The Village Sun | July 2023

Carlina Rivera, Christopher Marte win primary elections pp. 2 & 3

Rivera and Marte win City Council primaries;

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON EDITOR / PUBLISHER, THE VILLAGE SUN

Downtown City Council incumbents fended off opponents’ spirited challenges Tuesday in the Democratic primary election.

In District 2, which includes the East Village, plus Greenwich Village over to Sixth Avenue and stretching up to Kips Bay, Carlina Rivera beat challenger Allie Ryan, with 61 percent of the vote to 39 percent of the vote. Rivera had 4,229 votes to Ryan’s 2,747.

At the same time, in District 1, Christopher Marte won 64 percent of the vote to Susan Lee’s 30 percent. Two other candidates, Ursila Jung had 5 percent and Pooi Stewart 1 percent. Marte had 5,053 votes to Lee’s 2,406, Jung’s 414 and Stewart’s 81 votes.

The winners of the Democratic primaries in solidly blue Downtown Manhattan are all but assured of reelection in November.

City Council districts were recently redrawn a bit, but it didn’t change the local dynamics significantly enough to cause any upsets in the District 1 and 2 races.

Rivera declared “a decisive victory” in the primary.

In a statement, the Lower East Side native pol said, in part, “I am deeply grateful to the people of Council District 2, the

communities that raised me and to this day make me who I am, for their enthusiastic support in my reelection to the City Council. I’ve often said it’s the honor of my life to serve the district and the city I love, and I never take for granted that you — my neighbors, my family, my friends — have entrusted me with this responsibility. Suffice to say, I’m eager to continue the work we’ve set into motion since my first election to the Council in 2017.

“Together, we have expanded access to healthcare for New Yorkers who might otherwise go without, invested in climate justice and resiliency to a historic degree, fought to create more affordable housing and hold those standing in the way to account, and increased accessibility and inclusion in the design of our parks and other public spaces. We took our rightful place as the leaders we know we can be with the nation’s first municipally funded abortion access fund in a time when access to reproductive healthcare is being decimated all over the country. We’ve brought over a billion dollars into the district we all know and love, from Kips Bay to the Lower East Side, to improve our community centers, youth and senior programming, hospitals, public safety, job-training centers and access to mental healthcare and other social services.

“And yet, we know the work is far from over in making ours the more equitable and just city we all deserve. No matter the fight, be it for public transit improvements and safer streets or fully supporting our public schools and libraries, I’m honored to stay in this with you for another two years, and I have so much hope and faith in the coalitions we’ve built to pass meaningful policy over the past five.

“Due to term limits,” Rivera continued, “I will not run for reelection in 2025, and I am eager to run this final lap with strength, compassion and integrity as I have aimed to do throughout my tenure. …I have every intention to lift up the next generation of leadership in our district as appropriate, so they are prepared to continue the work we’ve so diligently pursued. But in the meantime, I remain grateful to the people of District 2 for putting their trust in me and my team for one last term, and I’m proud to keep representing them in City Hall.”

Ryan’s supporters, meanwhile, cheered her for running a strong, grassroots campaign, without any establishment political support to speak of.

“So about 8,000 folks voted in District 2. I’m really impressed Allie got 40 percent — I didn’t think in my wildest dream she could,” a longtime East Village activist posted on thevillagesun.com, though not publishing his name publicly. “To get the next 10 percent a candidate would need big bucks and backing of political clubs, of which she had none. However, best showing ever in our neighborhood against the powers that be.”

Rivera strategically ducked any debates with Ryan during the election campaign, apparently feeling they would only help her opponent, who would attack her record in office.

Ryan said, “I wanted a different outcome, but I was seeing, in early voting and everywhere I went, people were joyous in voting for me. People were really eager for a change. They didn’t want to continue the status quo. … It’s hard, especially with Elizabeth Street Garden having its loss yesterday coupled with that. It’s like all of these battles with elected officials ignoring us. I did meet people who were broken down by this who said, ‘It doesn’t matter if I vote.’ I said, ‘Yes, it does matter.’” (For Ryan’s longer, official statement on the election, see this article on thevillagesun.com.)

Carlina Rivera.

Allie Ryan with an early voter.

‘People wanted change,’ Ryan says in defeat

Marte, meanwhile, declared victory at a post-election party Tuesday night at Lee’s, an event space on Canal Street.

Speaking to The Village Sun the next day, he said, “All the work that we’ve been putting in… . People believe in our message and believe that we have a mandate to fight displacement and to protect 24-hour healthcare workers. That, whether you’re a gardener at Elizabeth Street Garden or a resident in Soho, you have a voice in City Hall.

“Even though we’ve only been in office for a year and a half, we have a track record. We’ve done capital projects in New York City Housing Authority buildings and our school buildings — which are some of the older school buildings — fixing potholes, not compromising against Big Real Estate.”

Susan Lee and her supporters hit Marte for having previously advocated for defunding the police and also for not passing any bills in the City Council. But Marte didn’t go negative in return.

“Our opponents went extremely negative,” he said. “They went extremely low. We ran a pretty clean campaign. I think voters saw crystal clear through it.”

Marte added that he didn’t take any contributions from PACs.

“When you look at a lot of the other incumbents that got around 60 percent of the vote, we were the only incumbent that won that wasn’t supported by a super PAC. For us, it has always been about the community and taking special interests out of politics.”

Marte said that, the morning after the election, he was on the phone with Elizabeth Street Garden activists to brainstorm about how to address their recent stunning loss in court, as the city now has been given a green light to develop housing on the Little Italy site.

“It’s never an easy road,” Marte reflected, though also adding, “never a done deal.”

The Downtown Independent Democrats club, which prominently endorsed Marte, celebrated his “victory for our neighbors over big developers and outside interests.”

In a statement, the club said, “Voters recognized that Councilmember Marte has consistently stood up for community interests, been focused on and responsive to community needs, and worked against luxury developers and the violence of displacement.

“By nearly two to one, voters from the Lower East Side to Chinatown, from Tribeca to Battery Park City came together in force to reelect our friend and neighbor Councilmember Marte, embracing unity over division. With this mandate, together, we will end the horror of the 24-hour workday for home attendants, pass the Chinatown Working Group managed development plan, preserve and expand affordable housing, and get the job done.”

The club’s president, Richard Corman, said, “D.I.D. was proud to fight for Chris — because he fights for us.”

Christopher Marte and supporters celebrated his win on primary election day.

Allie Ryan, left, with a supporter in the East Village on primary election day.

Charley Crespo

Stephen DiLauro

Paul DiRienzo

Alex Ebrahimi

Michele Herman

Milo Hess

Clayton Patterson

Mary Reinholz

Karen Rempel

Bill Roundy

Sharon Woolums

Jefferson Siegel

Kate Walter

Eliahs Brazoban, 18, was turning his life around: Stepdad, advocates

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

The grief-stricken stepfather of an 18-yearold Lower East Side youth gunned down on the street Sunday raged that the city has become a “Wild, Wild West” — and that the police, mayor and governor are all to blame.

Eliahs Brazoban was shot once in the neck outside the Rivington Food deli, at the corner of Rivington and Pitt Streets, on Sat., June 24, going into Sun., June 25, right around midnight. Responding police found him with a single gunshot wound to the neck. He was declared dead at New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital.

Though as a young child he grew up in the Bronx, when he was around 9 or 10, Brazoban moved down to 555 F.D.R. Drive, in the Baruch Houses, two buildings north of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Brazoban had had run-ins with the law in the past, but his stepdad, Isaac Valerio, said the young man was turning his life around. Since July 2021, Brazoban had been a participant with Avenues for Justice, an East Village-based, alternatives-to-incarceration program.

However, the teen, who had just turned 18, had been involved in a robbery just three months ago, and Valerio had to bail him out. Nevertheless, the youth was getting help and the future was looking hopeful, his stepdad and advocates assured.

“I just bailed him out!” Valerio said, in anguish, “and [Avenues for Justice] was gonna get him a summer job. He was executed !” he shouted, furiously. “My son was executed from behind. He was shot in the head from behind.

“I want everyone to know,” he stressed. “Please get the story out. This is a Wild, Wild f—ing West! This needs to stop! It’s going to be a summer from hell. And it’s going to get worse.”

Asked if he thought the killing was part of the senseless feud between the Up the Hill Gang, from the Baruch Houses, and the Down the Hill Gang, from the East Village housing developments, he said, yes, definitely.

“It’s just a neighborhood thing,” he said. “It’s my neighborhood against your neighborhood — and we’re gonna kill someone and then we’re going to rap about it on YouTube.”

Any kind of violence-glorifying video like that needs to be pulled down by YouTube immediately, he angrily declared, blaming social-media companies for their role in the bloodshed.

The Seventh Precinct is located just on the other side of the Williamsburg Bridge from the murder scene. Normally, right at the intersection where Brazoban was killed, there is a police Sky Watch tower manned by an officer at night. According to Valerio, though, the tower wasn’t there the night of the murder.

“How can he possibly get killed two blocks away from a New York City police precinct?” Valerio asked, incredulously. “They usually have a police post there. And right now, at the start of the summer, it’s not there. I’m sure that now it’ll be there. They know that’s a high-crime, high-shooting spot. How dare they take that out of there?”

Brazoban’s Facebook page shows photos of him from 2020, sometimes with one friend, sometimes with two, one taken on a Baruch Houses rooftop, and they appear to be flashing gang signs and even making the sign of a gun in one of them.

“He was in a gang when he was a lot younger,” Valerio said. “I made him drop all of that — and he did, he did. He wasn’t in the street like that.”

Brazoban would sometimes stay with his stepdad in the Bronx but preferred to be with his mother on the Lower East Side, where his friends were.

The most recent robbery Brazoban was charged with involved stealing a jacket. Valerio said it wasn’t just Brazoban but a group of youths who did it, that one guy may have had a weapon, and that Brazoban took the fall.

“The thing was,” he said, “my son was a follower. A lot of times, they make him the scapegoat because he was so big and sluggish.”

Valerio said he would warn the teen to stay away from the street life.

“I said, ‘You’re too big. … You didn’t grow up in the street,’” he said. “It wasn’t that he was a bad kid.”

Brazoban liked basketball — not surprising since he was tall — and music.

“He started rapping,” Valerio said.

In the past, the teen had done some petty crimes, including stealing clothes or swiping sneakers from Foot Locker. He was also busted during the riots and looting in Soho after George Floyd’s death in police custody in May 2020.

“He did get arrested during the riots,” Valerio said. “He got caught up. I had to bail him out.”

His stepdad said it was after he and Brazoban’s mom divorced that he felt the youth, unfortunately, started to get into more trouble.

Valerio raged against the political powers that be and a lawless situation in which young teens are now increasingly carrying firearms.

“These kids don’t give a f— about the law,” he railed.

Asked if he felt the Raise the Age legislation from 2018 — which changed it so that youths under age 18 would not be prosecuted as adults — was behind some of the gun violence, he said, “That’s part of it.”

Something needs to change, he declared.

“From the governor to the mayor on down — nobody’s voting for them,” he said. “I don’t even know how they’re getting elected! This is bulls—!”

Personally, Valerio actually thinks that only when everyone else in New York City over the age of 18 is allowed to carry guns will the gun violence finally stop since it will “even the playing field.”

He said Brazoban was on a better path, which involved him getting his high school G.E.D. degree. He was strongly encouraging his stepson to join the Army.

He said the memorial and funeral will likely be in New Jersey because it’s just too expensive to do it in Manhattan.

Eliahs Brazoban, right, received an Andy Award from Avenues for Justice for “Most Improved” for his music in 2022. Presenting the award was Brian Stanley, AFJ’s court advocate. Avenues for Justice

Man fatally stabbed in Washington Square Park

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Aman was stabbed to death in Washington Square Park on the afternoon of Wed., June 21.

Police said that officers responded to a 9-11 call at 4:25 p.m. of an assault in progress inside the park. They found a 35-year-old male with one stab wound to the chest. He was removed by E.M.S. ambulance to Lenox Health Greenwich Village, at Seventh Avenue and 12th Street, where he was pronounced dead.

A police spokesperson said two suspects fled the scene heading westbound on Waverly Place.

He did not initially have more details on the victim, the stabbing’s motive or where exactly in the park the stabbing occurred. According to two local sources, though, it happened at the park’s trouble-plagued northwest corner a.k.a. “the drug corner.”

“The good thing is that area is heavily camera’d,” one of the sources said. He added that he heard “helicopters” overhead when the incident occurred. At least one news ’copter, from CBS, was reporting from the scene.

