ran for state Senate last year.

“It’s just another attack by the political machine, as far as I’m concerned,” he declared of the iconic theater couple’s eviction from their longtime home and business. “They forced people to close for a year [during the pandemic] but they didn’t stop finance companies from collecting money that people were prohibited from earning. This was a political decision to destroy institutions — and there are many, many others.” He blamed “Hochul, de Blasio — every single one of ’em.”

of an accused 17th-century English witch — was anxiously meowing inside her carrying case on the sidewalk.

While Pyewacket had a place to stay for a while, where the Otways would go wasn’t immediately clear. But they were able to find a temporary home with Father Pat Moloney on E. Ninth Street. Lorcan said it was important to stay in the neighborhood so they could “keep up the fight” to save the building.

Also among the handful of people outside were a group of young people in their 20s and early 30s. As they started to talk about what both the Otways and the social and cultural space they created meant to them, Kathleen Finch, a bartender there for the last four years, became watery-eyed. She’s originally from Texas.

“It’s quite literally my second home,” she said. “Genie and Lorcan are like my second parents. I’m here more days than not.”

“I feel like I’m losing a second home,” echoed Sam Agnew, who plays in a grindcore rock band. “I’ve been coming here since 2013, since I was old enough to drink.”

He noted that Food Not Bombs, a volunteer group that provides free vegan and vegetarian meals, met in the building.

For Ena Lee, 27, an organizer who grew up nearby, St. Mark’s Theatre 80 has always been a neighborhood touchstone. At one point, she worked there.

“I used to walk with my dad down this block, past this building and he would tell me how Leon Trotsky lived on the second floor,” she said. “Democratic Socialists used to meet here.

“This was a spot where anything could happen, anybody could come by. When we’re talking about gentrification, this was one of the places that young activists like us could draft their dreams.”

While Rassi referred to a crippling oneyear lockdown during the pandemic, Otway noted that, in the case of theaters, it was actually two years that business was negatively impacted. At major financial expense — wanting to abide by COVID social-distancing regulations — he yanked out the theater’s seats to make it a cabaret, sporting tables and far less seating.

But during the past year, the trustee prohibited the Otways from raising revenue from the building, for example, blocking them from leasing it for a film shoot that would have netted $50,000. And after declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they literally had no money.

“Our bank accounts have been seized,” Lorcan said.

save the building from being sold. Another letter-writing campaign asked Mayor Adams to take the building by eminent domain.

If the Otways managed to retain the building, Lorcan said the plan was for it to become a nonprofit venue that he would program, and that he and Genie would continue to be able to live there.

Meanwhile, Lorcan was over at the mini storage at Second Street and Second Avenue, struggling to see what could be crammed into the limited space.

A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, a woman with white hair and wearing a midlength black leather coat, was on the scene. Close by her side was a tall, imposing-looking man. He probably wasn’t the federal marshal who had been expected to enforce the Ot-

Debbie Lee, who produced the late Michael Shenker’s “The Squatters’ Opera” at Theatre 80 the weekend right before the pandemic officially was declared, was also among the small group.

“I’m going to take the cat, babysit it,” she said, “let her chill out rather than let her be toted around.”

The Otways’ 18-year-old, black feline, Pyewacket — named after a “familiar spirit”

Ena Lee said the group of Millennials would do everything they can to help the Otways. One thing on the immediate agenda was to do a fundraiser to pay for their storage space.

“They don’t have children,” she said. “We are their children — and we will take care of them. We’re not going to give up without a fight. We’re preserving their dignity — that’s the most important point.”

On April 5, the court-appointed trustee overseeing Theatre 80 St. Mark’s, right, arrived with a companion, center, to make sure the Otways had vacated the place. They spoke with Ori Kushnir, left, an owner of Foxface sandwiches, a former commercial tenant in the building who also rents an apartment there. Kushnir remains on a month-to-month lease.

Photos by The Village Sun

Former squatter activist Eric Rassi carried off the Otways’ cat, Pyewacket, who would be staying for a while with Debbie Lee, right.

Leonard Abrams, 68, editor of East Village Eye

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Leonard Abrams, the publisher and editor of the East Village Eye, died on April 1 in New Jersey. He was 68.

His girlfriend, Angela Sloan, and godson, Thomas “Mas” Walker, both said Abrams had been driving back to New York City from one of his regular trips selling religious goods to botanica stores, when he pulled off to the side of the road and suffered a fatal heart attack.

Abrams had been riding a personal high since the end of last year when the New York Public Library agreed to accept the archive of the East Village Eye, his 1980s Downtown culture magazine. Finding a proper home for the physical, pre-Internet publication had been a consuming, decades-long quest. The Eye’s archive has also been digitized and is available online.

Of course, there naturally had to be a party with friends and former Eye contributors and staff to celebrate the occasion, and one was duly held at the Bowery Electric on March 23.

“In my opinion, there is no better place than the New York Public Library [for the archive],” Abrams said, in his remarks during the fete, “the depth, the strength of the institution, their mission — that they’re for the people. This cannot possibly be a better outcome.”

No one imagined then that he would be gone less than two weeks later.

Leonard Abrams was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Spring Valley, N.Y., 35 miles north of the city. His father was a furrier and his mother worked for a bank.

He briefly attended Fordham University, then did stints in Denver and Boston before returning to New York. In 1979, at age 24, inspired by living amid the East Village’s developing art scene, he founded the East Village Eye.

“He really did it on very little money,” Sloan said. “I think his mother gave him a little nest egg. He did it mainly by selling ads.”

Also helping make the start-up feasible, the city was more affordable back then.

“His first apartment was $165 a month, and he split it,” Sloan said. “He was a bike messenger when he was younger. He could make the rent in two days as a bike messenger. He drove a cab. He was a carny when he was 19, Upstate and in the South. He did everything.”

But printer’s ink was in his blood.

“He just always wanted to do a newspaper,” she said. “He even started a newspaper in high school. He wanted to start a community in print.”

The Eye went on to publish 73 print issues — covering punk rock, painters, politics and more — until Abrams closed it in 1987.

“The Eye folded when I was too exhausted to continue and didn’t have anyone else to do what I was doing,” he told The Village Sun in February, as he was planning the Bowery Electric party.

Along with Kembra Pfahler and the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, poet Bob Holman was one of the bash’s featured performers. The Eye published Holman’s poetry back when he was starting out in New York City.

“Just tragic,” Holman said. “There was no indication. … He was totally on that night. When I performed, he was standing at arm’s length from me. It was as if he was ingesting the poetry.”

In addition to a publisher, Abrams was also a talented event organizer and cultivator of social happenings.

“He did so much behind the scenes,” Holman reflected. “He was a great producer. He was a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and held events at Steve Cannon’s Tribes. He was a behind-the-scenes guy. You’d say he’d pull the strings — but he just let people be themselves. He was the ringmaster of the true outsiders.

“He had one of those, like, open-to-everybody apartments,” Holman recalled.

“It was the second floor of First Avenue and Second Street. Huge loft, before there were huge lofts. It was a hang spot, you know. He was a ringleader of the time.

“What a great man. What a great loss. It’s amazing how he got the major institution to appreciate the worth of what he did — and then to say goodbye to us all. I don’t know what to say — what an exit.”

Sloan said Abrams had been on a three-day trip, hitting botanicas in New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia and northern Virginia. The religious items he hawked — including amulets, talismans, pyramids, Buddhas, lucky soap and the like — were from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. He’d been at it for 20 years.

