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WestView News
The Voice of the West Village
September 2011
VOLUME 7, NUMBER 9
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An Orgy of Greed Ends a Hospital What really killed St. Vincent’s — and will a DA’s investigation uncover the real truth? By George Capsis On Sunday August 21, the New York Post broke a story that the Manhattan District Attorney’s fraud unit was investigating former St. Vincent’s executives for the theft of “tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.” The charge is that they deliberately paid themselves and embezzled millions to force bankruptcy to accelerate the delivery of the hospital to the Rudin Corporation for conversion into 450 luxury condominiums. Without the final, crushing $1 billion debt that irrevocably dictated the sale of the only remaining asset, the 11 hospital buildings, the State Department of Health would not have permitted the hospital to close. The Post quotes attorney Tom Shana-
han, who represents former St. Vincent’s doctors and nurses, as saying, “This was a well-thought-out plan—they wanted out and had to justify it to the State—they were running it into the ground.” The Post continues, “D.A. Cy Vance’s team is looking into whether vendors doubled-billed for services, gave kickbacks for contracts and hired relatives of hospital employees” “Two senior administrators each got more than $1 million after leaving their jobs, yet continued to be listed as employees on tax returns” In a WestView interview, a maintenance manager reported that bonuses of $20,000 were given to the few remaining low-level staff members, perhaps to ensure they did not blow the whistle on the high-level continued on page 4
continued on page 4
A TRAGIC DAY: The view down Greenwich Street at 10.15 a.m. on September 11, 2001. The North Tower fell at 10:28.
Prepared for the Worst
On 9/ 11, St. Vincent’s opened its doors to a stricken city By Eileen Dunn
RUN INTO THE GROUND: St. Vincent’s Hospital on its closing day, April 30, 2010. Photos by Maggie Berkvist
September 11th would never be an ordinary fall day again. It was to become a tragic day for people all over the world. At 12th Street and Seventh Avenue, St. Vincent’s Hospital would become the epicenter of the injured, the dead, and the families frantically looking for their loved ones. The world’s media would gather
Developer Deceit Shadows Jane Jacobs — See page 3
outside the Level One Trauma Center for a glimpse of the many injured—who never came. The day had started with a beautiful sunrise. At 8 am the nightshift gave their report to the dayshift coming on duty. Then, over the loudspeaker, a disaster code was called. The staff, driven by the protocol for a disaster, went into high gear. Mark continued on page 7
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2 WestView News September 2011
WestView News Published by WestView, Inc. by and for the residents of the West Village. Publisher Executive Editor George Capsis Chief Financial Officer Peter White Designer Yodit Tesfaye Walker Picture Editor Maggie Berkvist Events Editor/Designer Stephanie Phelan Cartoonists & Illustrators Lee Lorenz, Dick Sebastian Contributors Maggie Berkvist Glenn Berman Anne Marie Bowler Barbara Chacour James Lincoln Collier Eileen Dunn Duanduan Mark M. Green Dr. David L. Kaufman Yetta Kurland Nancy Matsumoto David Mayer Keith Michael David Porat Susan Quist Lou Rudy Barbara Riddle-Dvorak George Sanders Arthur Schwartz Henry J. Stern Steve Thompson Carol Yost Copy Editors Julie Berger Matthew Closter Janet Capron Theatre Editor Bobb Goldsteinn
Photographer Maggie Berkvist Distribution Manager George Goss We endeavor to publish all letters received including those we disagree with. The opinions put forth by contributors to WestView do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or editor. WestView welcomes your correspondence, comments, and corrections: editor@westviewnews.org www.westviewnews.org
WestViews Correspondence, Commentary, Corrections Not a Fare Deal
To the Editor:
The Port Authority (PA) of New York and New Jersey, which operates 6 bridges and tunnels, has recently announced fare hikes that, according to an op ed piece by Joe Nocera in the NY Times (August 20, 2011), will cost the average commuter crossing the George Washington Bridge $62.50 per week. The powerful Authority initially proposed a $2 fare hike now and another $2 hike in two years. After consulting with Governor Cuomo and Governor Christie (they oversee the Port Authority), it was recommended that the Authority call for impossibly stiff hikes so that the governors would look good by calling for lower fares (but much higher than the original proposals). The governors promised not to bring up the enormous cost overruns the PA has engendered over the past decade in its management of the $11 billion, government-sponsored, Ground Zero construction site, in particular the $3.3 billion One World Trade Center (originally called the Freedom Tower), now the most expensive office building in the