Police have not yet released the victim’s name pending family notification. There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.

At a Zoom virtual meeting of the 6th Precinct Community Council later that evening, Captain Jason Zeikel, the precinct’s new commanding officer — who had just come back from the park crime scene — said the slain man is “known to the precinct.”

He assured, “You’re going to see a [police] presence in the park after what happened.”

Zeikel said that since he assumed command of the Greenwich Village precinct in March, crime has been dropping, with the seven major “index crimes” — homicide, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, rape and grand larceny auto — down a combined 24 percent over the previous 28 days.

“For the period, we are doing well,” he said, “not to take anything away from what just happened.”

Year to date, compared to last year, overall

Continued from p. 4

In late 2020, Avenues for Justice began working with young people in the New York City Law Department’s Family Court Division’s “diversion” program. Youths up to age 18 assigned to the program must attend community-based, alternatives-to-incarceration organizations, such as AFJ, for a specific number of sessions or workshops within a short-term, 60-day period. After the 60-day mandate, AFJ encourages diversion participants to use its HIRE UP program.

Brozoban had completed his diversion mandate and, through AFJ, had recently done

crime is down 7 percent in the precinct, he said.

Zeiekel said police had conducted “multiple buy and busts” in the park in the previous few weeks and “took out a few serious dealers. … Two or three months ago, we did a big drug takedown in the park.”

As for weed, if the park dealers have it out physically on top of tables, police will seize it and can give a summons, he said. However, the pot peddlers have a new tactic — putting stickers of their wares on top of their tables, with the sales completed “off location,” as in, outside the park.

“So they’re getting around our vendor enforcement,” he noted.

Although there has been criticism of the Manhattan district attorney for allegedly being soft on crime, Zeikel — in a follow-up interview with The Village Sun — said the precinct, under his command, is enforcing the law. He said the precinct’s officers will arrest people for openly smoking crack or injecting heroin in public. Also, Zeikel told the Zoom meeting, the D.A. has been “a good partner” on prosecuting more serious crime, mentioning a man who had been assaulting people outside the since-closed Goodwill store on Eighth Street.

“The heavier stuff, the violent stuff, they’ve been an excellent partner,” he said of the D.A. “Heavy crime, nothing has changed. The mayor, the D.A., the police, we’re all on the same team. We don’t make the laws, it’s the Assem-

bly [state Legislature] that makes the laws.

“It’s not as simple as just going there and grabbing everybody,” he explained. “We have to make buys and cases.”

The goal in making busts is “permanency,” he said.

However, during the Zoom meeting, a number of local residents said more needs to be done to address drug dealing, homeless encampments and illegal vending in the park and surrounding neighborhood.

“I’m a lifelong resident,” one said, “and the junkies, the dealers, the bums, they own the park.”

However, Zeikel reiterated, “Our arrests are way up, year to date. Our summons are way up, year to date. We’re in the top 10 [precincts] in the city for decreasing crime.”

A Washington Square Village resident that The Village Sun spoke to on primary election day said the murder in the park had rattled her. An older woman, she said she walks her little dog by the park at 6 a.m. and sometimes sees people inside its northwest corner who look like they are “waking up,” making her think they have slept there overnight. She said she avoids walking in that part of the park, as well as in the western edge of the park. She said she does not see uniformed police officers in the park.

Regarding homeless encampments popping up in the blocks around the park, Detective Evrim Can, the head of the precinct’s community affairs unit, said police follow protocol. This involves first asking the individual to decamp. If that doesn’t work, then a notice is posted saying a cleanup at the location will occur on a given date. If the homeless person doesn’t move his or her stuff by then, the Department of Sanitation can remove it. However, what often happens, Can said, is that the homeless person will just move to another location, farther down the block or across the street, and then the process will repeat all over again.

Can said that, prior to the George Floyd protests, police would handle encampments, but that now there is an initial layer where social workers are involved with reaching out to the homeless individuals.

“Sometimes it looks like nothing is being done,” he said, “but this is the process.”

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Gamal Willis, Avenues for Justice’s director of court advocacy, said, “Many of us had a connection with Eliahs, whether through our Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) last year, workshops, the Andy Awards [for videos by program participants] or individual counseling sessions. He was a beloved member of the Avenues for Justice community and he was just recently in our internship program at Stuart Cinema. Eliahs was known for his big heart and entertaining personality, making this loss truly devastating.”

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Police detectives at the crime scene in Washington Square Park’s northwest corner on June 21.

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Eliahs Brazoban, 18, was turning his life around: Stepdad, advocates

Pride marches on; Edie & Thea get their way

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

Amid conservative boycotts of brands like Bud Light, Target and Kohl’s and anti-L.G.B.T. legislation in a number of states, the annual Pride March nevertheless rolled on jubilantly on Sun., June 25.

An estimated 75,000 revelers partic ipated in and 2 million watched the world’s largest Pride procession.

This year’s grand marshals were award-winning singer Billy Porter; Yasmin Benoit, a British asexual activist and writer; AC Dumlau, chief of staff at Athlete Alley, which educates against homophobia and transphobia in sports; Hope Giselle, an organizer and artist who founded Alabama State University’s first L.G.B.T. group; and Randy Wicker, a gay rights trailblazer.

In 1966, Wicker was among a group of gay men who asked to be served drinks at Julius’ Bar, on W. 10th Street, in the famed “sip-in,” when “drinking while gay” was still technically illegal. The bartender covered the glasses with his hand, refusing to serve them. Before surrogate pregnancy, Wicker advocated for gay cloning — so gays could have kids. He owned a light shop at Hudson and Christopher Streets before moving to New Jersey around 20 years ago.

Six days before the Pride March, Governor Hochul led the dedication at Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue of a street co-naming sign honoring Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, whose Supreme Court lawsuit led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in America.

“Today is about love,” Hochul said, “a love that started in this place in 1963 called Greenwich Village.

“It was tough for a lot of people for a really long time,” the governor said, recalling an uncle, a Vietnam War veteran, who struggled before being able to embrace his true identity.

“Edie said, ‘I’m going all the way to the Supreme Court — so, it’s not just about me, but all the people that come after me,’” she said. “And today we benefit and bask in the glory of the freedom that she made possible for us by standing up so courageously.”

Meanwhile, other states are now “stripping away” people’s rights, she noted.

“We say, leave our children alone,” Hochul declared. “Leave people alone.”

Of the street sign and what it means, she said, “it will continue to shine on as a legacy to what tough New Yorkers, tough women can do.

“To all of the L.G.B.T. people across our great state, thank you for making us so fascinating, so well dressed, so extraordinary. You’re valued, you’re loved, and you, like everyone across this country, will always be welcome here. This is your home.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was among the many politicians who joined the March.

Photos this page by Milo Hess (looking over shoulder; bubbles; three spectators; “be you”) and Q. Sakamaki (Jumaane Williams; police and K9-unit dogs).

Governor Hochul gave remarks, joined by, from second from left, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, singer Billy Porter, state Senator Brad Hoylman, Rev. Al Sharpton, state Attorney General Letitia James, Judith Kassen (Edie Windsor’s wife), Allen Roskoff of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Assemblymember Tony Simone.

Photos this page, by Milo Hess (Governor Hochul and officials; “29 years”; “so cute”) and Q. Sakamaki (cheerleaders; crowd; doggie).

East Villagers pitch in to aid migrant shelter

BY KASEY NOSS

In late May, the city established a respite center for asylum seekers at the former St. Brigid School, located at the corner of Avenue B and Seventh Street. It is one of several such centers that have quietly opened across the city as officials struggle to find permanent housing for the hundreds of migrants arriving daily.

Mayor Adams has called upon federal officials, as well as local businesses, for help in housing the influx of asylum seekers the city has seen since the expiration of Title 42. The pandemic-era policy allowed the government to deny migrants entry at the U.S.-Mexico border based on a potential threat to public health.

In the East Village, residents were quick to respond despite the center’s low-profile opening, organizing clothing drives, meal distributions and even donating a coffee maker to the undersupplied site. However, they were surprised by what they called a lack of transparency and reluctance to cooperate originally demonstrated by the city officials present.

Stacie Joy of East Village news blog EV Grieve has provided detailed coverage of the saga, having organized many of the donations herself. In one instance, she reported city officials waved off a meal distribution led by local food nonprofit EVLovesNYC, in spite of the fact that the city’s planned meals never arrived that day. Another time, Verizon and

NYCMesh were repeatedly prevented from installing much-needed free Wi-Fi at the center, with city officials citing a lack of “proper procedure,” though offering few specifics as to what that entailed. Even the coffee maker reportedly was confusingly deemed a “liability” at first, though it was put to use soon after.

Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, whose district office is located directly across the street from the respite center and became a temporary home base for clothing distribution, was inexplicably barred from performing a scheduled tour of the center. Epstein claims that after having initially been denied entry by a city official, he accompanied a community member who was helping with food distribution inside the facility. The politician claims he was then forcibly removed upon entering, an allegation supported by Joy’s coverage of the event.

“They said I forced my way into the facility, and they claimed that I was being hostile,” Epstein said. “And the reality was that, you know, I had reached out to the Mayor’s Office to go see the site, and it was my responsibility to make sure that people who are in our care, in our custody, in my district, that they are being treated well.”

According to Epstein, City Hall claims the altercation unfolded differently. He was finally able to successfully tour the facility one week later. The Mayor’s Office declined to comment for this article.

Since those initial weeks, relations between city officials and community members at the respite center have become significantly less fraught. Under Joy’s leadership, local volunteers successfully staged four distributions last month, supplying asylum seekers with clothing, bedding, toiletries, cell phones, shoes and more. Although briefly jeopardized by another bureaucratic hiccup, volunteers with NYC Mesh successfully installed Wi-Fi at the facility.

Joy herself declined to comment for this article, and several volunteers were hesitant to speak on the record, although the reason why remains unclear.

Sts. Brigid & Emeric Roman Catholic Church did not respond to The Village Sun’s request for comment.

Over all, Assemblymember Epstein de-

scribes the community’s efforts as “really successful.”

“We’ve given out hundreds of bags of clothing to people, and backpacks and shoes and socks,” he said. “People seemed really happy to get it. In the end, I think it was all very, very positive.”

For those who want to help, St. Brigid’s rectory, at 119 Avenue B, is accepting donations Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Items most in demand include adult clothing, blankets and bedding, backpacks and shoes, particularly chancletas (flip-flops). A variety of sizes are welcome, although it should be noted that there are no children or infants at this center.

Local organizers are also seeking volunteers. The ability to speak Spanish or French is a plus.

The volunteers accept clothing three days a week: Tuesdays through Thursdays around midday.

On Tues., June 13, local volunteers did a distribution of free clothing donated by locals for the migrants. Photos by Kasey Noss

4 killed by fire in Two Bridges e-bike shop

Councilmember Marte blames delivery apps

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

In another tragic, deadly, apparent e-bike battery fire, four people were killed and two severely injured after an intense blaze exploded early in the morning of June 20 in an e-bike sales and repair store in the Two Bridges/Chinatown area.

The fire broke out in HQ E-Bike Repair, in the ground-floor storefront at 80 Madison St., around 12:15 a.m. Smoke rapidly engulfed the entire six-story residential building.

One hundred thirty-three firefighters responded to the scene, bringing the blaze under control by around 2:30 a.m.

Six residents were removed in critical condition to area hospitals, including Bellevue, Weill Cornell and New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan.

The deceased include a 62-year-old woman and a 71-year old man and two unidentified individuals, another woman and a man. According to news reports, the cause of death was smoke inhalation.

Listed in critical condition were two other residents, a woman, 65, and a man, 80.

One firefighter, one E.M.T. medic and one civilian suffered minor injuries.

After firefighters had extinguished the inferno, piles of blackened e-scooters and e-bikes and wheels and tires were left on the street outside.

The fire marshal will determine the cause of the fire. The investigation is ongoing.

According to NY1, Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, who spoke at a news conference at the scene, the site was “known” to the Fire Department, which had written up the e-bike for several violations.

“Dan Flynn, the F.D.N.Y.’s chief fire marshal, said the department inspected the property in August 2022 and issued F.D.N.Y. summonses. The owners of the shop were found guilty in court, Flynn said, and forced to pay a $1,600 fine,” NY1 reported. “The violations related to improper charging of lithium-ion batteries and the number of batteries stored at the location… . The department also found violations related to the electrical wiring… .”