“Leonard was an artist who had to make a living,” she said. “He liked his customers a lot.”

As for the East Village Eye, it wasn’t much of a moneymaker.

“He made enough money to live, but he never had a lot,” Sloan said. “He was successful later on [after the Eye]… . But Leonard didn’t care about money.”

Toward the end, though, everything — not just the Eye archive success — was clicking for him.

“He had just placed the archive,” she said. “He was writing a lot more. He was planning a documentary about the botanicas. The party at the Bowery Electric sold out — it was a huge success. He was happy. If he had to go, I’m glad he went on a high note, and he did.”

Abrams previously made a documentary, “Quilombo Country,” in 2006, narrated by Chuck D. of Public Enemy, about Brazilian rural communities founded by runaway slaves.

Sloan noted that Abrams had openheart surgery in 2014 but appeared to have fully recovered. He also earlier beat cancer. He lived with her in Woodside, Queens. Sloan is a poet and short-fiction writer. The two met in 2013 at the Bowery Poetry Club. Abrams was older but it was never an issue, she said. Last year, he published a chapbook of her poetry called “Stories About Love.” They celebrated it with a party and readings at The Space cocktail bar, at 703 E. Sixth St.

Mitch Corber, a poet and videographer who worked at the East Village Eye, recalled how Abrams operated the hip monthly on a shoestring, which naturally led to some grumbling.

“He was good at getting people to volunteer, I guess,” he said of Abrams. “And the writers felt neglected. He was paying the people, I don’t know, the printers, the truck drivers.”

Helping Abrams run the Eye was Celeste-Monique Lindsay, a friend since high school who now lives in Puerto Rico.

While at the Eye, Abrams was also close to Sybil Walker, who did interviews of the likes of writer Kathy Acker and actor Cookie Mueller. After she became ill, Abrams became the legal guardian of her son, Mas, who was then 13, and moved in with him in the East Village. The two lived together for years, with some occasional falling-outs during which Abrams would move out.

Although he wasn’t around during Abrams’s magazine career, Walker, who is now in his 30s, said he personally admired Abrams’s pioneering support of hip-hop and rap through the Hotel Amazon party that Abrams hosted at Downtown venues like ABC No Rio and the Mudd Club.

“He gave Public Enemy their start at the club, Hotel Amazon,” he said.

“He brought in Queen Latifah, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One. They were the first magazine to print the word ‘hiphop,’” he added of the Eye.

Walker also recalled Abrams hosting colorful Thanksgiving parties with guests like Steve Cannon, Bob Holman and writer/art critic Anthony Haden-Guest.

Another thing about him, he said, “He always wore black.”

Walker accompanied Abrams on some of his trips to botanicas.

“He spoke broken Spanish,” he said. “You could feel heavy vibes when you went to these places. People would have tabs with him and he’d have to haggle with them.”

Over the years, Abrams bounced around, living in various places in the city. At one point, Walker said, Abrams was both working and living in a storefront in Ridgewood, Queens.

“Wherever he laid his hat was his home,” he said.

Sante Scardillo, a Little Italy artist and activist, was a friend of Abrams and attended some of those renowned Th anksgiving parties.

“‘It’s All True’ — with quotation marks — it was the editorial motto, always at the top of the front cover [in small print] of the East Village Eye, and it could have been for Leonard’s life, as well,” he said. “And that’s the way Leonard lived his life: It’s all true, a thousand times over. He had a great thirst for life.

“We were friends since we met over 35 years ago in the Cable Building [where the Eye’s office was located], which at the time still had in its airy lightwells the enormous flywheels that had powered the San Francisco-style cable cars coursing through Broadway. Years later, he told me that the only way to make a small fortune in publishing is to start with a large fortune. It’s probably not his original construct, but I heard it from him for the first time. And he did not wind up with a small fortune.

“The East Village Eye in the ’80s was the equivalent of the Village Voice of previous decades, with smatterings of Paris Review and Artforum thrown in, and The New York Post mixed in and shaken. It was unique, and it was Leonard’s creation that left the deepest imprint in the culture, and what denizens and future generations will remember him for.”

Leonard Abrams is survived by a brother and two sisters, an aunt, nieces, a nephew, his godson, Mas Walker, and his girlfriend, Angela Sloan. Around 200 people attended his funeral service at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, at 91st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and more watched it on Zoom. Burial was at Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island.

Leonard Abrams. Courtesy Angela Sloan

Jerry Delakas, 73, longtime Astor news vendor

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Jerry Delakas, a beloved fixture for decades at the Astor Place newsstand, died in August at age 73.

His nephew Angelo Delakas, who currently operates the kiosk — which is sandwiched between Starbucks and the Downtown subway entrance — said Jerry died at home on the Upper West Side. The cause of death was lung and heart disease. Jerry was a two-pack-a-dayor-more smoker for most of his life.

Jerry Delakas at Astor Place in December 2013 as the community was rallying to save his newsstand, which the city had recently padlocked. Photo by ©Jefferson Siegel

“He quit smoking the last four years,” Angelo said. “It wasn’t early enough. The last year, he struggled with breathing.”

Jerry Delakas operated the Astor newsstand for more than 30 years, from the late 1980s until five years ago. Back in 2013, however, he almost lost the coveted location in a struggle with the Bloomberg administration. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection argued that Delakas did not hold a proper license for the stand, and abruptly padlocked it in November 2013.

But the community rallied to Jerry’s support. A week before the kiosk was shuttered,

more than 100 people, including Reverend Billy, gathered there to show their support. Village attorney Arthur Schwartz represented Jerry pro bono, helping him hold onto the high-traffic vending spot.

Jerry loved working in the East Village and talking with customers, and they loved him in return.

“He lived to serve the community,” Angelo said.

Jerry Delakas was born on Kefalonia, the largest of Greece’s Ionian Islands. Before he worked at the East Village newsstand, he manned other ones at different spots around Manhattan.

Angelo showed The Village Sun a photo on his cell phone of Jerry inside a newsstand in younger days, sporting a shock of thick black hair swept diagonally across his forehead, set off by a white cigarette dangling rakishly from the side of his mouth.

Jerry was one of four brothers. Ari, the only surviving brother, and Jerry used to work together. Ari and Angelo currently hold the franchise for the Astor Place newsstand.

A private funeral was held for friends and family. Burial was at Rose Hill Cemetery in New Jersey.

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Danny Paley, the son of short-story writer Grace Paley, died Jan. 1. He was 71. The cause of death was reportedly emphysema.

Danny Paley was born May 11, 1951, to Grace Paley and Jess Paley, a motion-picture cameraman. He grew up in an apartment building on W. 11th Street just west of P.S. 41. Danny attended the school, where his mother was very engaged in the P.T.A. before later getting involved in the antiwar movement, according to Robert Reiss, a Greenwich Village peace activist who knew Grace Paley.

Danny Paley. Facebook

“That apartment on the second floor was a setting for a lot of her story-making,” Reiss said of Grace Paley. “Danny attended as a kid many protests and pickets by the Paley family and friend urban prophet Jane Jacobs. Danny clearly is merged into his mother’s fictional characters, especially in her first two collections of stories.”

Grace Paley’s second husband, poet and landscape architect Robert Nichols, led a redesign of Washington Square Park, later superseded by the current redesign by George Vellonakis.

Reiss met Danny just once, when the latter was in his early 20s.