United States. In an interview a year ago, the PA project manager assured Nocera that the enormous cost of the building would not impact fare hikes. Nocera has concluded that that was an untruth—in short, a lie. The construction site includes the $1 billion over-budget and still incomplete train station and the hastily finished memorial site, now ready for the 10th anniversary of the worst surprise attack in U. S. history after the December 7, 194l Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. So far, only one lessee has bid for space at One World Trade—Conde Nast, publisher of expensive magazines for the affluent. While these tenants will be subsidized, paying only 50 percent market value for their space, this rent break falls on the backs of the average worker in New York and New Jersey. Furthermore, who would want to work in a tall skyscraper on the site of the 9/ll disaster? One wonders, is it earthquake proof? There is already, as everyone has known for years, a glut of office space in New York. And now, in the middle of an economic downturn—a recession in a depression—an over-budget, unnecessary monolith has generated an outrageous new expense that will further separate the regular guy from the manipulating fat cats. The thanks can go to our respective governors. Thanks for the giant fare hike and the big white elephant at Ground Zero. Sincerely, John Gilman Village resident and WestView reader
Cherry Lane’s Memory Lane
Dear Editor:
I am hoping that “R.I.P.: The Cherry Lane Theatre” does not become a reality. There are too few small theaters in New York as suitable for Off-Broadway as this one. In 1962 I played there for director Richard Barr in Edward Albee's “Zoo Story” and as Daddy in his “The American Dream,” alternating with Jack Richardson's “Gallows Humor.” There were other plays in the repertory that formed Theatre of the Absurd. I had met Dick Barr in 1937 when both of us were Orson Welles in his Mercury Theatre. Arthur Anderson
Small Theater, Big History
Dear Editor:
I read with great interest in the article by Bobb Goldsteinn “R.I.P.: The Cherry Lane Theatre” that the theater is up for sale for $13 million. If a super rich buyer turns up I would hope they have the vision and substance to reinstate the original purpose of the Cherry Lane as a serious player in the realm of true artistic achievement. As a playwright my very first play “Hector” was produced in the early l960s as part of a Living Theater series. It was a triple bill that included poet Kenneth Koch's “Pericles” and “Marriage on the Eiffel Tower” by Jean Cocteau. In the 1970s actress Elaine B. Shore, bankrolled by Otto Preminger, acted in and produced two of my one-act plays: “Moon” and “At War With the Mongols.” What a thrill it was for me to see my works performed at such a prestigious and historic site. Edna St. Vincent Millay, who formed the theater in 1924, saw the place as both a haven for poetic drama and experimental theater. The roster of productions included in 1924 “The Way of the World” by William Congreve starring the great Mrs. Patrick Campbell; in 1929 prior to his Group Theater days Lee Strasberg took a chance there on a play called “The Vegetable” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jump to 1946 and you could see Sean O'Casey's “The Spur and Juno in the Paycock.” In 1951 the Living Theatre, led by Judith Malina and Julian Beck, took over the Cherry Lane with a $6,000 initial investment from a relative that helped to pay the $900 monthly rent with a production of “Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights.” Judith Malina also previously acted there opposite Geraldine Page in “The Thirteenth God” in 1948. One production of the many historic plays I would like to have seen was
Gertrude Stein's “Yes Is for a Very Young Man” with Kim Stanley and Gene Saks. By the l960s all hell broke loose with super productions, many of which I saw, including “Happy Days” and “Endgame” by Samuel Beckett, “And He Made Her” by Doric Wilson and Edward Albee's oneact plays “The American Dream,” “The Sandbox,” “The Death of Bessie Smith” and “The Zoo Story.” Other extraordinary plays that I saw included Joe Orton’s “Entertaining Mr. Sloan” with Brad Davis, Beckett's “Play”, “Corruption in the Palace of Justice” by Ugo Betti, Ionesco’s “The Killer,” Sam Shepard’s “Up To Thursday” with Harvey Keitel, and three black comedies by Harold Pinter: “The Dumbwaiter,” “The Collection” and “The Lover.” David Mamet's “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “Duck Variations” pulled in the crowds as did Lorraine Hansberry’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” and LeRoi Jones’s “Dutchman.” In 2008 I was invited by Edward Albee to see a new production of “The American Dream” and “The Sandbox” with Judith Ivey and George Bartenieff directed by Albee himself. Following this idea in the spirit of Edna St. Vincent Millay maybe some of the vast numbers of plays by notable authors from l924 onward could be revived for a new audience. Sincerely, Robert Heide
What Will It Take?