So far in 2023, lithium-ion batteries — including the June 20 fire on Catherine Street — have caused 108 fires, leading to 13 deaths and 66 injuries, Fire officials said.

Fires caused by the e-bike batteries literally “explode,” Mayor Adams has said, and they spread faster and are harder for firefighters to put out.

The Associated Press reported that a man who said he was the shop’s owner claimed that he “made his usual checks” of the store before he left the night before the fire, and denied any e-bike batteries were being charged overnight inside.

“The shop has been there for six years. I check before I leave every night,” the man, who spoke in Mandarin and only gave his last name, Liu, told the AP. “I checked last night,

turned off the power besides the ones for the monitor and automatic door.”

Not all e-bike batteries that are currently being used in New York City are UL-certified, which increases the chance of fires. Aftermarket and refurbished batteries are reportedly the culprit in most of the e-bike blazes.

In the tragedy’s wake, City Councilmember Christopher Marte, who represents Lower Manhattan’s District 1, demanded delivery apps provide “safe bikes” for their workers.

“The delivery apps that promise impossibly fast delivery times need to be held properly accountable for these e-bike fires and the lives lost,” he stressed. “It is abundantly obvious that these massive companies should provide safe bikes to their workers, instead of relying on their immigrant workforce to purchase their own. This is the only way we will see the dangerous bikes off of the streets, and be able to enforce a regulated industry. The deaths, injuries and displacement of our neighbors are a direct result of these apps’ greed and their blatant disregard for safe working conditions for the delivery workers and for all New Yorkers. Enough is enough.”

The councilmember said his office would work to help the displaced families. In addition, he warned, in general, of patterns of theft in fire-damaged buildings and of landlords failing to complete post-fire repairs expeditiously.

“I am devastated by the loss of four of our neighbors,” Marte said. “I and my office are prepared to assist their families through this unimaginable time. I was on the scene early this morning and spoke with residents and city agencies there. The entire building has been vacated, and the agencies are still assessing the extent of the damage.

“It is critical for residents of the building to know of a disturbing pattern emerging after recent fires in Chinatown,” he added. “In every

instance, immediately following the fire, the building has been robbed. Tenants who have already had their lives turned upside down by the fire experience further trauma by having their surviving possessions stolen. I have already spoken with the 5th Precinct and they will be closely monitoring the scene. I encourage all tenants, once they gain access to the building, to immediately remove all their valuables and important documents.

“The second pattern is months, or over a year, of displacement due to landlords not completing the repairs they have to for tenants to return home,” Marte said. “City regulation is lacking or unenforceable — tenants are given a date by which they should be allowed back home, the date passes, and nobody is held accountable. These fires accelerate the displacement crisis Chinatown is facing, and cut residents off from their often rent-stabilized and affordable homes. We will continue to work diligently to assist those impacted by this tragedy.”

For her part, Susan Lee, who ran as a candidate for District 1 in the June 27 Democratic primary election, in a statement, called for “a crackdown” on dangerous e-bike batteries.

She urged the city to “step up battery-exchange programs to get dangerous batteries off the streets,” and ban e-bike stores from being

located in residential buildings.

“The lack of safety standards and enforcement has endangered far too many residents… and requires a coordinated effort to strengthen regulations and, at a minimum, enforce existing regulations,” Lee said.

“Allowing these types of facilities in residential buildings is a recipe for disaster,” she declared.

In addition, Lee accused Marte of not signing onto a package of City Council bills approved this March that were aimed at improving safety and regulation of e-bikes and e-scooters and lithium-ion batteries, specifically addressing the batteries’ fire dangers.

She also slammed the Fire Department for “citing” dangerous e-bike stores — yet doing nothing about them.

“The F.D.N.Y. recently cited many e-bike stores in the district, but they have been allowed to continue operating,” Lee said.

The candidate promised, if elected, to track enforcement of Councilman Keith Powers’s bill to establish a battery trade-in program for exchanging fire-prone lithium-ion batteries for ones with established safety standards.

She also joined Councilmember Gale Brewer’s call for a federal ban on the sale of dangerous batteries for e-bikes and e-scooters.

After the deadly fire, piles of charred e-bikes and wheels were left outside the store.

Photo by Amina Ali

Franz Leichter, 92, Hudson River Park pioneer

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Franz Leichter, a longtime maverick progressive Democrat in the state Legislature and a heroic figure in the creation of the Hudson River Park, died June 11. He was 92.

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, a condition he had reportedly battled for years.

Leichter served in Albany for nearly 30 years, first in the state Assembly from 1969 to 1974, then in the state Senate from 1975 to 1998, his districts always based on the politically active Upper West Side.

The New York Times obituary described Leicther as “one of the Legislature’s staunchest liberals and harshest critics,” adding, “though he was often dismissed as a Don Quixote futilely tilting at windmills.”

Indeed, during his tenure in each house of the Legislature, the Republicans were the majority party, making it challenging for Leichter to pass bills on key issues. As a result, he became an outspoken critic of the state’s political status quo.

Leichter was a pioneer in supporting legislation on abortion rights, same-sex unions and decriminalizing marijuana. With Assemblymember Constance Cook, he passed the Cook-Leichter bill in 1970, the nation’s first bill to legalize abortion, and which influenced Roe v. Wade’s passage three years later.

Leichter championed campaign-finance reform for New York City. To help New Yorkers better deal with banking and avoid excessive costs and hidden costs, he regularly published a Consumer’s Guide to Banks.

He was a scourge of so-called corporate welfare, including tax breaks allegedly required to keep big companies from fleeing the city. He was a critic of using taxpayer funds to build new sports stadiums, again, allegedly to keep sports franchises from leaving town. The new stadiums and arenas always include more luxury “sky box” seating for the affluent yet fewer affordable seats for average fans, as documented by reports by Leichter’s office. He championed rent regulation.

Leichter even introduced the “pooper-scooper law,” which hit dog owners with

a steep fine for not cleaning up after their dogs.

In Downtown Manhattan, Leichter is best remembered for the Gottfried-Leichter bill, which he passed with former Assemblymember Richard Gottfried in 1998, to create the Hudson River Park. The park plan emerged after the defeat of the Westway megaproject, which would have tunneled the West Side Highway under a swath of new landfill to be added in the Hudson River, on top of which new building development would have occurred.

The park runs from Chambers Street to W. 59th Street. Until the Gottfried-Leichter bill passed, though, Greenwich Village was a hotbed of resistance to the project, led by the group the Federation to Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront and Great Port. There were concerns the park would bring people streaming through the neighborhood, that the park’s governing body — a state-city authority — would be “unaccountable,” and that the park would

In a statement, she said, “Hudson River Park mourns the loss of former state Senator Franz Leichter. He was that rare person who maintained the courage of his convictions despite obstacles and slingshots, always focused on pursuing positive change on behalf of his constituents and all New Yorkers, regardless of what was popular at the time. Twenty-five years ago, then-Senator Leichter, alongside recently retired Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, sponsored a bill to create Hudson River Park, and eventually found a champion in former Governor George Pataki. After his retirement from the state Legislature in 1998, Franz continued to serve Hudson River Park as a Trust board member for many years.

said. “He was relentless in fighting for a more just New York and dogged in pushing for reforms that would make Albany more transparent and democratic. He was always ahead of his time, whether with his landmark legislation on abortion rights or the bill to create a Hudson River Park, which initially was opposed by several elected officials on the West Side.”

Franz Leichter was born Aug. 19, 1930, in Vienna, Austria, where his parents were members of the Social Democratic Party. As such, they were among the Nazis’ “most wanted,” a profile article on Leichter in the Swarthmore College Bulletin, noted.

With his father, Otto, and brother, Henry, Leichter, then just 7 years old, managed to flee the Nazis, making it to America. His mother, Käthe, a prominent sociologist, stayed behind a bit longer to arrange safe passage for her mother, Franz and Henry, but perished in Europe amid the Holocaust.

In the U.S., Leichter attended public schools, going on to graduate from Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School.

He retired from the state Senate in 1998, with future state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman taking over his seat. In 2000, President Bill Clinton appointed Leichter a director of the Federal Housing Finance Board, on which he continued to serve under President George W. Bush into 2006. Governor David Patterson then tapped Leichter for the New York State Banking Board in 2009 and he served for two years.

be used to build high-rise housing west of the highway. The leadership of Community Board 2 was against the park, too, until future City Councilmember Alan Gerson was elected its chairperson, leading to a change of direction.

Noreen Doyle, the president and C.E.O. of the Hudson River Park Trust, which operates and is building the park, recalled Leichter as a “rare person.”

“The Hudson River Park of today — approaching completion, brimming with activity along its 4 miles — would not exist without Franz’s steadfast belief in the park,” Doyle stressed. “The entire Hudson River Park community is forever grateful to Franz for his vision, resolve and commitment to the dream of a financially sustainable, environmentally responsible and publicly accountable park along Manhattan’s West Side waterfront. We will continue striving to live up to that vision.”

On a smaller scale, Leichter also spearheaded the creation of Riverbank State Park, a 10-block-long green oasis, complete with a swimming pool, atop the North River Water Pollution Control Plant, a sewage treatment facility on the West Harlem waterfront.

Gottfried, who retired from the Assembly last year, said of Leichter: “He was one of the most principled people I’ve ever known and a consistently progressive, dedicated legislator. We were fortunate to have him in the Legislature.”

Jonathan Bowles, Leichter’s research director from 1994 to 1998, said the lawmaker “was always ahead of his time.”

“Franz was the most principled and decent person I’ve met in government,” he

Leichter’s first marriage was to Nina Williams, who died in 1995 after losing a struggle with depression and mania. Their daughter, Katherine, directed a movie, “Here One Day,” about Nina’s suicide. In 2001, Leichter remarried, to Melody Anderson.

Franz Leichter’s survivors include his daughter, Katherine, a son, Joshua, four grandchildren, Memphis, Ethan, Otto and Theo, and great-grandchildren.

Gottfried noted that he was the Assembly co-sponsor of the 1971 bill that state Senator Leichter introduced to legalize adult-use recreational marijuana, but which went nowhere. Finally, after decades, in 2021, New York State legalized weed.

That ’71 bill “was just about the same as what we enacted 50 years later,” Gottfried said. “We all knew that marijuana was a lot less dangerous than alcohol. People die from alcohol. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. They may fall asleep. … That bill was an example of how advanced Franz’s thinking was on countless issues.”

On June 15, Hudson River Park officials and local leaders gathered for the ribbon-cutting for the completed $15 million renovation of Chelsea Waterside Park. Located just across the highway from Chelsea Piers, the 2.5-acre park is part of the larger Hudson River Park. Gottfried was among the group.

“Franz’s name came up frequently,” he said.

Franz Leichter.

‘One of the most principled people I’ve ever known.’

— Richard Gottfried

Aura Levitas, 98, dancer on B’way, TV, artist

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

Aura Levitas, a dancer, artist and longtime Greenwich Village resident, died at home in her W. 10th Street brownstone, on June 12. She was 98.

She was an early leader of the since-disbanded Association of Village Homeowners, as well as an influential figure in the Southampton arts scene. She appeared in 11 Broadway musicals and was a dancer on television in its earliest years. Renowned composer Aaron Copland was her godfather.

Born Aura Vainio in Brooklyn to parents of Finnish descent, Levitas made her first Broadway appearance in “Mexican Hayride” while attending Barnard College. For more than a decade she danced on musical variety shows hosted by Milton Berle, Perry Como and Dave Garroway.

Her dancing career took her to Tamiment Playhouse, a training ground for some of the biggest names in theater and TV, from Woody Allen to Grace Kelly. At Tamiment she met her future husband, Willard Levitas, a scenic designer. The couple delved into real estate, buying a brownstone in Greenwich Village and several homes on the East End.

She later embarked on an art career, with solo exhibits of her work in New York and Southampton. Inspired by Joseph Cornell, she applied her love of puzzles, puns and slang to collages, paintings and works of assemblage art.

Levitas was a founding member of the Southampton Artists Association and its president for two years. She curated five art shows annually for the association over the span of 10 years. Both she and her husband produced prizewinning art shows at East Hampton’s Guild Hall and the Broome Street Gallery in Manhattan.

A bequest from Levitas and her late husband to the Southampton Cultural Center established the Levitas Center for the Arts in 2006. She has been recognized by nonprofit institutions for her philanthropic work, including a lifetime achievement award from The Caring Community in Downtown Manhattan, where Levitas launched and curated an annual art exhibit for older artists.