“He was strapping and clear-eyed,” he said. “Grace introduced us at the Greenwich Village Peace Center, formed by the Quakers, housed in the Washington Square Methodist Church, at W. Fourth Street, now a facade of the church in front of luxury apartments.”

Though not stated in a brief New York Times obituary, Reiss said he believed Danny Paley, who lived in Brooklyn, at one point, was a teacher, possibly in the New York City school system. The Times obituary refers to Danny as “a lifelong student of history and science.”

Danny Paley is survived by his wife, Debbie, a daughter, Laura, grandson, Niko, his sister, Nora Paley, a niece and a nephew.

Danny Paley, the son of famed writer Grace

For oversight

Hindsight is 20/20, they say. What we always need more of, though, especially recently, from our city and state’s leadership, is foresight and oversight.

There’s no shortage of issues where this is the case: roadway restaurant sheds; Open Streets; the installation of 5G megatowers; the implementation of the 14th Street busway; the explosion (sometimes literally) of e-bikes and mopeds; ensuring that illegal building construction and renovation aren’t compromising safety; the rollout of adult-use cannabis sales.

Basically, in many of these cases, our city and/or state government pushed through initiatives seemingly without considering — or properly weighing — all the ramifications of their actions. Often, local residents and stakeholders were extremely vocal in warning about potential problems, as they anticipated them, or were already experiencing them.

Just take, for example, a story we cover in this current issue of The Village Sun, the fact that the Federal Communications Commission has now ordered the city to do a Section 106 review of the 2,000 three-story-tall 5G towers being installed around the city, even in communities that are protesting they don’t want them. Preservationists cried these jumbo structures were not appropriate in historic districts.

Meanwhile, a citywide coalition, NYC Access for All, has filed a federal lawsuit to stop what they say are Americans With Disabilities Act violations in the three-year-old Open Streets program. The group charges that Open Streets (which they counter are, in fact, “closed streets”) is a pandemic-era program that was legislated to be permanent but is negatively affecting the civil rights of seniors and people with disabilities — hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are thus effectively “discriminated against.” Forty-one percent of the city’s residents are over age 65 and 11 percent of residents have a disability, they note.

Yes, true, there were community board reviews of individual Open Streets. But, just like Open Restaurants, this is a sweeping program, with major impacts, some good, some perhaps not so good, and they all should have been considered — beforehand.

And then there is the sometimes chaotic rollout of new legal pot dispensaries. The first few (all in the Village area) have gone well: Housing Works Cannabis Company, Smacked, Union Square Travel Agency. But a plan for another, Gotham, slated to open across from the Third Street Men’s Shelter in the East Village, is causing an outcry. Beyond that the main partner is the wife of a major local venture capitalist, the site is problematic because of its potential harm on men in recovery from substance abuse right across the street. Officials from Project Renewal, which runs the shelter, have testified that some of the men have been released on parole “with stipulations that they may not use cannabis and can be returned to prison if found in violation.”

“It’s just totally a non-procedure,” Stetzer said.

These are just a few examples. Basically, pushing initiatives through without, or despite, community input grew under Mayor de Blasio. (Think Soho/Noho rezoning). Some of that top-down governing continues under Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul. We get it: Running a big city and state isn’t easy; sometimes, you have to get the ball rolling first, and correct later. But the pendulum swung pretty far under de Blasio. It’s high time now to re-prioritize the community.

Still COVID cautious

To The Editor:

Re “Three years later: From behind the mask to…beyond the mask” (news article, April):

I recently got a text from my sister. She and her husband, both in their 70s, had COVID. They either got it on the plane (where a man, coughing constantly and dazed, sat near them) or at an overcrowded Vermeer exposition where very few wore masks. I just read that the death rate from the disease is the same as last year, at least in the U.S. So, while I have been stepping out and walking outside without a mask, I intend to continue wearing one inside public places for a while yet.

And, yes, cyclists. The city has its priorities wrong. Shouldn’t the order of focus be pedestrians, surface public transport, bikes, motorized vehicles?

The best way to deal with this is creating infrastructure that protects us all from our own stupidity and bad behavior: daylighting to 30 feet in, for example, widened sidewalks, fewer cars, designated spaces for loading and more bike lanes protected by bollards, not cars (to avoid dooring).

We also need to promote a greater sense of responsibility…something that seems lacking in most New York City bicyclists. I understand it’s also lacking in some pedestrians who, eyes to their phones, step into bike lanes and cause accidents. There will always be intersections and conflict as we all try to get around in this vast metropolis we all share.

Lora Tenenbaum

Ditch the sheds!

To The Editor:

Re “Shed foes urge ‘equitable plan’ in their ‘Outdoor Dining Blueprint’” (news article, April):

Why in the world would we entrust restaurant owner investment groups and paid lobbyists with control over our public space, public access and city agencies as being more important than the rights and consent of people and communities where they live? Unbelievable. The pandemic is over. There are way more important problems in this world than hospitality industry profits. One of them is climate change and the other is social democracy! Get over it! Get rid of the sheds already and start again!

Leif Arntzen

Sustainable news

To The Editor:

Re “Local news matters” (Editorial, April):

Passage of the New York Local Journalism Sustainability Act by the state Legislature is important to assure survival of local journalism. Most communities are down to one local daily or weekly newspaper. Newspapers have to deal with increasing costs for newsprint, delivery and distribution, along with reduced advertising revenues and competition from the Internet and other news information sources.

Daily newspapers concentrate on international, Washington, Albany, business and sports stories. They have few reporters covering local neighborhood news.

Weekly and even monthly newspapers fill the void for coverage of local

In the key of spring…

Winter is not easy on outdoor grand pianos, or pianists, either. But the warm weather is here — well, off and on at least — and Colin Huggins’s instrument is looking in pretty good shape next to Washington Square Park. There’s a new box on top for storage and even a flowerpot that recently had some tulips.

community news.

Albany needs to join us in supporting community newspapers. Readers patronize advertisers; they provide the revenues to help keep these merchants in business. Let us hope there continues to be room for everyone, including The Village Sun… .

Larry Penner

Talking ‘Frankly’

To The Editor:

Re “‘Frankensteining’ is a horror, tenants and pols cry” (news article, April):

Rent control is not harmful. Making money off people’s need to have a home, and jacking up the rents, is deeply cruel and unjust. Rent control protects people from having to choose between having a place to live and being able to buy decent food. I seriously doubt that people are holding apartments they don’t need.

Housing should not be a free-for-all for landlords to charge whatever they can get away with charging. They’ll find millionaires to rent to while everybody else is out on the street. Greedy landlords are the ones who are Frankensteining and warehousing. This way they hope to make as much money as possible. They also see people who are not rich as lowlifes who aren’t worth bothering with.

Carol Yost

The Village Sun welcomes readers’ letters of up to 250 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, clarity, grammar and factual accuracy. Anonymous letters will not be run in the print edition. Send letters to news@thevillagesun.com.

Photo by The Village Sun

Jean Montrevil finally beats deportation case

NOTEBOOK

BY REV. DONNA SCHAPER

Tuesday afternoon, April 18, a little after 4 p.m., in an immigration courtroom at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, Jean Montrevil’s request for 201(c) relief from deportation, a years-long effort to finally end his long ordeal, was granted by an immigration judge, who became very emotional as he granted Jean’s request for a “waiver.” Jean burst into tears, as did the entire courtroom.