Dear Editor:
NYU Langone closed all beds and its ER before the hurricane. Too bad the DOH, the governor, the mayor, the Commissioner of Health, refuse to see the need for the 350 beds and level I Trauma ER that used to be St. Vincent’s Hospital. Too bad they refuse to see the need for a new hospital for the one million residents, commuters, and daily visitors to the lower West Side. Too bad for all of us poor New Yorkers. We have been warning about this for over a year: in addition to the five-plus hour waits in overcrowded ERs and lack of beds causing 12–24 hour waits for admitted patients since St. Vincent's closing, we have tried to wake the politicians and regulators up to the risks from mass casualty events, major natural disasters, etc. We got away with it when the Times Square bomber failed right after St. Vincent’s closed and we got lucky with the earthquake this week. I dreaded the potential impact of this hurricane on the health and safety of the residents of lower Manhattan without adequate full-service emergency rooms and hospital beds. Will they ever wake up? What will it take? David Kaufman
September 2011 WestView News 3
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Conversion Perversion
When Our City Officials Bend to Developers, Who's to Blame?
By George Sanders If you were a developer and wanted to build the biggest building you could in the West Village, how would you do it? Do what the Witkoff Corporation did: Take a tip from a three-card Monte dealer. Talk a blue streak about anything (maybe about being 'green'?) and never, ever let them see what you're really doing. Well, we residents of the Far West Village have decided to expose these developers’ tricks and give away their secrets. And, in order to do this as quickly as possible, we posted a taste of it on YouTube in a video we made called “The Rape of the West Village.” Words alone cannot adequately expose the deceptions, and it is words alone that probably misled our city officials into approving this developer's design. It's time city officials stepped into the 21st Century. The fast-talking developers are the Witkoff Corporation. The land in question is the block-wide, 48,000 square foot site on Charles Street and W. 10th Street, between West and Washington. The building in question is the old Whitehall Storage Building, a dilapidated structure built in the '60s that resembles a typical school or prison from that era. Again, words cannot describe its unattractiveness. In 2005, despite valiant efforts by the community, the site was given a FAR of 6.05, which means the developers can build a huge building, whether anyone likes it or not. Oh well, we thought. At least we're protected by zoning laws that require new buildings to be narrow and surrounded by plenty of open space (small footprints). Light and air will still reach our streets. Since the Witkoff Corporation was not forthcoming with information or renderings of what they planned to build on the Old Whitehall site, we researched their ap-
SUPER-SIZED: By presenting it as a “conversion,” the Witkoff Corporation received permission to build this enormous new building on the Whitehall Storage site.
plications and found out everything we could. But that opened a can of worms. What we found was shocking. (See an application that the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation wisely archived. gvshp.org/ documents/150CharlesStreet.pdf ) To our dismay, Witkoff got approval for a “conversion.”
Why is that bad? Because conversions, unlike new construction, allow developers to bypass certain zoning laws and apply for waivers on open space requirements. And, believe it or not, there are some people who think that's a good thing. Anyway, so much for the laws protecting continued on page 4
BRIEFLY NOTED West Village-Based “Perry St.”
The Morning After
By Steve Thompson
By Maggie Berkvist
“Perry St.” is the West Village-based story of perplexing therapy patient/author Ryan (Mark Epperson), who seems to bewilder his therapist Elaine (Catherine Mary Stewart, shown holding a copy of Ryan’s book “Perry St.”) until he begins dating Sophie (Brittany Moore) and discovers what may be missing in his life. Writer/director Antonio Padovan notes: “There is no other place in the entire city as romantic as the West Village. No other neighborhood is so perfectly ‘tailored’ to be portrayed on film. There are places that seem to be taken from a movie set. You can feel the magic.”
signer of this early vest-pocket park 25 years ago, who told him his only regret was, “I planted too many trees!”
From the Police Blotter By Glenn Berman
At the beginning of August, work began on the renovation of the Bleecker seating area at Bleecker Street and W. 11th Street. (Did any of us know that was its name?) And only recently the official Parks and Recreation Department notice was installed, describing how there would be movable tables and chairs, new chess tables and new benches. There would also be new lighting, shade-tolerant gardens and new light-colored quartz pavement. There was even mention of how the new pavement’s permeable base would promote healthy roots for the existing and new trees — too late, alas, for the ones felled by Hurricane Irene on the night of August 27, 2011. Ironically, WestView News publisher George Capsis remembers talking to the original de-
Wednesday, July 27, 2011, at 9:30 am, James Tillman, a 5’ 11” 177-pound transvestite, entered the Path Café at 131 Christopher Street. The waitress asked for Tillman’s order, to which Tillman replied, “I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” and then ordered a goat cheese walnut salad and said his boyfriend would pay. Tillman then approached the counter and grabbed a fistful of cash out of the tip container. Before being able to getaway he was grabbed at the wrist by the waitress, who at the same time managed to grab the phone and dial 911. Tillman then tossed some of the cash at her and the waitress let go, at which point Tillman left the café. The police officers arrived quickly and soon after the waitress made a positive I.D. of Tillman. He was arrested by four 6th Precinct police officers. The arresting officers were: Police Officer Sansone, Police Officer Garfoalo, Police Officer Subin and Police Officer Bawnas.