In her later years she produced three volumes of poetry, mixing images of her art with musings on wisdom gained from longevity, and the transcendent qualities of a seashell. Thomas Meehan, the Tony Award-winning librettist, once noted, “Aura Levitas’s poems are a marvel and a delight — charming, witty and wise.”

She is survived by a nephew, Richard Ehrlich of New York; a niece, Alice Litter of

Evans Thompson, 75, Afro-Cuban jazz pianist

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Evans Thompson, a jazz pianist, composer and multitalented artist well known on the Downtown music scene, died in mid-February. He was 75.

The cause was reportedly a fall in his Irving Place apartment, where he was found by his building superintendent.

According to his son, Kali Smikle, Evans Thompson grew up in White Plains, in Westchester County. He was adopted, with his adoptive father a corrections officer.

He was the leader of a band, the Evans Thompson True Story, and known especially for Afro-Cuban music. He often played piano at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, sometimes dropping by after a service to hold a show there. He was also a draftsman and a poet.

Thompson was also known from the neighborhood in the East Village, where he liked to hang out and previously lived on E. 10th Street.

Possibly due to a botched knee operation after an injury when he was 15, he had a distinctive gait, trailing a stiff leg behind him as he walked, yet was strong and agile.

A group of about 20 friends gathered at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery on Sun., June 25, for a memorial. The event was organized by Frank Morales, a former pastor at the East Village church.

Robert James, who grew up with Thompson, recalled days playing basketball as youths and that Thompson had a sweet shot. He recalled concerts at Thompson’s

home, with up to a dozen musicians, more like spontaneous jam sessions, with Latin music and jazz standards. People would pick up congas and just start playing, he said.

Thompson’s friend X Pitts, an East Vil lage artist, said, “He was an artist and poet besides his music. He was deep and we were close.”

Thompson’s son, Smikle, said he nev er knew his father until he was 20, when Smikle was involved in a high-profile robbery on Long Island — of Sing Sing Prison’s pastor.

“I was arrested for something,” he told The Village Sun. “I was in the news. He saw it. He wrote me a letter. I thought it was fake.”

Smikle said Thompson wasn’t in his life earlier on because he had a drug habit, which he kicked in 1983.

“He was on drugs. He was on heroin,” he said. “That’s why he wasn’t around.”

In an interesting note, he said Thompson used his drafting skills to make a tie drawer for Larry Silverstein, the World Trade Cen ter developer. He had studied drafting and had a drafting table in his home.

Smikle had only just recently found out about his dad’s passing.

“My daughter’s Sweet 16 is on June 30 — I was going to call him,” he said.

Other survivors include Thompson’s adoptive sister and her daughter.

Marie McAuliffe, a Westbeth resident, recalled fun times going to music workshops and jazz shows with Thompson.

“We’d go to the Knickerbocker and Sweet Basil’s,” she said. “He was so full of life and obstreperousness. If you had an opposing view — salt and vinegar. The last time I saw him, in January, he was on a whole waffles kick,” she said, recalling a last breakfast together, at Veselka.

Guitarist On Davis said of Thompson, “Being Downtown, all the musicians knew each other. He had basically created his own scene. He was the captain of his own ship.”

Katharine Wolpe said she would just really miss seeing Thompson around the neighborhood.

Thompson also was learned on African pantheism and traditional culture.

“I staged an Afro-Cuban version of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ at Columbia University and Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1995,” recalled Elizabeth Ruf, who also sang at the memorial. “Evans was brought into the show; he coached the singers in Orisha singing and played congas.”

Afterward, Morales said he hoped the community of Thompson’s friends would stay connected.

“I know him from the neighborhood from the mid-’80s. I Iiked his music,” he said. “He gave me his CDs. He was very committed to Black liberation and the Black predicament in this country, and he let you know it. We would talk politics, and I like to talk politics. But it was his music that really drew me to him.

“This is like a rolling memorial,” Morales said. “It’s going to evolve into maybe an Evans Thompson Jazz Fest.”

Harvard, Massachusetts; and a goddaughter, Lorelei Smillie of New York.

Aura Levitas.

Kali Smikle with a photo of Evans Thompson, his father. Photo by The Village Sun

Aura Levitas appeared in numerous musicals and on early TV variety shows.

EDITORIAL LETTERS

E-bike batteries

The tragic e-bike fire in the Two Bridges/Chinatown neighborhood last month cast a renewed spotlight on the dangers of unregulated e-bike batteries. More to the point, it put a focus on an entire unregulated industry — namely, restaurant and food app deliveries.

These deliveries, usually by e-bike or e-scooter, sometimes by gas-powered mopeds — increasingly rarely by actual pedal-powered bicycles — have exploded in recent years. Along with adding a new layer of often-chaotic whizzing traffic on the streets, the lithium-ion batteries for these e-bikes also sometimes — and sometimes is too often — literally violently explode, with deadly consequences.

So far in 2023, lithium-ion batteries — including the June 20 fire on Madison Street — have caused 108 fires, leading to 13 deaths and 66 injuries.

The main culprit, we’re told, are e-bike batteries that are not UL certified, so-called aftermarket and refurbished batteries, usually ones that are damaged or overcharged. But the delivery workers — who are scraping by, zooming around frantically to earn a living wage — are naturally going to go for the cheapest batteries they can find.

Councilmember Christopher Marte, theoretically, is right to call on the delivery apps themselves to ensure that the workers’ equipment is safe. However, technically, the “deliveristas” are contract workers, so we’re not sure how enforceable that would be.

At the end of the day, though, the onus is on the city to regulate this industry, something it has not done a very good job of up until now.

After the deadly Madison Street fire, Mayor Adams and Fire Commissioner Kavanagh announced some immediate changes to increase safety. Putting responsibility on residents and customers, they said they should call 3-11 if they see dangerous conditions in e-bike shops — such as e-batteries being charged within 3 feet of each other or being charged with extension cords, e-bikes blocking store entrances and the like.

They also said that, after receiving a 3-1-1 call reporting a dangerous condition in an e-bike store, firefighters would respond to the scene more rapidly — within 12 hours instead of 72 hours, the previous window.

That’s actually not that reassuring, though, since it’s only a relative increase in safety. As the mayor himself has said, these e-batteries — at least the uncertified kind — literally burst into fire like nothing we’ve seen before, and then the flames spread alarmingly quickly.

Making things worse, the volatile, high-energy power packs can keep igniting, even after being extinguished by firefighters, as happened a couple of times after the Madison Street fire.

One of the most important things that we’re not hearing is any mention of a residential ban on e-bike shops in residential buildings. That seems to be a no-brainer to us. How many more of these incidents do we have to see? In December 2021, two teens at the Riis Houses in the East Village had to shimmy four stories down a pipe outside their building to escape a raging inferno in their apartment sparked by e-bike batteries. Their mother was severely burned and her boyfriend, who allegedly repaired e-bikes, perished.

And now, as of April, New York City is allowing e-bikes on subways, buses and commuter rails. …

We have an extremely serious crisis on our hands with these devastatingly flammable e-batteries. A growing number of residential buildings are banning e-bikes in apartments, and the New York City Housing Authority has banned home e-bike repair businesses. The mayor must lead the way: The city should immediately ban e-bike stores in residential buildings.

People will leave

To The Editor:

Re “Kill Bill (31-B), cry shed foes before Council vote” (editorial, June):

I have lived here most of my life and NEVER have encountered such an awful bill. Our city councilmembers think they are improving the city? They are destroying the quality of life for so many. Such stupidity!

P.S.: Maybe this will help our homeless situation: So many current residents will give up their homes to flee the city that illegal migrants can move in.

Jay Crockett

Cut sheds, not trees

To The Editor:

Re “Kill Bill (31-B), cry shed foes before Council vote” (editorial, June):

I know at least one restaurant where they actually cut down the trees so they could put up their street shed. Another reason to not vote for Carlina Rivera, who promotes street dining. Allie Ryan opposes it.

Marilyn Stevenson

An amazing ride

To The Editor:

Re “Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, 56, of Tea & Sympathy” (obituary, June):

I met the family when they became my next-door neighbors in the building at the corner of 12th Street, close to their “little piece of Britain.”

When Audrey was very little, about 3 or 4, I was unexpectedly treated to the sight of Sean carrying her home along the street on his shoulders. This played out on one of those rare, gorgeous spring New York days when the air is sparkling, like a movie in the making.

Bigger than life, truly never shy, he took the opportunity to make a scene with her. Wearing a mischievous grin, he had somehow unseated her and she was draped upside down on his back as he took quick, long strides maneuvering down the block. He was acting reckless to tease her and his blue eyes twinkled. Little Audrey’s long, dark curls were bouncing. She had nothing to hold onto as she jostled along. Nothing to fear, though — she was a smart little girl. She was laughing and squealing because she could feel that her father had a firm grip on her.

I will miss him.

Sean’s ‘big love’

To The Editor:

Re “Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, 56, of Tea & Sympathy” (obituary, June):

Sean was like a big brother to me. A contractor did some totally incompetent work in my apartment and failed to deliver the marble countertop I had paid him $600 for. I went to Tea & Sympathy and told Sean, who was behind the counter. He told one of his men, “Take over the store for a bit,” and came to my apartment. He demanded the contractor show his license and insurance certificate and said, “If Elizabeth does not have her $600 back within 24 hours, I will see to it that you never work in the State of New York again.”

Needless to say, I got the money the next day. Sean was big and loving and comforting and it was a joy and delight to see him whenever I walked by Tea & Sympathy. And he always had something awful to say about Trump!

Liz Ryan

Parade memories

To The Editor:

Re “Ralph Lee, 87, G.V. Halloween Parade founder and original Westbether” (obituary, June):

I never knew the Halloween Parade originally started out from Jane Street. Great quote from Bob Holman! I remember my first Halloween in Greenwich Village. It was 1982 and I was encamped at the Waverly Hotel — then called the Hotel Earle — a fleabag overlooking Washington Square Park. From my corner window I could see and hear the parade. It was impossible to resist and I soon found myself down in the midst of it. A kind of beautiful, poetic madness! Thanks to the imagination of one artist!

Kathryn Adisman

H’ween spirit lives

To The Editor:

Re “Ralph Lee, 87, G.V. Halloween Parade founder and original Westbether” (obituary, June):

Thanks for this celebration of the life of an artist who is part of our Downtown history. I’m glad to see Crystal Field and George Bartenieff of Theater for the New City mentioned as instrumental to the Village Halloween Parade’s founding.

Theater for the New City’s annual Halloween Ball extends the Village Halloween Parade in its original form: There’s something for everyone, and everyone can get involved. Ralph Lee and TNC’s collaboration have made Halloween New York’s best holiday. Rest in peace and art, Ralph Lee.

Elizabeth Ruf

The Wegmans way

To The Editor:

Re “Wegmans to open Astor Place store this fall” (news article, June):

I have visited a few Wegmans supermarkets, and they are, yes, super — especially their customer service. As a friend of mine quipped, If you try to start trouble at Wegmans, you will fail! Wegmans will not let a customer leave their store unhappy or dissatisfied, even if Wegmans takes a loss, he says.

Alan Flacks

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.

Mary Grace Ezell

Another summer in Republican Land

BY KATE WALTER

It’s June at the Jersey Shore and it’s not a presidential election year. But the Republican residents are already out of their minds with anti-Biden sentiment. I had to laugh when a Greenwich Village writer friend asked me if I did code switching when I went back and forth from the West Village to Ocean County, New Jersey, during the summer.

many decades ago. When we first started coming down the shore in the 1950s, not that many people lived here year-round. But all that’s changed. Ocean County is now a mecca for retirees, with lots of over-55 communities.

During the election year of 2020, Trump flags far outnumbered the Biden flags. I hoped we might have a respite from overt political displays for at least another summer, but I was wrong. It’s starting and I need to brace myself.

No, I don’t do code switching and that’s why I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I was recently in Rite Aid in Lavallette, New Jersey, and I saw this older white guy wearing a sarcastic shirt with a litany of things he disliked about Joe Biden and his family. I couldn’t read everything on the shirt but I got the gist. So I walked up to him and said, “I love Joe Biden.” He and his wife seemed startled but he replied, “Good for you.” I shot back, “When you wear your opinion outwardly on your shirt, you’re going to hear mine.”

This is the one thing I hate about vacationing on this beautiful barrier island where my (now deceased) parents bought a bungalow in Ocean Beach

Actually, I just recalled an incident (more like an omen) from last summer when a newish homeowner on my block dispatched his grandkids outside to play with colored chalk. Kids do that all the time — they usually draw stick people or starfish — but these kids marked our road with pro-Trump graffiti! (Talk about grooming.) I was really pissed because this is also my street and the road in front of our houses is a public area. I was debating whether to say something and then it rained and the offensive words got washed away.