The judge cited Jean’s pardon from former Governor Northam — which some members of the Virginia United Church of Christ were instrumental in helping come about — as well as Jean’s support from his community, and his exemplary record over the past 30 years. In other words, Jean, who is now 54, became a man no longer under threat of deportation, something that began more than three decades ago with his arrest at age 21 during the War on Drugs.

Eighty people, mostly from Greenwich Village’s Judson Memorial Church, Families for Freedom and the New Sanctuary Coalition — the latter of which Jean is a founder — were present in the courtroom, taking turns to watch the four-hour procedure. Thirty were allowed in at any given time.

Jahsiah Montrevil, Jean’s 22-year-old son, gave powerful testimony that brought tears to the judge’s eyes. Jahsiah teaches Sunday school at Judson Memorial Church

and formed the Black Student Union at his community college.

After the decision, a grateful Jean told reporter Paul DeRienzo of the Torch Internet radio, “Oh, my God! It’s about time!”

All of us in this struggle have been part of a remarkable, one-of-a-kind story that needs to be repeated thousands of times over. So raise a glass to Jean, and to yourselves. And to his remarkable lawyers.

I never thought this day would come. I visited him in jail in York, Pennsylvania, when they tried to deport him in 2010; received him at Judson when he was released from York (after a massive campaign, including the efforts of two New York City congresspeople); visited him in Miami — before they actually did deport him to Haiti — and then visited him in Haiti after he was deported under then-President Trump. (Back in Haiti, Jean named his restaurant Donna’s, after me — but the earthquake ended it. ) I called him every week. I learned WhatsApp. We are now sponsoring his girlfriend, Bella, for temporary status in the U.S. as part of the Biden program for Haitian refugees.

It’s an amazing story — and I feel privileged to be a part of it, and to be Jean’s friend.

Thanks to all of you who have been a part of it!

Schaper is the former senior minister, Judson Memorial Church. She currently teaches leadership at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace (formerly Hartford Seminary).

Saint’s alive! Rev. Billy consecrates McCourt

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

Malachy McCourt, the Irish-American actor, writer and former Green Party candidate for governor, was sainted at the East Village’s Earth Church on April 16. In return, he offered words of wisdom, poetry and song.

Before McCourt scooted up to the front of the room in his electric wheelchair, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir did a rousing rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching in.” The singers were feeling it with evangelical-like fervor, some gyrating wildly, others falling to their knees as they belted it out. A smile beaming on his face, McCourt loved it.

Billy praised McCourt for having “escaped from the hospice,” noting that feat should have immediately conferred sainthood.

McCourt, whose late brother Frank penned the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Angela’s Ashes,” was in classic form, poking fun at mortality and irreverently at his own religious upbringing.

First, though, he started out by reciting “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” by the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats.

“I’m 91, but that’s not my fault,” he quipped, afterward. “When you were singing ‘When the Saints Go Marching

in,’ I wanted to amend that to ‘When the Saints Go Rolling in,’” he said to laughter, referring to his wheelchair.

“But I’m enjoying my life,” he continued. “I’ll tell you about life — it’s one day at a time.

“Of course,” he said, lightheartedly, “any day aboveground is a good one. I come from a long line of dead people — and I don’t know how soon I’ll be joining them.”

McCourt noted that he was born in Brooklyn, then was taken back to Ireland at age 4 “and grew up there in savage Catholicism.”

“Organized religion has all the elements of organized crime — except the compassion,” he joked.

He reprised Yeats’s”Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.” Then he led everyone in a rendition of his signature song, stirring as always, the Scotch/Irish folk traditional “Wild Mountain Thyme” (“Will Ye Go Lassie Go?”).

“And we’ll all go-o-o-oh together, to pull wild mountain thyme all around the bloomin’ heather / Will ye go-o-o-oh lassie go?”

“Sing it, children,” he exhorted the choir and Avenue C audience before each refrain.

He then offered a final parting bit of wisdom, which was greeted by warm laughter: “Live every day as if it’s going to be your last because one day — you’ll be right.”

Jean Montrevil got a hug from Jane Treuhold after the deportation case against him was dropped.

Photo by Sharon Woolums

Reverend Billy brought Malachy McCourt to center stage at the Earth Church. Photo by Sharon Woolums

Comings & Goings: Market 57, Italian Renaissance, Goddess Buns and a Moustache move & lots more

BY CAROLINE BENVENISTE

Mimi Sheraton passed away in April. She was a longtime Village resident and is best known for her tenure as the restaurant critic for The New York Times. As many of her obituaries mentioned, she was highly opinionated. I had personal experience with this as she wrote to me a number of times to point out errors in my In & Out column in WestView News. Once I had included a meatball recipe but left out the meat, and another time she took issue with my grammar. I ran into her once at Agata and Valentina, apologized for my shortcomings, and was gratified to hear that she enjoyed the In & Out and read it monthly to see what new restaurants had opened in the neighborhood. She was a unique individual and she will be missed. This month it seemed that every other opening was an Italian restaurant. With Mother’s Day and graduations coming in May, several spots have added a brunch or breakfast option.

Top Openings:

Market 57 at Pier 57 — 25 11th Ave., at 15th Street

This new food hall is run by a partnership of organizations, including the Hudson River

Trust and the James Beard Foundation (JBF). JBF is in charge of selecting the vendors, and the current lineup features more than a dozen options spanning the globe. Of particular note are the masala dosas at Ammi, an offshoot of the popular GupShup, beers from Harlem Hops and cookies and ice cream sandwiches from The Good Batch, a popular Brooklyn bakery. JBF has their own stand with offerings from their Fellows. In addition to the market,

Pier 57 has a spectacular (and currently uncrowded) rooftop with views of the river, the Meatpacking District, Little Island and points north.

Alf Bakery – Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Ave., between 15th and 16th Streets

Laminated dough (think croissant) is having a moment, and Amadou Ly, formerly of Arcade Bakery, may be leading the charge. The new bakery has a laminated baguette, laminated brioche and a chocolate babka. Cherry chocolate bre ad, a favorite at Arcade Bakery, is back, but the pizza is not. A few sandwiches are available, including a very French ham and cheese on a baguette, and Tunisian tuna, served open-faced on sourdough. To the right of the display is a window with views of the bakers at work. This is the most exciting bakery opening in the area in recent memory.

Carlotto — 100 E. 19th St., east of Park Avenue South

While there are myriad Italian restaurants in the city, this one is worth some attention because of the quality of the food and the attractive space. Some of the standout starters are baby artichokes with walnut bagna cauda (“hot dip”) and crispy potatoes “millefoglie” with Parmesan and truffle. The veal Parmesan features an impressive bone-in veal chop, and the spring risotto is served from a hollowed-out Parmesan wheel. The chocolate mousse with hazelnut croccante is a perfect ending to the meal. Exposed brick and Roman-looking columns add to the atmosphere, while in the back a chef’s table looks onto a pristine glassed-in kitchen.