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4 WestView News September 2011
An Orgy of Greed
continued from page 1
theft. St. Vincent’s shadowy caretaker has invited in scavengers who have stripped hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of copper wire. On the other hand, after the Post story, a truckload of stolen computers was returned to the building. On the Monday morning following the Post story, the Rudin Corporation appeared before the City Planning Commission to file plans with a request for a zoning amendment that would allow them to extend beyond the building line of certain buildings on 11th and 12th streets (no opposition groups attended the hearing).
The commissioners asked if the Rudin plan would include some “inclusionary housing”—that is, apartments affordable by people with low or moderate incomes— the Rudin representative responded that it would not. A spokesperson for the Planning Commission was asked if the DA’s fraud investigation would affect the approval process, but he maintained he had no knowledge of the investigation. The next step in the approval process is for the Rudin plan to come before Community Board 2, followed by the approval of Borough President Scott Stringer. The Borough President has for months avoided a West View interview in response to the demand by his 300,000 West Vil-
lage constituents that he ensure the return of a hospital; St. Vincent’s accommodated thousands of in-bed patients a year and treated over 50,000 in its emergency room. For almost a year, the Rudin Corporation has retained the powerful political lobbying firm, DSK Knickerbocker. One of the New York managing directors of DSK Knickerbocker is attorney Jennifer Cunningham, the ex-wife and media planner for New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and called by the New York Post “the most powerful woman in Albany” This same DSK Knickerbocker created a phony grassroots organization to try and get West Villagers to accept a walk-in/ walk-out clinic in the former Maritime Union hiring hall (the O’Toole building) at
Whitehall Building
continued from page 3
us. Zoning laws are apparently a joke, but we're not laughing. But how did this design get approved? Three reasons: Unfortunately, we've witnessed our • overworked city officials just wanting to go home, so they vote something through. • Some city officials just want to make sure their family is provided for. (I'm just sayin'. So I've heard.) • Developers use public relations people the same way politicians do. That last point needs clarification. PR people write the jargon for the developers' applications. They also advise their clients, “Now, only tell the people what they want to hear, not the TRUTH.” And this time, Witkoff 's PR guys really earned their money. The Witkoff Corporation was able to convince city officials that: • We are an area of converted factories and warehouses. (Not true.) • The context of the neighborhood is primarily street-walled and lot-lined--meaning buildings are built to the sidewalks, touch each other, and have no setbacks. (Not true.) • The Whitehall Storage Building is
WHAT WE’RE ZONED FOR: Rendering of view from Washington Street showing design that would allow for accessibility to light and air.
historic and needs preserving. (Oh, for ch***sakes! Didn't anybody ask to see a picture?!!!) • They were planning to just add two, thin, 11-story towers to the building. (Not true.) And that was only part of the absurd PR spin. And now this approved conversion will be the biggest light- and air-blocker imaginable. Over the years, the Meier Buildings went up in their own, zoned area. We
Dear Editor, You may have read the article in the NY Post recently announcing that the District Attorney’s office is investigating the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital and whether those in charge purposefully ran the hospital into the ground. I applaud the courageous efforts of the District Attorney to shed much-needed sunshine on a story that has been swept under the rug. I hope this begins the process of getting answers to questions the community has been asking since the hospital wrongfully closed over a year and a half ago. It is a testament to the incredible hard work of so many community members who continue to stand up and speak truth to power in the face of real estate interests, even when our elected officials have been unable to do so. But here is another opportunity for our elected leaders. Certainly the Rudin family wields great political power. But sometimes, the necessity to speak the truth and serve
weren't surprised there was animosity toward designs like that. But that's an aesthetic opinion, not a legal problem. The Meier buildings comply with Far West Village zoning laws, and their narrow design allows sun and air to pass through Manhattan's narrow North-South grid. Both residents and visitors benefit from this. We like laws that are designed to protect us and make the neighborhoods better. (Aesthetics, on the other hand, cannot be legislated, as beauty is in the eye
West 11th and 7th Avenue.
EDITORS NOTE: There is no question that in this country and certainly in this city, delivering medical services is an increasingly precarious financial exercise. New York hospitals carry twice as much debt in relation to their net assets as hospitals around the country. But with the loss or impending loss of over a dozen New York hospitals, the need for emergency rooms and hospital beds increases, not decreases. One of our elected politicians must find the political courage, even if it means he or she will not receive funding from the Rudin Corporation or the real estate lobby.