I don’t know how my liberal friends can stand living year-round in Ocean County, which incidentally has the lowest vaccination rate in New Jersey. My good friend, Ian, who has a charming apartment in Lavallette, makes a point of putting his American flag out on his porch every morning. He wants his neighbors to know that a gay man, and a Democrat, can also be patriotic.

My liberal brother also lives in Ocean County, although he’s not on the barrier island, where the summer residents bring an infusion of Democrats, like me. My brother says he just ignores the flags and signs, including the vulgar ones. That is probably a good idea. But his sister (me), who lives in Manhattan, can’t keep her mouth shut.

After I left Rite Aid, I went across the street to Playa Bowl to get a healthy breakfast. As I was leaving the store, I saw the Republican couple sitting on a bench. I got a much better look at the shirt, but I managed to restrain myself and I didn’t say anything. The shirt said something about Biden’s mental haze and Hunter doing blow. I had to laugh at that. At least Hunter is in recovery. Don Jr. seems to be stoned whenever he makes a video.

What’s intriguing to me is how people feel so free to do this in Ocean County. I guess they think it’s safe. I want to make them feel as uncomfortable as they make me feel. I admit I enjoy needling them. How dare they invade my happy place!

Yes, I discussed my outspoken behavior with my therapist back in 2020 and she told me to be careful. It’s risky. But I’m bold. Or am I foolish? And if this is what’s happening in 2023, I dread

to think what it will be like here in the summer of 2024. I may need some extra sessions.

But when it’s a beautiful day and I’m on the beach and swimming in the ocean, I can block these people out. I wish I could avoid Rite Aid but it’s the only drugstore in town. It’s an educational eye-opener for me to see what’s going on outside of my liberal bubble. And this is New Jersey, a blue state, where marijuana is legal. (Yay.) I refuse to even visit Florida.

But Lavallette wins points for its hip lesbian-owned coffee shop, Lava Java, which was flying a big rainbow flag during June. The cafe has great coffee, good food, reasonable prices and outdoor seating. Everyone eats there, even the cops. If only the rest of the town could be like Lava Java. Plus, a vegan take-out food and bakery opened in town last summer. Another good sign.

The day I was leaving, June 15, I walked up my street to say goodbye to the ocean until my next visit. That’s when I saw this car parked in the road. I gathered it belonged to a contractor who is building a house on my street. He had a magnet on his car — Trump 2024 — along with a pro-police flag and another conservative slogan.

I stopped and stared, not realizing the owner of the car was inside. As I walked past I turned and said, “Trump is going to jail.” That is when I saw the cult member, who did not look up from his phone. Yes, I’ve said this before, but this time I think I’m right.

As the song goes, “Summertime is on its way.” While it might not be “easy living every day,” I’m not going to let anyone ruin my Jersey Shore fun.

Walter is the author of the memoir “Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter.”

The writer relaxing in front of her bungalow at the Jersey Shore. Photos by Kate Walter

The Lava Java cafe — one of the cool places in Lavallette, N.J.

‘Trump is going to jail,’ I told the cult member.

Comings & Goings: French, Southern…Petco!

BY CAROLINE BENVENISTE

In June there was lots of activity on Bleecker and Christopher Streets. French and Italian spots continue to open, and more beer is coming to the area.

Top Openings:

Libertine — 684 Greenwich St., at Christopher Street

Libertine, a French bistro has opened in the former Gaetana’s space. It is a joint project from Cody Pruitt of Anfora and Executive Chef Max Mackinnon. The space has been meticulously renovated to make you think that you are in France: The menus are listed on ardoises (chalkboards), the bistro tables are imported from France, behind the bar is a vintage mirror, and French art and posters adorn the walls. Windows surround the dining room making it light and airy. The wine list is French and all natural, featuring wines from lesser-known regions (like the Jura), and impossible to understand without help — but that is not a problem since Cody Pruitt has an encyclopedic wine knowledge and is there to advise you. I had to try the Pastis Service, which is great if you like licorice-flavored spirits (I do), and a trou Normande (shot of Calvados) is just the thing to enjoy between courses. The French menu has some dishes not easily found here, like jambon persillé, which has a larger green area than the ones I’ve had in France, but which is delicious, nonetheless. The market-driven menu featured Gnocchi Parisienne, tiny little cylinders served with spring vegetables, the night we were there. The Lamb à la Moutarde was unexpected but delicious. A classic mousse au chocolat rounded out the meal nicely. The staff were preternaturally friendly, not something you see much in France.

Southern Charm — 523 Hudson St., between W. 10th and Charles Streets

Brian Cartenuto, owner and executive chef of Bird Dog, has opened a daytime eatery called Southern Charm. The main draw here are the biscuits that come plain or jalapeño-cheese flavored. These can be ordered as breakfast sandwiches with bacon, country ham or sausage and eggs and cheese. There is also a multicolored display of flavored butters. The biscuits are large, crumbly and delectable. The space is elegant (and for now tranquil), and on the walls, pictures of birds and bird dogs hang. In the evening the space can accommodate the overflow from Bird Dog, at 525 Hudson St.

Also Open:

Restaurants:

Honey Crepes recently opened at 400 E. 13th St. (at First Avenue). This tiny restaurant was started by an energetic Russian woman named Olga, who says the crêpes are really blinis, but not the yeast variety. The smell of butter pervades the space as the batter sizzles on the crêpe pan. In addition to the sweet and savory crêpes and coffee drinks, Olga sells hats which she knits herself. Every year a seasonal restaurant opens in Union Square, and this year Torch and Crown Brewing Company has opened a beer garden there. Their original location opened during the pandemic in the Hudson Square area. A couple of new vendors have taken up residence at Urbanspace Union Square (124 E. 14th St., at Irving Place): Lou Yau Kee promises “a taste of Singapore” and features Hainanese Chicken Rice, while Mysttik Masaala serves classic Indian food. Angel’s Share has reopened at 45 Grove St. (near Bleecker Street). The original location was a speakeasy, hidden behind a Japanese restaurant on Stuyvesant Street and was owned by Tony Yoshida who also owned a number of other businesses on the street. Now those are all closed, and his daughter Erina

Yoshida presides at the new Angel’s Share. Osteria Nonnino (637 Hudson St., at Horatio Street) occupies the corner spot on Hudson where Main Street on Hudson and then Sandbar on Hudson operated. It is the reboot of an Italian restaurant in Tribeca called L’Angolo. When their lease came up, they were unable to reach an agreement with their landlord, so they started looking elsewhere. So far, they are very happy with their new location and said that everyone has been very friendly and welcoming. Matchaful (87 Christopher St., near Bleecker Street), a female-founded “farm to whisk” matcha company with three New York City cafes, has opened a new location in the West Village.

Retail:

Petco has closed its location at 860 Broadway (at 17th Street), which had been there since 1996 and opened a new flagship at 44 Union Square East (at 17th Street). Those of us who were used to shopping at the old store will not recognize the new spot — it is shiny and fancy, and many of the products, such as pet apparel, appear more high-end. More details on the building can be found in the April 2022 Village Sun article “Petco to relocate to Tammany Hall building on Union Square East, open new pet hospital.” Set Active (365 Bleecker St., near Charles Street) sells activewear and sweats. Way Forward (330 Bleecker St., near Christopher Street) is “a genderless premium quality, casual wear brand” that sells lots of T-shirts and hoodies. The shop emphasizes its artistic side with the tag line: “We are not a Gallery, but we do make Art.”

Closed:

El Condor — (95 Greenwich Ave., between Bank and W. 12th Streets) has suddenly disappeared. The stylish coffee shop opened a little more than a year ago. Nicolas Simon, one of the owners, had a fine dining pedigree and worked for Alain Ducasse here and in Paris. The cafe had elegant decor, with lots of attention to detail. Coffee was roasted in the basement

using an electric roaster. El Condor seemed to be doing a lively business and it will be missed. A cannabis dispensary on Seventh Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets, next door to Blank Street Coffee is a casualty of Governor Hochul’s pledge to crack down on illegal pot shops. An official looking sign on the door reads: “This establishment has been closed for operating illegally”. A few days ago, on the governor.ny.gov Web site, Hochul gave the following update: “Under new powers that I fought for in this year’s State budget, we can now conduct enforcement against businesses illegally selling cannabis.” Serafina to Go at 402 Sixth Ave. (at W. Eighth Street) had a sign in the window saying it was temporarily closed. That location is no longer listed on the Web site, and now a new sign in the window announces that Pizzeria Farinella (which is part of the Serafina group) is coming soon. There are still plans for a Serafina To Go to open at 110 University Place (between 12th and 13th Streets).

Coming Soon:

The large space that used to house Sammy’s Noodle Shop and a small Asian gift shop (453 Sixth Ave., between 10th and 11th Streets) has been empty since May 2020. Last October, the owners of Osteria 57 and Alice submitted a liquor license application to Community Board 2 for the space. They described the project as a “multi concept store that will include different functionalities… The store will operate during the day as a café (serving breakfast and lunch) and then evolve as a wine bar/gourmet pizzeria during the evening hours and weekends.” The first phase of this venture will be Pamina Dolci e Gelato and is slated to open on July 15. For more details see Karen Rempel’s article in The Village Sun “Gelato place Pamina is first course of new fare at former Sammy’s Noodles Space.” According to its Instagram, Cecchi’s will be opening on July 1 in the old Café Loup space (105 W. 13th St., between Sixth and Seventh Avenues). It’s named after the owner, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, and is described as “A modern take on the classic New York bar & grill.” Talea Beer Company West Village (100 Christopher St., between Bleecker and Bedford Streets) is coming to the space where Rag & Bone used to be. The sign on the windows says, “Female Founded, Totally Different, Easy to Love.” Signage is up for Sushi Counter at 119 Christopher St. (east of Bedford Street). Mama’s Too, one of the two well-regarded pizza spots coming to the West Village should be opening this summer on Christopher Street between Bleecker and Grove Streets. I finally made it to the Uptown location and was a bit underwhelmed, but I am still looking forward to trying this one out. Nisolo (380 Bleecker St., between Perry and Charles Streets) is a shoe store with three other locations on the East Coast. Like many Bleecker Street businesses, it stresses sustainability.

Moved/Moving:

According to Yimby NYC, the two structures at 18 and 20 Christopher Street (between Gay Street and Waverly Place) have been issued an order to vacate by the Department of Buildings because “the floor is not safe.” As a result, Delice and Sarrasin, a vegan crêpe spot, has relocated from 20 Christopher St. to 178 W. Houston St. (entrance on Bedford Street), while John Derian West, a home-goods store, has for now abandoned its 18 Christopher St. location, and encourages customers to patronize its flagship at 6 E. Second St. (between Second Avenue and the Bowery).

Keep writing to us at vsuncandg@gmail.com. We love hearing from you!

The stylish interior of the new Union Square Petco. Photos by Caroline Benveniste

A savory biscuit breakfast sandwich at Southern Charm.

enne at Libertine

A timely focus on MPD’s former queer scene

BY KASEY NOSS

Alarge crowd gathered on June 22 outside 401, a new concept space in the heart of the Meatpacking District. It’s only a couple storefronts down from an Apple Store and right across the street from Gucci, Lululemon and Fjallraven, just to name a few. The crowd, however, wasn’t there for those.

Instead, people had come to celebrate a new exhibition honoring an era that defined the district long before high-end stores ever looked its way. As activist and producer Tim Hayes put it, “There were more lesbian bars within a four-block radius of where we’re standing 30 years ago than there are in all of New York right now.”

“A District Defined: Streets, Sex, and Survival” spotlights the Meatpacking District’s “rich history of queer nightlife” in the late 1980s and ’90s. The exhibition, which will run for three weeks through July 9, is a joint effort of the Meatpacking District business improvement district (BID), the American LGBTQ+ Museum and Hayes, who is based in New York City.

“Showcasing the district’s history is a privilege, and provides an educational opportunity for the neighborhood today,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, the BID’s executive director, in a statement. “We’re happy

with the result as this exhibition is an authentic showing of a community that belonged and still belongs here.”