Also Open:

Food:

Seemingly overnight, Shingane (480 Sixth Ave., between W. 11th and W. 12th Streets), a Korean street food spot serving “Goddess Buns,” materialized. The Goddess Buns are bungeoppang, which is the Korean name for Japanese taiyaki, a fish-shaped waffle pastry. Here they are round, with the head

of Lady Liberty on one side, and her torch on the other. They come with two fillings, either cheese or chocolate and nuts. A row of waffle irons lines the store, and the smell of eggs and butter travels out onto Sixth Avenue, beckoning passersby inside. Two long-awaited restaurants, Carriage House (142 W. 10th St., between Waverly Place and Greenwich Avenue) and Justine’s on Hudson (518 Hudson St., at W. 10th Street), have opened. Robert Sietsema reviewed the former for Eater and called the food “kooky.” Bedford Studios (62 Bedford St., at Morton Street), a new coffee shop and co-working space, has replaced Lian Laudromat. The concept is geared toward coffee lovers, who are exhorted to “caffeinate, create and congregate.” Monthly and annual memberships are available. Daisie’s Better Burgers (516 Hudson St., at West 10th Street) was replaced by Smashed, a smash-burger purveyor highly praised by Eater and The Infatuation. Italian restaurant Bandone (195 Spring St., at Sullivan Street) has opened where Bombay Bread Bar used to be.

Retail: Mottive (33 Greenwich Ave.) is a jewelry store with new, antique and repurposed pieces. In addition, you can bring in your old jewelry and work with a designer to transform it into something more appealing. Jones Road Beauty has opened at 37 Greenwich Ave. Gucci has opened a store in the Meatpacking District at 400 W. 14th St., at Ninth Avenue. Saved, at 654 Hudson St., between Gansevoort and W. 13th Streets, a store that carries cashmere home goods, arts and antiques, has opened and brought in French Presse, a bedding and bath company to share the space. The products are lovely but the prices are stratospheric.

Closed:

ovenly (523 Hudson St., between W. 10th and Charles Streets), a Brooklyn bakery that opened in early 2022 has abandoned its Manhattan experiment. Gold Star Coffee

L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele offers a breakfast croissant with prosciutto, fontina and arugula. Photo by Caroline Benveniste

At Carlotto, the cheesy spring risotto is served from a Parmesan wheel. Photo by Caroline Benveniste

Restaurant (200 W. 14th St., near Seventh Avenue), which served their own brand of coffee and Argentinian food, quietly shuttered. The end really seems to have come for horror-themed eatery Jekyll and Hyde (91 Seventh Ave. South, between Grove and Barrow Streets), which had already filed for bankruptcy. Now, a sign on the door indicates that their liquor license was suspended.

Coming Soon:

Signage is up in Hudson Square, at the corner of Hudson and King Streets, announcing the imminent arrival of Port Saïd, a restaurant from Eyal Shani, the Israeli chef who also has Miznon, Miznon North, Shmoné and HaSalon. I have been to Port Saïd in Tel Aviv, and it is a lively place with a perennial line, and a menu of mostly small, inventive dishes. In terms of atmosphere, it falls somewhere between the casual Miznon and the fancier Shmoné. Ambra Cucina Italiana is coming to 569 Hudson St. (at W. 11th Street), a space previously (and briefly) Summer Wind Café and before that Philip Marie. I spoke with Chef Eric, who said he used to run ’ino in the East Village and that the new spot will have a wine bar vibe. A loyal reader has alerted us to new plans for 117 Seventh Ave. South (between Christopher and W. 10th Streets): In February 2022, we reported that FYS Gourmet Inc. (Feed Your Soul), an upscale supermarket, was opening in the old Gourmet Garage space. Now, instead the Realmuto Hospitality group, which runs Filaga and L’Arte de Gelato, is planning to

open an Italian restaurant called Realmuto. Signage indicates that the space will have a gelateria and pasticceria, in addition to the ristorante. māizon mediterranïa is coming to the Gansevoort Hotel (18 Ninth Ave., between W. 13th and Gansevoort Streets). The large, partly outdoor space will provide “a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant experience.” 2nd STREET USA, a secondhand store with many locations around the city, is opening its

Scooby Scoop

BATS HOW THEY LIKE IT: Allie Ryan, running for City Council District 2, and Francesco Gonzalez and Bridget Tuck, East Village candidates for district leader, held a lively fundraiser at Joey Bats bar on Avenue B on Sat., April 22. Among those throwing their support behind them were Mike Cole of Mikey Likes It ice cream shops, who we hear is reopening in the East Village; Coss Marte, head of CONBODY and CONBUD and brother of Councilmember Christopher Marte; Felicia Young of Earth Celebrations and the Ecological City procession (mark it down: Sat., May 13); Robert Galinsky of Book Club Bar on E. Third Street; drag icon Appolonia Cruz a.k.a. “The Queen of the Bronx” and Reverend Carmen Hernandez. The Tompkins Trio played a wide range of Latin and pop classics and DJ Alexis Ortiz of La Mega 97.9 FM spun the tunes. The Democratic primary election is Tues., June 27.

RIVIERA TO LITTLE RUBY’S: The former Cafe Riviera on Seventh Avenue South at W. Fourth Street will be reopening as a Little Ruby’s Cafe. Apparently, it’s been in the works for a few years now. This is Ruby’s, “the Australian concept restaurant” with home-style cooking, not Ruby’s, the bankrupt California hamburger chain. But they do serve a top-ranked burger, the Bronte. It will be good to have something there since “The Riv,” a pioneering and popular “sports bar,” owned by the late Norman Buchbinder, after a decades-long run, closed in 2017. The property has sat empty — and with a tilted corner doorway, to boot — since then.

EGG CREAMS TO COFFEE? The former Gem Spa space at the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Second Avenue is also still vacant, but the word from locals is that it might become a coffee shop in the near future. That’s what we heard from a merchant selling hats and sunglasses around

latest storefront at 110 University Place (between 12th and 13th Streets). Osteria Nonnino - Cucina Italiana has signage up at 637 Hudson St. (at Horatio Street) where High Street on Hudson and then Sandbar on Hudson used to be.

Moved/Other:

One Fifth, Marc Forgione’s delightful Italian restaurant, is now open for weekend

brunch. The large menu has pasta and pinsa (Roman-style pizza), as well as some upgraded brunch standards, like Morty Egg and Cheese (a BEC with mortadella), scrambled eggs cacio e pepe (“cheese and pepper”), and lemon ricotta pancakes. L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele is open for breakfast. The pastries are all baked in-house, and the croissants are used for breakfast sandwiches, including one with prosciutto, fontina and arugula. Also of note are the cacio e pepe scones, and the rainbow cookies, which, unlike most, are moist and taste strongly of almonds, jam and chocolate. The Wesley (310 W. Fourth St.) has also jumped on the brunch bandwagon, and their plant-forward and local emphasis extends to their daytime offerings. Le Pain Quotidien (10 Fifth Ave., at W. Eighth Street), along with a couple of its neighbors, is closed because, “The Department of Buildings has determined [after foundation drilling for a nearby construction project caused cracks in the building in February] that conditions in this premises (sic) are imminently perilous to life.” Moustache has moved from Bedford Street to 29 Seventh Ave. South (between Leroy and Morton Streets) and added “Mediterranean Fusion” to its name, although the menu remains the same. Moustache did not want to leave its previous spot, but Little Owl, currently at Bedford and Grove, has plans to expand into that space.

Please let us know what you see. Write to us vsuncandg@gmail.com. We love hearing

A NEW CHAPTER: After 19 years in Nolita (as some call it), McNally Jackson Books has moved six blocks west to 134 Prince Street, between Wooster Street and West Broadway, into the heart of Soho, with all its foot traffic. We don’t know about the rent differential, but when we stopped by the other weekend, the number of customers inside the new place was booming compared to what we used to see at the former spot. Also, as some staffers mentioned to us before the move, the new place’s entryway is much better than the previous cramped one.