of the beholder.) For comparison purposes, we included one of the tall, narrow, zone-law-abiding designs in our video. This is by no means the only legal design available for the site. But it's important to note that the Whitehall conversion is actually a behemoth structure of glass and brick built from the ground up (within the warehouse shell); it will be taller and three times wider than the Meier building across the street, and it will fill the space of every square foot on the ground and in the air that it can get away with. The conversion has nothing to do with the quality of life or historic preservation, only greed. Does anyone actually think this 'conversion' will 'fit in' and look like it's always been here? It will simply look like a fat, enormous ton of bricks dropped on our neighborhood, blocking out light in every direction. Conversions are how developers get away with open space 'rape'. See the video: youtube/VCLDjCWIjdE “The Rape of the West Village.” (Author's note: Jean-Louis Bourgeois, the son of the late, famed artist, Louise Bourgeois, is fighting the proposed development, too. He wants to turn the old Whitehall lot into a sculpture park featuring the works of his mother and other Village artists. He has retained a lawyer — we sincerely wish him luck and hope he succeeds.)
justice is more important than political safety. Will our Assemblymember who chairs the Health Committee hold a hearing to investigate the facts? Will our State Senator who recently headed the Senate’s Health Committee call for an investigation? Will our Congressmember who worked hard to secure millions of dollars for St. Vincent’s Hospital call for an investigation? Will our Attorney General, whose job it is to protect the public and public assets like St. Vincent’s, hold an investigation? Will our Governor, who has proven himself a leader, and who understands that if this can happen in the West Village in Manhattan, it can and will happen anywhere in New York State, investigate? This is a turning point in this fight. It is an opportunity for all of us, regardless of our political interests, or our business interests, to put aside differences and do what is right. Yetta G. Kurland Coalition for a New Village Hospital
September 2011 WestView News 5
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Farewell to a Friend By Arthur Z. Schwartz Sometimes it is hard to remember the West Village without Hudson River Park. But the Park only opened in 2003, and was the subject of pitched battles in our community for many, many years. Longtime residents still remember an industrial waterfront, with aging pier sheds, truck traffic and an elevated highway separating the residents from the waterfront. As that working waterfront disappeared, we fought among ourselves, and with the government, over what to replace it with. First the powers that be proposed Westway, an
interstate highway that would have run below the ground and produced landfill for a park extending into the Hudson. That got defeated by community activists, environmental activists and some ace lawyers who built a case on the sloppy environmental assessment done during the highway-design process. More than 15 years passed between the death of Westway and the birth of Hudson River Park. Eventually the bulk of the environmentalist community and community activists, mostly from the Village and Chelsea, joined together to form the Hudcontinued on page 6
One-of-a-Kind NYC Pet Charity Is at Crossroads
FOR CHERISHED COMPANIONS: Funds are needed for emergency veterinary care. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.
By Carol Yost There is a little-known but irreplaceable pet charity in New York City that is in danger of folding unless needed funds can be obtained. As a member of the all-volunteer Board since 2004, I have watched NY SAVE (pronounced “New York Save”) struggle to keep its head above water in this difficult economy. NY SAVE was founded in 1998 by members of the Veterinary Medical Association of New York City (VMA of NYC), and it began its work in 2000. It pays for the emergency veterinary care of the pets of residents in the five boroughs who have incomes of $20,000 or less, many of whom are unemployed, war veterans, homeless, senior citizens, or on welfare. These people must endure the anguish of watching their pets suffer and die unless they can obtain the medical care they need, a largely unaffordable expense. NY SAVE has an arrangement with many veterinarians and animal hospitals that will waive their customary fees and for 80 percent of the cost or $2,000, whichever is greater, they will treat these animals
that have a medical emergency. NY SAVE will then pay this fee, which on average is about $1,000. NY SAVE would like to expand the maximum income level of eligible pet owners once its own funding allows it to do so. One reason it has been difficult to obtain grants is that most are earmarked for established categories of animal care: animal shelters, spay-neutering, animal rescue, and wildlife preservation. Grant-makers also have to be willing to support a charity that is specific to the New York City area. The organization’s concentrated focus has made it difficult for NY SAVE to obtain funds this way. NY SAVE has had to rely, for the most part, on fundraising events and donations — although there remains hope, and a need, for a breakthrough in any direction. The organization will probably need a new administrator and home base soon; since its inception, the work of NY SAVE has been valiantly carried on by, and at the home office of, the executive secretary of the Veterinary Medical Association, Effie Cooper, and she will retire by the end continued on page 11
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6 WestView News August 2011
Farewell, Friend
continued from page 5 son River Park Alliance, led by Al Butzel, the one and the same lawyer who led the Westway fight, united by the notion that if activists helped shape and pass the legislation creating the Park, we could avoid a repeat of Battery Park City on the Lower West Side waterfront. And we succeeded. The Hudson River Park Act, which created the Hudson River Park Trust, and set up the Park’s restrictions, has worked fairly well, and what we have largely gotten has been a park. We knew that there would be flash points: some “nodes,” like Pier 40, had fewer restrictions than the rest of the park, but in the end the Act contains enough checks and balances that several noxious proposals for Pier 40 have been defeated, and its recreational use, as part of the Park, has increased. The Alliance, having accomplished its goal, faded, but not before helping launch Friends of Hudson River Park. Friends started in 2000 (we actually launched a Friends of Hudson River Park in Greenwich Village in 1999, but gave up the name). Friends was to be a communitybased membership organization that would advocate for the Park (it needed budget allocations every year to keep its construction going), fight to enforce the Hudson River Park Act, and popularize the Park.