The exhibition showcases dozens of never-before-seen works from eight artists who captured the area’s electrifying essence in the last decades of the 20th century. Among them are Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario, who spent six months photographing trans women sex workers both on and off the job; and Brooklyn-born documentary photographer Joseph Rodriguez, a former taxi driver who photographed all types of passengers on the way home from The Anvil, The Vault and any other of the numerous gay bars and nightclubs that dotted the former meat lockers and warehouses of the former active meat market. (The show features a snapshot of Queen’s Freddie Mercury sporting a Mineshaft T-shirt.)

During this period, the Meatpacking District became a home for L.G.B.T.Q.+ individuals who “didn’t really have a place to stay except this area,” explained portrait photographer Katsu Naito, another artist featured in the exhibition.

“There were a lot of people who came to the Meatpacking District in the ’80s and ’90s who didn’t find community or feel safe anywhere else, and here’s where they found

their friends and other people who felt like them, and played like them, and acted like them,” Hayes said. “That doesn’t exist anymore, and so we wanted to shine a light on it, and remember it, because otherwise people would just forget that it happened.”

The exhibition comes at a time when homophobia and transphobia are on the rise in the United States, with 491 bills targeting L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights passed or proposed this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

It’s a development that, for Hayes, makes the “survival” portion of the exhibition’s title particularly poignant.

“Survival was a very big part of it then, and I thought we were through that,” he said. “Now, survival has become something that a lot of this community needs to do again.”

Naito hopes the display will make it easier for members of the trans community to be accepted by a society from which they have historically been marginalized.

“Hopefully, it’s going to be easier for them to live in the future,” he said.

That optimistic spirit was present at the festive opening, where the featured artists, patrons and subjects of some of the photographs themselves sipped specialty cocktails (sponsored by Supergay Spir-

its, of course) and mingled jovially while Rhianna’s “Diamonds” blared in the background.

“It’s just really an honor to be able to celebrate and highlight the people that literally walked the streets and created the foundation that we’re able to build on today,” said Tiffany Griffin, director of marketing, events and partnerships for the Meatpacking District BID.

LeFrancois described the exhibition as a “textbook example of art as economic development.” To that end, the Meatpacking BID has teamed up with local DJs, entertainers and the district’s own Terremoto Coffee, which will operate a daily coffee bar in 401 so patrons can sip while they survey the gallery. In the evenings, 401 will offer drinks and happy-hour programming, including artist talks, panels and live music.

“We’re really excited to see what we learn from this and how we can continue to grow,” LeFrancois said.

“A District Defined: Streets, Sex, and Survival” is on view Sunday through Wednesday from noon to 9 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from noon to 10 p.m., at 401, at 401 W. 14th St., at Ninth Avenue, through July 9. For a complete schedule of performances and programming, visit meatpacking-district. com/programming-at-401-2.

“Josie on Gansevoort Street,” 1995.

Photo by Katsuo Naito

Untitled, September 1991.

Photo by Catherine McGann

“Trafalgar Square,” 1989.

Photo by Lola Flash “Lighting Up.”

Photo by Jill Freedman

Musicians rally to save Rockwood Music Hall

BY EVERYNIGHT CHARLEY CRESPO

Sara Bareilles is leading an effort to help prevent Rockwood Music Hall from closing. On June 30, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter headlined the first in a series of benefit concerts over the summer at the independently operated music venue. Chris Thile and Michael Daves, Amy Helm, Elle King, Ingrid Michaelson and the Lone Bellow also will headline benefit concerts at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 2.

“In 2007, I played one of the first shows of my career at Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side, a venue that then and now represents the grit and determination of New York’s aspiring musical community,” Bareilles said in a statement posted on the venue’s Web site. “At that point, I had only ever played ONE show in New York. I was green and scared. I knew I loved playing music for people, but New York was the Big Leagues and I wanted to prove myself, even if I didn’t know who that was yet. So I pretended, and of course panicked that no one would come.

“Thankfully, people came. Not hundreds of people, but enough people came for me to get to play there again. And a few more people came. And I got to play again. And again. And that is the whole precious gift of a place like this. Nurturing a relationship with the community, and more importantly with myself. I genuinely believe that for emerging and developing artists, sacred places like this are the heartbeat and lifeline of the New York music scene. Who else is finding themselves on those stages?

“My Rockwood story is not unique — despite its small stages and humble footprint, Rockwood has hosted an almost mythical list of first or very early shows by some of the world’s now best-known artists. Amos Lee in 2005, Lady Gaga in 2006, Jon Batiste in 2010, and in the decade that followed, Elle King, Gary Clark Jr., Rachel Platten, Lucius, Lewis Capaldi — the list goes on and on. Every one of these people walked onto the Rockwood stage with a dream, and walked out one step closer to the world hearing their songs.

“Now, like many small, independent music venues across the country, Rockwood is struggling to emerge from massive financial burdens imposed by the Covid pandemic. Interest on loans secured to keep the doors open in recent years is compounding already sky-high Lower Manhattan rents, and without the support of artists and the music community at large, Rockwood will soon permanently close. This would be a devastating loss to the vibrancy of the New York music scene.

“I am hoping we can come together and try and give back a fraction of what has been given to us over the years by our beloved Ken Rockwood and the community he built.”

Rockwood Music Hall, which opened at 196 Allen St. in 2005, helped launch the careers of Lady Gaga, Jon Batiste, Gary Clark Jr., Lewis Capaldi and others. For much of its 18 years, Rockwood Music Hall operated three adjacent music venues simultaneously, two venues on Allen Street and one on Orchard Street. Stage 1, the smallest of the venues, continues to have robust programming of folk, jazz, pop, punk and rock musicians. The larger Stage 2 never completely recovered from its pandemic closure, and has seen a diminishing number of bookings in recent months. Stage 3 closed permanently about a month ago.

“Over the past 18 years, Rockwood has hosted over 75,000 shows on its three stages, helping to launch and develop the careers of thousands of artists,” reads the announcement on the venue’s Web site. “It has also been the site of hundreds of appearances by Grammy, Tony and American Music Award winners. Along the way, Rockwood has become an iconic NYC cultural institution and a foundational part of America’s independent music scene. In an era where live music is dominated by corporate interests, venues like Rockwood — which focus on new and emerging artists — have become increasingly rare.”

The Web site says that unless Rockwood receives immediate help, it is in danger of closing permanently. The statement continues its plea for support:

“Like many small, independent music venues across the country, Rockwood is struggling

to stay open. Without the support of artists, the music community and fans of music, Rockwood is in danger of permanently closing, shutting off a vital place for independent and up-and-coming musicians to develop their artistry and give fans the opportunity to discover new music in a live setting.

“We can still save Rockwood! By rallying together, we can help preserve Rockwood as a vital cultural institution, combat corporate influence on live music, and support the independent music scene in New York City.”

The venue’s Web site proposes three ways the public can help save Rockwood Music Hall:

1. Contribute to the “Preserve Rockwood” GoFundMe campaign at gofundme.com/f/ preserve-rockwood. As of this writing, 526 donations totaling $50,675 were made toward

the $250,000 target.

2. Attend the Preserve Rockwood Benefit Concert Series. All proceeds from the concerts will be donated to Rockwood Music Hall. Tickets are on sale for concerts by Chris Thile & Michael Daves (July 1), Amy Helm (July 6), Isabel Hagen (July 10), Ingrid Michaelson & Friends (July 20), Elle King (July 31) and the Lone Bellow (Aug. 10). Additional benefit concert announcements are forthcoming. The venue’s Web site invites musicians who have played at the venue in the past to be a part of the benefit concert series in July.

3. Share the Preserve Rockwood campaign on social media. The venue’s Web site offers graphics and other creative assets.

Crespo covers New York City’s live music scene on his The Manhattan Beat blog.

Pamina gelato leads new fare on 6th Ave. strip

BY KAREN REMPEL

We’ve all been wondering what is going to replace the Sixth Avenue institution Sammy’s Noodle House, which closed at the beginning of the pandemic due to an impossible rent increase.

It’s taken a few years, but the team behind the West Village restaurants Alice and Osteria 57 are ready to debut the first chapter of their new project: Pamina Dolci e Gelato — a gelateria and dessert shop at the corner of Sixth Avenue and W. 11th Street, in the heart of Greenwich Village.

Pamina will open on July 15 on what hopefully will be a perfect summer Saturday for cool sweet treats.

Pamina will serve artisanal Italian-style gelato following the philosophy of the group: using only natural ingredients that you can pronounce and dairy ingredients sourced from local farms. The gelato creations, which will include some plant-based and vegan options, as well, will be more than just “flavors”: The group has developed special recipes for each gelato, sure to surprise and delight us all.

Pamina is the first of several offerings that the group will open in this space. You may have seen the sign going up for Travelers Poets & Friends. More wonderful surprises are in store.

Pamina, a new gelato place, is opening in mid-July on the Sixth Avenue strip at W. 11th Street.

Abbie Roper at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1 on June 23.

Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1, left, and Stage 2, right. Photos by Everynight Charley Crespo

Rocker Jesse Malin recovering after spinal stroke

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

Jesse Malin, the punk rock godfather of the East Village, recently shockingly revealed that he suffered a rare spinal infarction — a.k.a. a spinal stroke — that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Malin, who owns Niagara bar and the Bowery Electric live music club, has been a professional musician since age 12. He sprung to fame in the 1980s with the hardcore band Heart Attack, followed by his glam punk band D Generation (“No Way Out”) in the 1990s.

Rolling Stone reported that Malin was at a party at an Italian restaurant on May 4 when he suddenly felt a burning pain in his lower back that traveled down to his heels, and he collapsed onto the floor and could no longer use his legs.

“Everybody was standing above me like in ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ saying all these different things, and I was there not knowing what was going on with my body,” Malin said.

He was rushed Uptown to Mount Sinai Hospital. During two weeks at the hospital, he underwent a number of spinal procedures.

As of June 14, he had been transferred to a New York University medical rehab facility where he was learning to function without use of his legs. He was expected to be discharged later in June, after which he will need to move from his walk-up apartment to a handicap-accessible building with an elevator.

“This is the hardest six weeks that I’ve ever had,” he told the magazine. “I’m told that they don’t really understand it, and they’re not sure

of the chances. The reports from the doctors have been tough, and there’s moments in the day where you want to cry, and where you’re scared. But I keep saying to myself that I can make this happen. I can recover my body.”

Spinal strokes account for only around 1 percent of all strokes.

Just a little more than a month before Malin was laid low, he had headlined a sold-out show at Webster Hall to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his debut solo album, “The Fine Art of Self Destruction.” Among fellow rockers joining him onstage were Lucinda Williams, Butch Walker, Tommy Stinson of the Replacements, Cait O’Riordan of the Pogues and Catherine Popper of Puss n Boots.

In addition to the cost of relocating, Malin is also now facing mounting costs for longterm care and outpatient rehab. His manager and friends have created a fundraiser for him to accept tax-deducible donations through the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund.

“Jesse is under neurological care at Langone Orthopedic Center at NYU Hospital,” the Sweet Relief page says. “His diagnosis is inoperable. There is hope but it will be a long hard road using both traditional and alternative medical therapies to get him back on his feet following this very tragic diagnosis. Jesse is going through so much physically and emotionally. His insurance is good but it will not cover many of his expenses beyond acute care. Your donation can help relieve him of the added pressures associated with the enormous expense of his immediate and long-term care.

N.A.C. reelects Doty prez, plans $3.3M facade rehab

BY THE VILLAGE SUN

David Doty has been unanimously reelected president of the National Art Club’s board of governors.

A member of the Gramercy Park South club since 2006, Doty began his first term in May 2022. Since then, the N.A.C. welcomed 30,000 members of the public for art exhibits, lectures and theatrical, musical and dance performances. Membership also increased by 20 percent during the year, bringing more energy to the club and its volunteer committees that produce its calendar of events.

Doty has led an effort to invigorate the club’s mission of educating the public on the arts, as well as to renovate and preserve the historic Tilden Mansion. Housing the club since 1906, the Tilden Mansion includes two 1845 town houses given a singular facade by Calvert Vaux in the 1880s, in the Aesthetic Movement style.

Last month, the New York State Council on the Arts awarded a capital grant to the N.A.C. of more than $1 million to preserve and repair the building’s facade of brownstone and granite and ornamental detail. This follows a capital grant, for the same purpose, that

the N.A.C. received in 2022 for $600,000 from the New York City Parks Department.

In addition, to mark the club’s 125th anniversary, a series of educational, artistic and entertaining events will recall the club’s past and look to its future, including a fundraising gala this fall on Oct. 12. Doty, the board and members envision a campaign to meet the grants’ matching requirements — bringing the total to $3.24 million — all to be used to rejuvenate the landmark.