GRAVE CONCERN: The Second Cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel, on W. 11th Street east of Sixth Avenue, underwent a major renovation over the past year, including the rebuilding of its street wall. Work wrapped up just a few months ago. Founded in 1654 by Spanish and Portuguese Jews from Dutch Brazil, Shearith Israel is America’s oldest Jewish congregation. Its first burial ground is in the Lower East Side’s Two Bridges and a third is on W. 29th Street in Chelsea. Speaking last summer, shortly after the work began, Zachary Edinger , the congregation’s sexton and assistant cantor, told us, “The planning and design of this project have been going on for years. It’s very exciting and gratifying [to start] for those of us who have been working on this project for some time.”

UMM, THANKS, CRONUTS: A segment on NPR radio noted that it’s the 10th anniversary of Soho chef Dominique Ansel’s invention of the inscrutable cronut. This, in turn, the reporter said, led to the craze of foodies Instagramming anything and everything they ingest. What hath Dominique wrought? Yes, cronuts, we know, but… .

the corner on St. Mark’s and also from a staffer at Printed Matter St. Mark’s across the street. Meanwhile, on another corner of the intersection, the former Dallas BBQ is being renovated into a new bar.

Faqir works at Alf Bakery, new at Chelsea Market. Photo by Caroline Benveniste

Allie Ryan with Mike Cole of Mikey Likes It ice cream at the fundraiser. Photo by @chrisryanaction

If you’re looking for half-baked conspiracy theories, don’t read The Village Sun…

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But if you’re looking for real, local community news, arts, columns and more that you’ll nd nowhere else, then….

Native American art, future shock at Whitney

BY HANNAH REIMANN

V isitors to The Whitney Museum are in for some more groundbreaking shows this spring and summer — treats for the eyes and psyche. There are large exhibits on the third, fifth and eighth floors of two outstanding living artists, Jaune Quick-toSee Smith and Josh Kline.

Jaune Quick-to-See’s “Memory Map” encompasses the visual storytelling of the artist’s life as a Native American, bearing her heart and soul, with a critical nod at American settlers and destruction by the U.S. government, contemplation of the American flag, and honoring totemic animals, like rabbits and coyotes, among many other things.

This exhibit is the first New York retrospective of her work. The intelligent references to and influences by Picasso, Twombly, Rauschenberg, Warhol and Basquiat lend a feeling that the paintings and installations are at home in these galleries, lovingly hung by true believers in her art and, at once, something entirely new. I will return, again, to see her story a second and third time.

Josh Kline’s bold, and at times devastating “Project for a New American Century” hauntingly recaps the pandemic years in New York and other American cities and towns. This is the first U.S. museum survey of this recognized artist, who was born in 1979 in Philadelphia and now lives and works in New York City. The show’s overall 10-year span gives a clear sense of Kline’s passion, and his wishes to educate and inspire.

The installations fill room after room with visions of outrage, with each room a different color or mood, sometimes with furniture set out so viewers can better watch provocative video interviews on large TV screens. Sometimes the furniture, chopped and displaced, is the exhibit. There are 3D-printed pieces of limbs, heads, masks, medication, hospital workers, the din of protest and the silence of isola-

tion. Curiosity builds from room to room. Sometimes a visitor is met with a comfortable place to rest, only to be confronted with another thought-generating ensemble of pieces or an apocalyptic film referencing global warming.

I don’t want to give away too many surprises. Part of the wonder of these expansive and expertly curated shows by both artists is the gradual unfolding and progression as the viewer walks through the rooms. Sometimes the experience is shocking. Sometimes it causes a smile or a sudden laugh.

The impeccable technique, humor and intelligence are all there with Kline. The dedication to her cause, passion and creativity never wane in Quick-to-See’s artistry. Both have a steady gaze and focus on identifying perpetrators of destruction and loss while simultaneously creating their unique and tactile visual worlds within worlds that leave us feeling refreshed, eager and waiting to see and learn what’s next for them and for us.

“Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map” and “Josh Kline: Project For A New American Century,” from April 19 to Aug. 23, at The Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St. For more information, call 212-570-6300 or visit whitney.org.

“In Stock (Walmart Worker’s Arms),” by Josh Kline.

“Trade Canoe for Don Quixote,” by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.

“Adaptation,” by Josh Kline.

Artistic appropriation: Is it appropriate?

BY STEPHEN DiLAURO

Walking in Chelsea a couple of weeks ago, the public art above the Empire Diner caught my eye, once again. But this time something was different. It wasn’t that the images changed. A new, critical consideration arose in my mind. Often, my questions about that mural are “Why the unibrow?” and “What does Frida Kahlo have to do with Warhol, Basquiat and Haring?”

My answer, sadly, is always the same: The current axis of art and media have not elevated any contemporary woman painter, deceased or alive, to the level of cultural recognition accorded those three Downtown icons. Other than being painters, what do the three men, who knew each other, have in common with Kahlo, who was from a different country and era entirely? (I invite enlightening comments, particularly from women artists, please.)

This time, though, my immediate thought was: “Wait a minute. Is that the same head of Warhol that’s in the photo print I have hanging on my wall?” I pulled out my phone and called Andy Unangst, who is a friend of more than 40 years, and asked him: “Have you ever seen the mural above the Empire Diner in Chelsea? It’s . . .”

He cut me off with a laugh: “Yes. That’s from my portrait of Andy. Good eye.”

I recently acquired two photo portraits of Warhol from Unangst. These same portraits, in larger format, have been sold by Gagosian Gallery in the past.

The mural appropriation, it turns out, was the least of it. Another photographer once photographed the same portrait of Warhol, as it appeared in Playboy magazine, but with a bullet hole in it.

That photo of a photo, without any attribution for the original (by Andy Unangst), was once named photo of the year by the Whitney Museum. This led to brisk high-dollar sales of a limited-edition print at a gallery near the museum. That’s how culturally embedded gun violence has become in our country. I have to wonder what the Whitney curatorial hierarchy was thinking, given that Warhol was himself a gunshot victim. The gallery and the photographer cashing in, I can understand.

Unlike gun violence, artistic appropriation is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue are photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s portraits of the rock icon Prince, which appeared in Rolling Stone. Those photos were cropped and painted over by — who else? — Andy Warhol. That’s a lot of glam and we’re not lawyers.

“I’m totally on the side of the Warhol Foundation,” says Unangst, who has taken more than his fair share of celebrity photo portraits. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, his studio on Park Avenue South was a cool

nexus for literary and film types. People I met there included Ira Levin, Stephen King, Oliver Stone, Peter Beard and others. It was a scene.

As to the question of appropriation, Unangst told me this: “There’s a painter in Japan who did paintings of all my photos in the book. I love looking at them. I’m honored.” The book he was referring to is “Produce,” a lavish coffee table book that spent two years on The New York Times’ best seller list. The text is by chef and caterer Bruce Beck and Unangst shot all the photos. It is a foodie’s delight.

Currently, Unangst lives in New Jersey and does a lot of painting, which he describes as “semi-representational abstracts.” He’s also done a portrait sequence of Warhol in the manner, of course, of Warhol silkscreens. He still maintains a photographic studio, shared with another well-known photographer, in the Flatiron District. His work is available through private dealers and comes up at auction occasionally.

DiLauro, a playwright, is a roving culture correspondent for The Village Sun. His play “Dinner with the Devil” is now in pre-production for a commercial run.