Its initial board, which I was proud to be a part of, was almost entirely waterfront and park activists. Slowly, the notion that people of financial substance were needed as board members began to sink in, as an alternative to non-stop grant applications. Douglas Durst, one of the city’s top developers, who is also a magnificent patron of the Park and of environmental causes in general, agreed to become president and funded many of the Friend’s activities, particularly its litigation program. The litigation was important. Friends got the Sanitation Department off of the Gansevoort Peninsula and tourist helicopters out of Chelsea. It fought the creation of a waste transfer station at the end of 14th Street, lobbied for the creation of Clinton Cove Park at the north end, and fought to shape Pier 84 at 42nd Street. In recent years, however, Friends began to hold back. Al Butzel, who had been the Executive Director, was pushed out, and Friends played a limited role in the last Pier 40 fight to keep the developer, Related Corporation, from building a megaentertainment complex. Those of us who fought that complex had to create new organizations to do that, or work through Community Board 2, or the Hudson River Park Advisory Council (the community board for the Park), or the local youth sports leagues. We pissed off the pow-
ers that be, including Hudson River Park Trust Chair Diana Taylor, something the Friends leadership was becoming loathe to do. About a year ago, the Trust made it known that it wanted to engage in an effort to raise private capital for the park, and Taylor threatened to create a new “friends of the park” organization to do it. The alternative was for Friends to morph into that fundraising group. On July 21st, that happened, as Friends became an official appendage of the Hudson River Park Trust, with a million dollar loan from the Trust, and a new goal of raising millions of dollars for the Park. Even though the Trust was making a million dollar loan, only five people showed up at the public hearing. And in its final step toward giving up its original persona, that of being a community-based advocacy group, the Friends Board ousted most of its community activist members, including me. I am proud to say that I voted no, but I lost. It was explained that the Trust wanted a Friends board made up entirely of people of financial substance, and that “those people didn’t hang out in clubs with community activists.” We face a constant battle in New York City over the democratic control of our public institutions. Parks that serve the wealthy get the bulk of public resources,
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and those with money (led by the wealthiest New Yorker, Michael Bloomberg) have disproportionate power over the direction those institutions take. Hudson River Park serves a diverse community, and with the loss of Friends to a board whose principal qualification involves wealth, we—the community—must think hard about how to influence the Park’s future. Efforts to ignore the community boards and the Advisory Council must be defended against, and we need to think again how to unite community activists who want to keep Hudson River Park a people’s park. One Postscript: In June the Trust Board selected a new president for the Trust, the person who runs its day-to- day operations. They chose Madelyn Wils, the former Chair of Community Board 1, who was the original Chair of the Advisory Council. Madelyn was a community activist, and a park mom, who worked for the past few years at the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Madelyn understands the importance and the power of community voices. Her presence gives me hope that the Trust will continue to be responsive to community needs.
Arthur Z. Schwartz is Chair of Community Board 2’s Waterfront Committee, and serves as the Democratic State Committee Member for Greenwich Village, Soho and Tribeca.