“For 125 years the National Arts Club has been devoted to bringing the arts to the public at large, and free of charge, and I am honored to advance its remarkable history and deliver on its mission to inform and inspire,” Doty said. “Now that New York State and New York City have joined our generous corporate and individual partners, we can give the front of the magnificent Tilden Mansion on Gramercy Park the renovation that it deserves, so it can continue to serve as a vibrant hub for art and culture, for this and future generations. I am confident that we will be able to ensure that the National Arts Club will be an even-more important institution championing the arts and letters for the next 125 years.”

“Anyone who knows Jesse,” the fundraiser page adds, “will tell you he is always the one who gives, the one always there for those in need, as evidenced by his work with various charity efforts. Among them: Sweet Relief, MusiCares, Light of Day Foundation, Joe Strummer Foundation, Save Our Stages, Joey Ramone Foundation for Lymphoma Research, Joey’s Song, Black Lives Matter, Howl Helps, Positive Panther Benefit (Natalie Beaverstock/fan for a wheelchair), Rock The Night Foundation, Rock Against Racism, Jail Guitar Doors, The Bowery Mission, Road 2 Recovery Foundation, Little Kids Rock Foundation, and food banks around New York City.”

Malin told Rolling Stone he has mixed feelings about receiving help.

“I always felt that we have a voice with these microphones and with these guitars and with these venues to help each other out,” Malin said. “But it’s very hard for me to take back and be that person. I don’t want to be a burden, but I’m learning. Just laying here and not being able to walk, it’s very humbling.”

The community group Bowery Alliance of Neighbors posted a notice about Malin online, noting his Bowery Electric club, at 327 Bowery, “helps keep alive the spirit of CBGB.”

“A friend tells us Jesse is facing matters with a ferocious fighting spirit, but like anyone facing such a challenge, we’re sure he would welcome well wishes,” BAN’s note says, adding cards can be sent to:

BOWERY ELECTRIC 327 Bowery

New York, NY 10003

Attn: Jesse Malin

Jesse Malin performing in May 2021. Photo by Everynight Charley Crespo

Billy, Jane, Katinka, India and all that jazz

BY ALEX EBRAHIMI

Ever gone down Ninth Street feeling bad? Veselka’s line pouring out onto your feet. Conversation pouring out into your ears: “A bowl of borscht for Ukraine? But pancakes sound divine!”

Ever crossed the street? To hear Billy Lyles sing the blues. To see what Jane Williams brought back from India. Ever wondered what “Katinka” means?

“An Airedale,” Billy told me as he swept up the storefront before opening.

“A what?” I asked.

“You know, the kind of dog Teddy Roosevelt had?” he said, switching brooms for the one he uses to sweep up the curb.

“Well, I know he liked dogs.”

“An Airedale’s a terrier, man. Beautiful dog. Jane always had that dog. Named Kate. Short for Katinka.”

Then setting down the broom with the other brooms by the trash cans outside. He let me know one last time before letting me inside the place: “It was a dog with papers, man! Now, follow me.”

Opening the door. Wind chimes sort of crooning. Bobby Sanabria on drums on the radio. There wasn’t much room to maneuver. But there was much to see on my part. And much to do on Billy’s.

“Man, it goes like this…,” he said as he picked up a box full of merchandise labeled $5.

“This is all Jane. I’m just the gatekeeper, see? That’s what I do.”

He shuffled back out the door with the $5 box. I followed him.

“Jane used to make things and sell them to Bloomingdales, Macy’s. Back then you could do that.”

“Her original designs?” I asked as he propped the $5 box against a neighboring stoop.

“Yeah, but what happened is…that was one thing. Then when she went to India, you get to work with the women and the fabrics and the colors and everything.”

He shuffled back inside, this time bringing out a chair faster than I could follow him.

“That way, rather than to be called just a designer…”

“She’s a teacher,” I said as he seemed ready to shuffle back inside again.

“A teacher and a…”

He meditated for a beat. Standing at the threshold.

“…ethno…,” reaching inside for another box labeled $10, “costume…,” bringing it out, “…ologist.”

Setting it on the chair he already brought out.

“You know what I mean?”

“Well…when’s she getting back?” I asked.

Before he could answer, the first customer of the 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. day came by. A self-proclaimed “walking advertisement.” Said she’s been coming by since back when the $5 box was the $3 box. The early days of Billy and Jane’s Katinka.

But the early days of Billy and Jane go back to a shop before Katinka.

“I think it was called Katinka, too,” Billy said.

Also on East Ninth. Also Jane’s designs. But no gatekeeper. Then in 1971: “I always stopped by and said hello and everything.”

Then in 1973, on Bastille Day in an old neighborhood place called “The Frog Pond,” Jane saw Billy again. Walking back and forth a few times till she got his attention.

She thanked Billy, thanked Jane: “You know, Jane inspired me to go to India.”

“Good, good,” he said. “She’s there now.”

“Beautiful. Where?” she said, taking the mirror.

“Delhi. She’s in Delhi.”

“Beautiful,” she said, seeing how the earrings looked in the mirror.

“She’ll be back on…the 6th or the 7th.”

“You know, I’ve never seen you play.”

about “to study something.” The music goes way back home to the canon-booming backyard of Fort Pickett, Virginia. He was a 6-year-old country boy calling up june bugs under an oak tree while his grandmother tended the garden and his grandfather plowed the field.

“I was pretty smart,” Billy recalled. “I knew what I wanted to do. There was a lady, Miss Coleman. She used to play piano in the church. I knew I wanted to study with her.”

But he also knew that his grandmother had to go a long way to get up and down the road to church every Sunday.

“Not like we did when we went to the country store. We had to do that. But we couldn’t walk to Miss Coleman’s house.”

There was Miss Coleman in the country, Art Taylor in Paris, Lawrence Wheatley in D.C., and eventually Pharaoh Sanders in New York, and in ’69, he picked up a certain book called “On the Road.”

“I read it and I thought, man, I had to see that.”

The car he drove was a Nash Rambler. The destination was San Francisco. Freedom was on his mind. Searching was on the road. Singing and playing guitar everywhere he went. All through Indiana. All through Nebraska. Stopping in Boulder.

“That car wasn’t gonna go over them mountains. Just wasn’t gonna do that.”

Driving around and going across the Salt Flats. Coming down through Reno. Down through the Sierras. And by the time he arrived in ’69, he said, “Haight-Ashbury was a ghost town. I mean there was curtains flying out the windows.”

He should’ve known in San Francisco what he knew in Paris: “I belong in New York. Right here. I came here to do what I’m doing. To find my niche.”

“And the rest is history.”

But by ’73, Jane’s first Katinka was history, too. She hustled her designs around. And side-hustled by doing alterations around town. Billy hustled over between Lafayette Street and Broadway. Dressed in an Indian outfit and busking with a flute. Hustling enough money for a can of tuna and spaghetti for dinner for the two of them. Katinka, the second, didn’t open till ’79. Katinka, the dog, lived to 14 years.

“We were real tight, me and that dog.”

Then the second customer of the day came by. A dancer with a band playing on 10th Street later in the evening. In the meantime, as the rest of the band eyed the menu at Veselka, she was eyeing the earrings at Katinka. She picked out a couple. Billy handed her a mirror.

That’s because, as he told me, he plays when he feels like it. Just like the hours of the shop. It’s the kind of freedom he found when he first landed in New York back in the early ’70s. The freedom he first witnessed when he landed in Paris after serving in the Army, stationed in Germany back in the late ’50s.

Washing dishes at Gabby and Haynes in Montmartre, he witnessed the revolving door of Black expatriates. Many of them musicians. Many of them from New York. But one night hanging out in the Left Bank, it was what Art Taylor witnessed in Billy Lyles that changed everything.

“Art Taylor saw me struggling. He’s a hepcat. I mean, he could see.”

Taylor told him to go home. To study something. That’s what he did. And that’s when the searching started. First back in Washington, D.C., when he met “The Bard,” as Lawrence Wheatley called himself.

But Lawrence Wheatley wasn’t where the music started — just the part Taylor mentioned

And Jane. And the pandemic all these years later didn’t just threaten that toolshed between two buildings they converted into Katinka back in ’79. The world locked down just after one of Jane’s trips to India. She couldn’t return for five months. They talked on the phone every day.

“It goes like this…,” he said as he picked up a handy container of bird seeds. “I’m 81 years old now. It’s costing a whole lot more than it should. But if I had to do something else…,” he said, tossing the seeds from the shop’s wind-chiming threshold to the pigeons chiming in the gutter. “I’d probably find a wholesale district for flowers and sell flowers. Ain’t a bad business, if you know how to do it.”

“The flower business?” I asked as he tossed the last of the seeds.

“Damn right. But who knows?” he said, stepping back inside. “Maybe lightning will strike. You take care of today and tomorrow will take care of itself,” he said, as he sat down. He patted down the creases in the shirt he was wearing, which was made by Jane.

“Something good’s gonna happen. I don’t know what. But it’s gonna happen. It’s coming.”

“Jane’s coming back soon,” I said.

“Well, that’s always good,” he smiled.

Billy Lyles at Katinka, showing his photo in the Third Street Music School’s calendar.

Photo by Alex Ebrahimi

‘Art Taylor’s a hepcat. I mean, he could see.’

At ‘Will & Grace’ event, bug was a ‘pod’ of it

As part of the Tribeca Film Festival, cast members of “Will & Grace” premiered their new podcast, “Just Jack & Will,” with a live recording at the SVA Theatre on W. 23rd Street on June 12.

But before the stars graced the red carpet — a beetle horned in on the action. Festival staffers tried to scoop up the critter with their passes, Sean Hayes’s name card, anything they could find. Eric McCormack then grabbed his co-star’s name card and had some fun with it, cracking everyone up. Also joining them was, of course, Debra Messing.

The show, which ran from 1998 to 2006 on NBC, followed the relationship of Will Truman (McCormack), a gay lawyer, and his friend, Grace Adler (Messing), who owns an interior design firm. Joe Biden, when he was vice president, remarked that “Will & Grace” “probably did more to educate the American public [about L.G.B.T. issues] than almost anything anybody has ever done so far.”

Photos by Milo Hess

Karen’s Quirky Style: Wigs plus Tina

BY KAREN REMPEL

With the passing of Tina Turner on May 24 to a place that surely awaits the world’s most beloved entertainers, July’s column is brimming with celebration and sadness.

Tina has always been there, an inspirational woman that shows you can beat a bad situation by using your talent, energy and perseverance to overcome the immense forces that make it hard for a woman to get ahead on her own. I saw Tina portray kick-ass, powerful women in movie roles, like the post-apocalyptic, tougherthan-a-rocket-launcher ruler in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”

But her own story is even more remarkable, as we all know: her early success with Ike, the abuse, her breaking away, and the incredible struggle it took for her to reemerge as the Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll in the early years of MTV with her killer multiplatinum 1984 album, “Private Dancer.” Her music videos “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (filmed by the Brooklyn Bridge) and “You Better Be Good to Me” created an indelible impression of how a woman can be both tough and sexy, call her own shots, and have fun with life.

The New York Times obituary said Tina Turner held the world record in 2000 for the most tickets ever sold by a solo per-

former! She achieved many firsts, awards and tremendous accomplishments, and her energy was beyond compare. She performed with an aliveness and joy that ignited these feelings in other people. An electrifying dancer and singer, Tina had a talent for choosing songs that people would relate to and like to sing along with. But I think it was her incredible triumph over so many challenges that made people love her so much. Knowing her personal story made people feel they knew her and she knew them too. In concert in Amsterdam in 1996 she asked the audience, “Do you love me?” The roar was “YES!” and she said, “I love you, too.” She had the remarkable ability to connect so that people felt the shine of her glory in themselves and the whole audience rode on a wave of collective love.

But how to celebrate the incomparable Ms. Tina Turner? The first thing I thought was, “I’m going to wear my Tina Turner wig!” Since Tina wasn’t known to hang out in our ’hood, I thought the best place to go to celebrate her spirit would be Wigs and Plus, at 37 W. 14th St., where I purchased said wig.

Maybe you’ve walked by Wigs and Plus (WAP) a zillion times and never gone in, but you like to make sure it’s still there — it’s reassuring that the 32-year-old business is still available to provide all manner of women’s beauty aids. As they say on their

Web site, “We’ve succeeded in meeting our clients’ beauty and fashion needs for over 30 years, including those who are going through chemotherapy and experiencing hair loss. We are THE one-stop shop for fashionable hair pieces, extensions and accessories during Fashion Week, Wigstock and Halloween!”