The writer has often pondered over the mural above the Empire Diner. Photo by The Village Sun

The original photo portrait of Andy Warhol. Photo by Andrew Unangst

Andrew Unangst.

‘Total art’ hits Washington Square Park

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

Shakespeare in the Park it wasn’t… .

A group called Guerrilla Theater was in Washington Square on the afternoon Sat., April 8, performing in Garibaldi Plaza.

There was raw emotion, smoke, masks, nudity, fishnet stockings and general disarray, with stuff scattered all over the place. Some of the players were transgender.

Photographer Milo Hess did not catch the performance’s plot, but he did get a lot of great photos.

A social media post for the event — which is the same as what’s posted on the group’s Web site, guerrilla365.com — had a brief message, actually more of a manifesto: “Like any birth, we arrive in a gruesome but hopeful state. A roiling alchemy of total art combining both new media and ancient modes of expression. The public square is our natural home, without which the tension between creator and unsuspecting pedestrian is lost — hence the term ‘guerrilla.’ True victory is won in the agora, not the white cube.”

Photos by Milo Hess

Sax player ‘Lucky Buddha’ blazes his own path

BY NOAH AUGUSTIN

You’dthink a lanky, dread-headed Black man playing the sax on the New York subway is either a homeless drifter or other street dweller. Stanford “Phước Phát” Reid is the exception. He says he does his train performances “because a bear, for example, needs to go to water to catch his salmon. So it’s just me going to the river.”

On the subway, Reid, 34, promotes his albums and tracks out on Spotify of jazz saxophone over hip-hop beats, rhymes and vocals, alongside his current concert series at Nublu jazz club, at 151 Avenue C, with a violinist and two singers.

Reid, way before they called him Phước Phát, spent his early years in Baltimore. Music was introduced to him by his grandmother, a gospel-singing pastor. At 5 years old he was playing the piano and the drums. By middle school he had moved to Atlanta, where even without the guidance of his grandmother, he taught himself to play the saxophone, through which he eventually got into jazz.

By 2012 Reid had moved to Jersey City, then New York and was hustling his way into the jazz world, hosting and playing gigs. At some point he got into hip-hop and

put the two genres together. His idols in this style that’s being called trap-house-jazz, are French musician FKJ and Jamaican-American Masego, both saxophonists.

“I’d go up to play gigs in places like the Bronx, and I didn’t think they would like it,” Reid says. “I didn’t think my stuff would be hip-hop enough for them. Everybody vibed to my music, though.”

After playing a gig once, a friend invited him to perform at a festival in Vietnam. Reid was up for it. One thing led to another and he was living in Hanoi, where he learned how to produce and make his own tracks.

There he was given the name Phước, meaning “lucky,” and Phát, or “Buddha,” was stuck to the end. He was now Stanford “Lucky Buddha” Reid. The people there loved his stuff even more. According to him, Vietnam is the best place for people who make “weird music and strange art” — you’re bound to find an audience.

After a year and a half, he felt that his music was good enough for him to head back to New York and see what he could do. At first he tried holding down a job, but after a month of delivering Amazon packages, he decided it was time to fully commit and plunge back in. That’s how he started playing on the subways.

He went from hosting block parties and playing in hotels, to by 2016 releasing his first album, “State of the Arts,” followed by a second in 2019 and two more in 2021.

“I was jamming at Nublu one night and wanted to know who booked the place,” he recalls. “So, I asked the doorman and he said it was the owner. That was a surprise. So, I asked who’s the owner? He said Ilhan Ersahin, I got his contact and was booked for a night’s performance.”

Reid’s first night was so-so at Nublu, a 20-year-old East Village club with an inhouse record label. But the venue’s founder Ersahin liked him and gave him a second chance. Stanford thinks it might have been because they’re both sax players.

“The second night, we filled the club to capacity.” Reid says.

And that’s how he got his concert series going, with one performance each month since 2022.

He has big plans for the future, though. He’s moving back to Vietnam with his family because he wants his 13-year-old daughter and unborn son to be raised around nature. Once there, he plans to perform and produce all around the country and the region, including Indonesia, Thailand, Australia and more.

For now, despite having a steady gig, he continues to play on the subway, feeling it’s served him well. On one of the more than 200 days he’s spent working underground, he got on a No. 7 train playing the sax, with his friend handing out his fliers. I got up from my seat to shake Reid’s hand and tell him he was about to be in the newspaper.

A flier promoting a show by Stanford Reid a.k.a. Phuoc Phat earlier this year.

Stanford Reid still busks on the subway, even though he has a steady gig at an East Village music club.

What do you believe in? The Earth is THE issue

BY BILL TALEN

I’m in the belief business, working with artists who look for new ways to defend the Earth. We battle fossil emissions of oil companies and their banks, mostly. And I have to say, passionate belief in America is a dangerous place to be. The U.S.A. has always been the land of wacky religions, but this is getting ridiculous. This morning I’m reading about Kid Rock bulldozing over Bud Light cans because Budweiser featured a trans person in an advertisement.

Types of belief. First, there is a vast and vague kind of believing, made of consumer clicks and polls and trends. This biggest measure of what people think is pushed around by the trillion-dollar marketing of corporations, governments, religions and militaries. This

country has more external change-your-mindand-buy-this aggression going on than anywhere else, by far. China’s advertising budget is about one-third ours, and Britain’s is only 15 percent our size. This is the single, most powerful cause in making us a conservative, read “fearful,” society.

Can we “believe our way out” of such a brain bath? A recent study puts the number of advertising events for a person who owns a computer and lives in New York City (description fits me, alas) at 10,000 per day. Can a thoughtful individual come to her own conclusions without intimidation? Well, what has happened is our belief has become a state of anxiety. It comes from both the political Right and the Left, but it also impacts the language of those in the vanishing center. We are all

Li’l pardnuhs saddle up for Earth Day on Ave. B

On Earth Day kids from the Lower East Side and Alphabet City were treated to free pony rides on Avenue B., courtesy of the community gardeners from LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens).

by the Trumpian brand of belief, where victimization is used like rocket fuel.

Some time ago we were relieved when the polls showed that 70 percent of Americans believed that climate change was caused by humans. At the same time we held our breath as a small number of proto-Trump climate science deniers were able to hold us all hostage. The fate of the Earth was angrily dismissed in one breath with interchangeable grievances against the coastal elites, the companies moving offshore, Hillary Clinton, guns and abortion, the vaccine… .

We are trapped. We are surrounded by issues. Everyone everywhere is issues-based more than ever, and we really need to be, to defend ourselves against aggressing by other issues-based people, some of whom carry guns. We run back to our issue, to the protection of our own issue, a well-fortified bunker. We don’t dare spend time conversing calmly in public space with people we disagree with. But without such considerations of opposing views, issues-based people sacrifice complexity, doubt, humor and forgiveness. Treating our own grievance as an “issue” — with privately customized language and meaning — is an unnoticed habit across progressive culture. The environmental movement is no exception.

It’s been clear for years that the Earth’s

crisis, the thing that very soon will end much of our world, cannot be just another issue. I can’t remember who said it, but — “When we are all inhaling our last breath, then there is only one issue, and that is the issue of life itself.”

In London over the Earth Day weekend, Extinction Rebellion hosted 60,000 earth lovers. They gathered on Friday the 21st and stayed through Monday, around Westminster. More than 200 groups showed up with their signs and costumes and drums and horns. As I walked around the famous buildings, with Big Ben rising above, I found the many points of view had made a constellation of rallies and concerts and workshops and speakers… . I found more and more people, from Greenpeace to your local recycling advocates.