September 2011 WestView News 7
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9/11: The View From the Air A flight attendant’s ringside seat to the tragedy By Lou Rudy At 5.45 a.m. on September 11th 2001, I was on my way to Newark Airport—a purser/lead flight attendant for Northwest Airlines, scheduled to take a two-day trip to Sacramento. Departure time was 8 am. The captain came on the PA system to let us know we had a minor mechanical delay that could be fixed away from the gate. Fixed, we got in line for takeoff. At 8:43 we took off. At 8:46, our lives changed forever. We were still on a steep ascent, with seat belts fastened, when I heard a couple of men saying “Oh my god, oh my god.” I peered around the corner and could see them, visibly shaken, looking out the right side of the aircraft. I unbuckled and went to the nearby passenger to ask what was wrong. He said that he and others had just seen an airplane crash into the World Trade Center. I looked out the window and saw smoke rising from the ground. As we were still climbing, I told him I
would check with the pilots when we were able to have contact. At that point, two flight attendants came up from the main cabin and said the passengers were kind of freaking out having seen the same thing. I asked everyone to stay calm and I would check with the flight deck. I went in and told the pilots what the passengers had seen, but being involved in cockpit activities following takeoff, and with the plane still climbing, they had not seen or heard anything. Just as I was closing the door, the captain said to wait a moment. He was listening to something on his headset. Then he turned around and confirmed …an aircraft had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Most of the passengers in first class were from New York City and a few of them had offices in the World Trade Center. By now, most people were on the air phones trying to get information. About 15 minutes later, a passenger in the first row announced that an airplane had flown into the second tower. Almost immediately, the captain called
me to the cockpit and confirmed that the second tower had been hit. He told me to keep everyone calm and he would pass on any information as it became available. By now the phone lines were jammed and no one could get a call through. Everything seemed to be happening very fast from that point on. The cockpit was in constant contact with me. They told me it was pretty definite the planes had to have been hijacked, and that it was possible that more hijackers might be out there; it was up to the flight attendants to secure the area by the cockpit to make sure no one could come forward. After an hour in flight, the pilot was told we were being diverted to Toronto. Once we touched town, we were allowed to taxi to a gate — where we were held for seven hours! The captain put satellite radio on over the loudspeaker. As more reliable information became available, we began to realize how huge this was, and how many lives from our airplane alone were directly affected. My lovely passenger at 2B had a friend on United flight 93 (In fact, I had learned from the captain that it was the plane ahead
of us for take off.). A man in the main cabin had a fiancée on the same flight. Two customers in first class had companies in one of the Twin Towers. Passengers and crew were comforting each other, passing their phones around to anyone who needed one, helping wherever needed. Eventually, we were allowed to leave the plane. At this point none of us had seen any of the news footage. And by the time we were able to get to our rooms, 13 hours had passed. The entire crew got together in one room to watch CNN. It was like a disaster movie. It was hard to grasp; there were a lot of tears, and disbelief. We stayed in Toronto for two days. Finally, on September 14th, we were able to leave for New York. The captain let the passengers know when we would be flying over lower Manhattan and could see the devastation. I have lived in NYC since 1988. Oddly, I never felt closer to New York than that day. I just wanted to be home. I am forever bonded to my co-workers from 9/11. We give each other a call every anniversary to say, “I’m thinking of you”.
Prepared for the Worst
I was in constant communication with the continued from page 1nursing office. The Chief Nursing Officer Carey, RN, and a West Village resident, de- wanted me back at the hospital. I was told scribes the turmoil on his floor: “I remem- to drive as close to NYC as I could, and then ber finishing morning report, and starting they would have the police escort me to St. rounds on our patients. Then I heard Code Vincent’s. I made my way from checkpoint 3 called overhead. Our case manager said to checkpoint. A high-speed escort took a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I me through the Holland Tunnel. The city thought it probably was a small plane that streets revealed a deafening silence—not a had veered off course. Then the staff went car in sight. Very few people were on the to the windows to see what was happen- street except for the group of people on 7th ing. We stared in disbelief as we saw the Ave. who were waving American Flags. tragedy unfolding. We kicked into our St. Outside of St. Vincent’s were crowds of Vincent’s spirit, and put the patients first. media and onlookers who were contained They were crying, and calling to us as they by police barricades. There was only one came out into the hallway. They were very entrance into the building. A large secushaken. I remember one patient clutching rity force guarded the door and kept a close me like it was his last task in life. He said eye on ID badges. I went directly to the he was scared, and wanted to know what emergency room and was stunned by the was going on.” organized chaos. There were more people Many of the nurses had to deal with in scrubs than patients needing care. As stressed patients wanting reassurance that the day went on, fewer and fewer survivors they would be all right. They did their were brought into the emergency room. I best to reassure them, but in their minds returned to my floor, 14 West. The floor had they had their own doubts about whether only five patients and 12 empty beds that they could keep that promise. All day, the had been cleared for survivors. The nurses tragedy was escalating. But my colleagues there were weary from transferring patients; worked on through their anxieties; some of managing continuous telephone calls, anthem lost their own loved ones that day. swering countless questions from doctors, As quickly as possible the patients were security, administrators, police and family discharged, or moved to nursing homes members. Then I went to the rehab floor and rehab centers around New York, to where the burn victims had been taken. make beds available for the injured. Staff The nurses were continually giving out pain began arriving at the hospital from home medication. Sterile dressing changes were and from other area hospitals. I myself was administered to each patient from one end away visiting in Pennsylvania, having just of the floor to the other—after which the finished my three-night tour. I knew that I process began all over again. This procedure needed to get back to the hospital, but the continued until the patients could be transroads into NYC had become parking lots. ferred to a burn center. Finally, I returned to
THE MISSING: Within days of September 11, St. Vincent’s wall along West 11th Street had become a tragic record of those who had been lost. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.