I’ve worn nine wigs in my columns. Plus colored my own hair every shade you can think of. So let’s just say, I’m a fan of WAP. They really do have the Plus — specialty hair products, makeup, nail polish. If you live in the ’hood and you’ve never been in, consider it your personal duty to go in there and buy something. But first, head to the back and be gob-smacked by the wigs!

I had the motivation, the wig, the venue. But when we arrived at WAP on a hot June Saturday afternoon, I had nothin’. After all the prep, I couldn’t feel Tina in my soul. I felt like a stick. Amy bought some shampoo and Phil and I tried a few shots to check the lighting, but I just couldn’t feel the power of Tina. Then Phil pulled up a song on his phone, Tina’s “You’re Simply the Best.” I held his phone to my ear, and started dancing and singing along on the sidewalk, and there she was, shaking my fringes and bringing bliss into my heart. Blessings, Tina. I know you’re feeling bliss out there somewhere.

Style notes:

• Tina Turner wig, Lacey Costume Wig of New York Collection; Wigs and Plus, 37 W. 14th St.

• Moflora black, fringed, backless minidress with spaghetti straps; Amazon.

• Electric-blue Pleaser Adore sparkly 7-inch platform booties; Hustler Hollywood, 41 W. Eighth St.

Rempel is a New-York based writer and artist. For more about Tina Turner and more Philip Maier photos, see karenqs.nyc.

West Village model Karen Rempel feels the spirit of Tina Turner in front of Wigs and Plus on W. 14th Street. Photo by Philip Maier

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The ’hood for what the hell happens

BY BILL TALEN

Something is happening with the Earth and we don’t know what it is.

We can’t capture the horror of a 3-milewide tornado. When a person who has lost everything is asked by some news yahoo with a haircut, “Describe what you are feeling now,” these wrong words hang in the air. The victim stands there expressionless, in silence.

At the Earth Church, we have a song, “Beautiful Earth,” and when we sing it we are asking the Earth for a way to understand what is happening with this disastrous crisis.

“Beautiful Earth what do you have to say? / Fire and Flood, Virus and Death / Earth won’t you please translate?”

Now when I think of the East Village, and ask who are the translators of the Death and Life of Great Earth Disasters, I think right away of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Charlie Parker, Bimbo Rivas, and then the translators of complete mystery just pour out of my mind: Alecia Torres, Adam Purple, Dana Beal, Abbie Hoffman, Lucy Sante, Ellen Stewart, Helen Levitt, Liz Christy, B&H Dairy, Yoko Ono, W. H. Auden, Jack Terricloth, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tuli Kupferberg, James Waring, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver and Holly Hughes, Nico, Peter Cramer, Jack Waters, Kate Millett, Remy Charlit, Deborah Harry, Richard Foreman, Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, the staff at Lucky Cheng’s, Penny Arcade, Jim Power, Keith Haring, Yoshiko Chuma, Eileen Myles, Miguel Pinero...

...all the lives that we remember, practically everyone who carries messages that mean something that you take through the years with you… lived around here or came through these streets.

Back to this question. The Earth’s crisis is overwhelming us with its glorious convulsions. And we need the extreme consciousnesses like Lady Pink or JM Basquiat or X Pitts or Grant James Varjas to be able to un-

derstand this physical revolution. To explain it, at least to run parallel to it. It’s like the Earth is the most avant garde artist of all, killing simultaneously the old garde and the future garde with disorienting confections of new DNA.

You couldn’t make this up. On the other hand, we can’t describe it even when it actually happens. Waterfalls straight out of the sky in California from jetstreams tossing and turning... the 5,000-mile-wide, flesh-eating seaweed blob floating into 50 million tourists in Florida... the glaciers around Mount Everest melting and a third of Pakistan disappears. And what about that smoky day two Wednesdays ago? You could do a Fran Benitez-style rubbing in the air in the middle of Second Avenue.

I think of the East Village as a 12-runway intersection that collides many imaginations over decades and decades, which leaves archaeology in the dirty air. Striations of whimsy mixed with rocket science mixed with unexpected sex mixed with a thousand little synagogues… Something is

happening here but we don’t know what it is, but if it makes sense anywhere, it’s got to be here...

Lots of us arrived in the Village with the idea that “I can be myself here” or “I can be as strange as I actually am — here — and I might be somebody someday even just keeping up my native strangeness as I am because that’s what this place wants… .” And I still believe that, do you? So let’s welcome Gaia, the arriviste extraordinaire.

We have the sensation that so much is happening and we don’t know what it is. The Earth is acting like an unrepentant artist. Like Reza Abdoh or Samuel R. Delany or Kathy Acker. We’re in the Apocalypse’s growth spurt, where scores of tipping points are tipping scores of tipping points. Well, does anyone understand what I’m trying to say? This is my deadline. Let me conclude by saying... To be continued. Until it isn’t.

Talen a.k.a. Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Choir perform Sundays at 3 p.m. at the Earth Church, at 36 Avenue C, at E. Third Street, in the East Village.

Sphere one day and gone the next…

BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Titled “13 Moons,” an art in stallation by the Peruvian artist Jaime Miranda-Bambarén has been on display throughout Thomas Paine Park, north of Foley Square, since late last summer. On June 28 workers removed the 13 giant spheres by loading them onto flatbed trucks.

Each massive ball was carved from the roots of eucalyptus trees and weighs anywhere from 1 to more than 5 tons. One worker was overheard saying one of them had just been sold for $95,000. That could not be immediately confirmed.

The installation was part of the city’s “Art in the Park” program.

Bill Talen a.k.a. Reverend Billy.

Photos by © Jefferson Siegel

L.G.B.T.Q+ Big Apple Softball League is a hit

BY ANASTASIA KALIABAKOS

S ocial communities are extremely important to the functioning of society. We saw that most clearly during the pandemic, where people from all over the country and world found themselves seeking out creative and unprecedented ways to connect with others. Strong, close-knit, small social groups can connect to one another through shared experiences. An example of this community-based bonding can be found in the Big Apple Softball League, or BASL.

BASL was formed as a safe space for members of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community, along with allies, to come together in friendship and fellowship. This unique softball league offers a discrimination-free environment where all ages, races, sexual orientations and nationalities are welcome to participate and have fun.

The idea of a New York City gay softball league came to fruition in 1976 through the hard work of several men and activists — Chuck Dina, Rich Diaz, Mike Cary and Fred Howell to name a few. Back then, outreach efforts were very different from today. Without social media, the men took to the streets and bars of New York City, hanging handmade posters to garner the support and attention of fellow New Yorkers. Ultimately, they raised enough interest to form a 12-team league to start playing in the 1977 softball season. They were initially called the Metropolitan Community Athletic Association.

While the fledgling league may have, to outsiders, simply been just another bunch of softball players, M.C.A.A. served a deeper purpose — it provided a secure environment for gay athletes to get to know one another. At the time, most places where L.G.B.T.Q.+ people could meet were bars and clubs, which, while fun and exciting, were anything but laid-back. Softball allowed true bonds of friendship to form among queer New Yorkers and was so successful that similar gay sports teams began in volleyball, bowling and even pool.

In 1980, the M.C.A.A. softball league broke away from the larger Manhattan Community Athletic Association of New York to form the Big Apple Softball League (BASL). By doing so, the league was able to offer more events for members to meet each other, both on and off the field.

More than four decades later, the Big Apple Softball League has boomed in popularity. In 2009, the league introduced the Women’s Division, which has also seen growth and success. Altogether, BASL now has more than 600 members total on 30 different teams. It has also grown from using just one field to more than 12 fields across the city.

Robert Hanley, who has been a part of the BASL community since the ’80s, strongly believes in the mission and success of this softball league.

“Being on the Cyclones, a BASL team, has been an extremely important part of my

life,” he said. “I have had the opportunity to make so many friends and to meet people who have had a great impact on me personally. I am so grateful to the founders of the league and the message our existence has even to this day.”

Another player, Joey Fracchiolla, who founded the BASL Cyclones team, said, “What makes this current roster unique is the wide range in ages. We have a few players in their 20s, and the age goes all the way up to the oldest players, who are 70. And our scorekeeper is 81.”

Another unique aspect of BASL is

that, while it fosters community between L.G.B.T.Q.+ individuals, it is also open to allies and any person who is interested in the environment BASL offers. One can see the support for the league through the diversity of its sponsors, which range from the historic Stonewall Inn to a personal-injury law firm — Hach and Rose Attorneys at Law — and Village Apothecary, a community pharmacy at Bleecker and W. 10th Streets that specializes in H.I.V. care. For more information on BASL or to join one of its teams, visit bigapplesoftball.com/ home.

To pee or not to pee?... The straight poop

CITY DOG

BY LYNN PACIFICO

I saw him again today, the man I confronted about not picking up after his dog. I had asked if he wanted a bag. He ignored me. I asked again, louder. He ducked into Rite Aid. As I waited, I noticed that all of the tree pits nearby were littered with the same elimination piles and realized that I had found the area poop scofflaw. It only takes one inconsiderate person, not picking up after his or her dog to create a dirty neighborhood. Current law states that New Yorkers pick up their dogs’ fecal matter but police must witness the offense to issue a ticket.

New York City litter laws can be confusing. We had a sanitation campaign for “curb your dog” but it was never a law. Section 1310 of the New York State Public Health Law, known as the “Canine Litter Law,” went into effect in 1978, requiring dog owners in large cities to clean up after their pets on “any street, sidewalk, gutter or other public area.” Those failing to do so risk a $250 fine.

People new to the city can be reluctant to pick up dog waste, as can people returning from a summer away. But most West Village

dog owners are responsible. Those with a service dog and some of our elderly cannot always pick up, especially in slippery weather. Having the companionship of a dog earns a 24 percent lower risk of death for all causes and for those with heart troubles, the benefits are a 31 percent reduced risk of early death.

How can we tell anyone that they must live alone without the love, comfort and health benefits of a canine companion just because they might not be able to pick up at times? We are a community. Please volunteer to walk an elder’s dog, especially in bad weather. I have picked up after other people’s dogs and have picked up in dog runs many times.

Until recently there were vacant properties in the neighborhood, with trash and weeds where it was O.K. for dogs to urinate. Dogs don’t urinate just to relieve themselves but also to mark spots by leaving a liquid “I

was here” message for other scent-sensitive animals. These spots act as canine neighborhood bulletin boards. With the development and manicuring of the West Village, these “O.K. to urinate” spots disappeared and I have had to become much more restrictive with my dogs in order to respect others’ property.

I have pondered the does and don’ts of walking a dog in Downtown Manhattan, where we have few trees and little parkland. It is very different and much more challenging to walk a dog here than in the rest of the city, with parks, grass, many trees and off-leash hours.

My dogs do not relieve themselves on trees or plantings as I have affection for our scant neighborhood flora. I keep my dogs away from buildings, and because urine and salt erode wire coverings, light poles are dangerous. I would include garbage in the “no-go” category because it is handled by workers and others, but garbage is often near fire hydrants so it is almost impossible to keep dogs from marking it.

Some dog owners, including those who do pick up after their dog, allow their dogs to urinate in inappropriate places and my dogs are drawn to these popular marking spots. I don’t allow my dogs to mark inappropriate “urine targets.” Yet, restricting a dog keeps it out of the neighborhood’s canine social

conversation — like preventing a child from speaking with the other children. Appropriate urinating is difficult when there are few appropriate targets. But the more that people discourage their dogs from going on other people’s property and plantings, the easier it is for all of us to do the same.

I like “curbing” since it gets us out of sidewalk traffic and away from people’s property. However, I will no longer teach a dog to go off the curb to relieve itself because it is too dangerous. Parkers backing up cannot see a squatting dog or an owner bending to pick up. Bikers cannot see us until it is too late. One driver tried to bully my dog into hurrying by revving his engine. I stepped between his car and my dog but he kept revving. (Should we not have left him that gift?)

Confronting someone about not picking up in New York City is unwise. I won’t do it again. Still, a neighborhood has a problem if one dog relieves itself daily without its owner picking up. That equals seven to 14 litter piles each week from our neighborhood scofflaw and it makes all dog owners look bad.

There are thousands of dog owners in Downtown Manhattan. Thank you to the 99.9 percent of dog owners who pick up!

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

One of BASL’s teams, the Cyclones, who are sponsored by Village Apothecary.

Photo courtesy BASL Cyclones

Photo by Steven HAuse / Pexels