So there was a single issue, the Earth, and there was an absence of adverts. The politicians who inhabit these buildings were challenged to cut fossil fuel use drastically, but meanwhile XR managed to invite everyone to come with their own issue, and blend their issue with all the others, to build up the single issue — life itself.

When it came my turn to speak, I couldn’t stop shouting, “The Earth is Alive! The Earth is Alive!”

Talen performs and preaches as Reverend Billy at the Earth Church, at 36 Loisaida Ave. (Avenue C), at E. Third St.

Photo by @chrisryanaction

The writer on the main stage at “The Big One,” Extinction Rebellion of London’s gathering of 60,000 earth activists at Westminster. Courtesy Reverend Billy

impacted

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WTF: Teens learn boxing for free in Noho

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BY NOAH AUGUSTIN

Coach Donovan Jarvis loves it when the kids respond: “YES, COACH!”

“I need you punching so clean that the doorman downstairs feels it,” he exhorts a young group.

“Downstairs” is Noho.

The almost 30 teenagers are learning to box at WTF, which stands for Work Train Fight — not what the f—. The boxing gym’s six-year-old youth program, Youth Boxing for Change (YB4C) is free of charge to anyone age 13 to 19.

Into the building at Bleecker Street and Broadway, up to the second floor, you’ll be greeted by staff at the front desk and some one-liners printed on the wall:

“Your left hand is the one on the left.”

“WTF trainers are divas so shut up when they speak.”

“Phone and ego not allowed in the studio.”

Personal boxing sessions and general workouts are taking place in and around the full-size ring at all times. On Thursday afternoons, Jarvis trains the kids on the basics

of boxing: the proper stance, jab, cross, hook, uppercut, etc.

On the one hand, Jarvis is no nonsense, and doesn’t treat the young pugilists with kid gloves.

“I know this is a youth class but I’m gonna speak to you like adults. If you have a problem with that, there’s the door,” he says, bluntly.

But he also mixes in fun, doing his thing during training, cracking jokes, dancing, singing and talking about the ’90s.

He likes to remind the kids that if anyone gets knocked out: “They can’t fire me ’cause I don’t get paid. I’m here because I wanna be.”

Donovan has been the coach for YB4C for the past five years.

The program’s president, Justine Gonzalez, visits training sometimes to say hi. She says this year’s group is one of the smaller ones they’ve had so far. Sometimes in the past there were so many kids that they had to run four sessions a week.

When asked, only a couple of the youths were interested in actually participating in a boxing match. And there’s only ever been one youth member who participated at a WTF fight night. For the most part, the kids either want to get fit or just learn how to hold their own. Some stay in the program from their early teens up until 19.

YB4C accepts applications at all times with priority given to low-income teens. The WTF gym is clean and professional. The mostly female staff, although admittedly a bunch of divas, are friendly and not at all shy. And, just to repeat, in case you didn’t catch it earlier: No, it doesn’t stand for what the f—.

For more information, contact youthboxingforchange.org.

A fight night at the WTF boxing gym. Facebook

Donovan Jarvis bites his medal after an amateur boxing match. Facebook

We need more dog runs and real open spaces CITY DOG

BY LYNN PACIFICO

People think that it is cruel to have a dog in the city and I see their point, but we cannot live without them. Dogs are here to stay and civic leaders need to understand this. Doing dog rescue made me realize how important it is for dog owners to have recreational facilities.

In 1992 I rescued a husky mix that was so wild no one wanted him. I took him home and called him Harry. Every morning and evening I brought him to J.J. Walker ball field, used for decades by neighbors and their dogs. There he ran and played till the wildness left. A tired dog is a good dog. After a

field spurred me to lobby for dog owner recreational facilities and to study what makes a dog run work well.

It took years of lobbying to get the Leroy Street dog run. The Hudson River Park Trust didn’t want dogs. Thirty years later our neighborhood still doesn’t have what is needed for its amount of dogs and its lack of parkland. We do not have off-leash below 57th Street because Downtown there are no parks that are appropriate. We don’t have a run for small dogs in the West Village (only in Washington Square Park). There is nowhere a person can legally play frisbee with their dog. There is nowhere a family with a dog can go to play together since dogs are not allowed in playgrounds and children under 12 are rightly discouraged from entering dog runs.

and must often raise money to build and maintain runs that are too small and poorly designed to function safely.

Dogs are not a luxury. It has been well established that interaction with dogs provides physiological benefits. This is why so many therapy programs, based upon interaction with dogs, are included in nursing home,

hospital and school programs. A dog is often a child’s best friend and protector, especially an only child. Dogs also provide companionship for people who live alone. Visiting dog parks is a free daily activity that connects seniors to community. As our population ages, we need runs for small dogs.

Another misconception is that if there is a dog run, off-leash areas are unnecessary. But off-leash hours and dog runs serve different functions. Runs are for dogs who are not under voice control, including puppies. Off-leash is used for people with trained dogs, as well as families who are outside with their dogs.

Off-leash is necessary for obedience training. Try training a dog in a run, with balls and other dogs flying by. It doesn’t work, especially if you are using treats or a 30-foot leash. (A 30-foot leash is actually illegal to use outside of a run.) Without offleash hours, runs need to be large enough for a few people to play frisbee safely, and for dog owners to bring their dog to the side to practice obedience.

I miss my park and being able to play with my dog in the field. I know what it means to have this and then to lose it and to lose my community, as well. We need places large enough to enjoy our dogs. Dogs belong with us, in the city.

Pacifico is a fourth-generation Villager who loves dogs, nature and New York City.

week, he was a normal happy puppy. A year later the Parks Department took the field away from our community without providing anything to replace it. (We were able to use the field in the winters until 1999.)

Harry and I would stand outside, looking through the fence at the field that we once depended on, but there was no more playing frisbee catch or ball fetch, no socializing with human and canine friends. We were relegated to sidewalks, walking around and around, usually alone.

The frustrations created when dogs are not allowed to socialize with other dogs and to get their energy out creates behavior problems that often cause dogs to be abandoned. As such, dog runs help keep hearts from being broken since they keep dogs from developing behavior problems. The loss of our

There has been an explosion of dog ownership in the past three years. “Pet parenting” is very popular and more people are getting dogs than having babies. Carriages carry dogs and commercials are geared more toward pets than children. Social cultures are growing around puppy cafes, pools and parties and athletic, agility and obedience competitions. The already profitable pet industry is rapidly growing.

Yet, the Hudson River Park’s dog runs are much too small. I have witnessed 35 dogs and 35 owners at the Leroy Street run at peak times and am amazed that there are not more problems since having numerous dog owners trying to play fetch forces dogs and owners into each other’s face/space.

There is a misconception about who dog runs are for: They are for taxpaying humans who love their dogs. According to a study done about Central Park, besides bench and lawn sitters, dog owners comprise the largest single-user group for parks. Yet dog owner taxes are spent on other’s recreation while dog owners spend years fighting for space

A scene from the last night that dog owners were allowed to use J.J. Walker Ball Field as a dog run.

Photo by Lawrence White

Sir Henry Wolf a.k.a. Harry, seen off-leash in Central Park, needed to run free to burn off his energy. The writer and Harry had to take a cab up to Central Park since dogs are not allowed on public transportation unless they are service animals. Photo by Lynn Pacifico