the emergency room, knowing the staff on the floors had their routines under control. We stood outside the emergency room all through the night, waiting and hoping for more patients. I often think that this was the only time in nursing that I would have been glad to see hundreds, even thousands of injured and sick patients brought to the hospital. Supplies were arriving at the hospital from all over NY, and we certainly had the staff ready for anything. It wasn’t to be. Mark Carey remembers: “ We started to receive patients --- a fireman and two women were brought in. They were covered in soot, shaken, hurt, confused and frightened. Yet they all shared something
in common that I will never forget. All three had chains around their necks with religious symbols: a cross, the Star of David and Tibetan beads. And they all shared their stories—the fireman who was thrown against a wall, the lady who walked down from the 89th floor of the WTC. They shared and we cared. This truly was not a job, rather a calling.” By 11 am on September 12th I was able to leave the hospital and go home, very sad and emotionally drained. I had managed to keep my emotions intact for many hours. That inner strength evaporated once I left the security of the building. As I walked continued on page 9
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8 WestView News September 2011
A Good Governor Carey Was Indispensable in City's '70s Fiscal Crisis By Henry J. Stern The obituaries for Governor Hugh L. Carey stress a major achievement, bringing fiscal responsibility to New York City government after the financial crisis of 1974 and 1975. This article is a worm's eye view of the fiscal crisis and political events that surrounded and followed it. Back then, I was a City Councilmember at large, elected from the Borough of Manhattan. The City Council, at the time less powerful than it is today, had little to do with creating or resolving the city's near-bankruptcy. We offer some background and political history of the 1970s. Thirty-five years later, it is remarkable how many of these events have been forgotten, while the new generation of New Yorkers never knew them. In Governor Carey's inaugural on January 1, 1975, he said, "The days of wine and roses are over." This was a sage prediction of the fiscal storms ahead. In response to the city's inability to borrow money to meet its obligations, Carey secured state legislation creating the Municipal Assistance Corporation (also known as Big Mac) and the Financial Control Board (FCB) for New York City. MAC had the authority to borrow money on behalf of the city, and city tax- revenue streams were required to give priority to
Sebastian
MAC bonds over any other municipal obligations. The interest rate on some MAC bonds was set as high as 11 per cent, and that income was tax-free. The FCB had authority over the city budget; its approval was required before a budget could be adopted. The city's fiscal crisis was different and more immediate than the one the Federal government is now enduring. For years, starting at the end of the mayoral term of Robert F. Wagner in 1965, and increasingly during the eight years of the Lindsay administration and the first year under Mayor Abe Beame, the city had consistently spent more than it received in revenues. The gap was filled by borrowing, and city officials devised a number of instrumentalities for short-term borrowing, which was in addition to regular long-term borrowing through the issuance of bonds. In addition, current expenses, which should have been paid for by current revenues, were allocated to the capital budget, which made them eligible for bonding. To meet its cash needs, the city began to issue new instruments, called RANs, TANs and BANs (respectively, Revenue Anticipation Notes, Tax Anticipation Notes, and Bond Anticipation Notes). When they came due, the city rolled them over, renewing them for a short period of time. The
sum of money borrowed in this way steadily rose, and there came a time in 1975 when the banks, fearful of default as the city's debt increased, stopped buying the freshly issued notes. This caused an immediate cash crisis, as the city did not have the money to pay its employees, having become dependent on the proceeds of the short-term notes that had been rolled over. The Emergency Financial Control Board (as it was called at the time) had effective control of the city government, since it controlled the cash flow. Its seven-man board consisted of the governor, the mayor, the state and city comptrollers, and three private citizens chosen by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. Other elected officials were allowed to appoint nonvoting representatives to the Board. Governor Carey, who had become proconsul for the city, first secured the retirement of Deputy Mayor James Cavanagh, a longtime civil servant and the appointee of Mayor Beame. Cavanagh, an honorable man who came to symbolize the old way, was replaced by John E. Zuccotti, a 38-year-old who had been chairman of the City Planning Commission. The city reduced its expenditures sharply, mainly by laying off 50,000 employees on June 30, 1975, the end of the fiscal year. Politically, Carey concluded that Beame was indecisive and not competent to manage the city. He and former Mayor Wagner set about finding a challenger for the 1977 Democratic primary. The usual partner of
Wagner and Carey was Alex Rose, the Liberal Party leader who had brought about Mayor Lindsay's re-election in 1969 after Lindsay, at the time a Republican, lost the primary in his own party. Lindsay was reelected on the Liberal Party line. Sadly, Alex Rose had passed away on December 28, 1976, and Wagner and Carey were left on their own. They settled on Mario Cuomo, at the time New York's secretary of state under Governor Carey. Cuomo came in second in the seven-person primary race (Bella Abzug, who had just left Congress after narrowly losing a Senate primary to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, came in fourth). The top two, Congressman Ed Koch and Cuomo, made the runoff. Beame had been eliminated because he came in third, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton ran fifth and Bronx Congressman Herman Badillo was sixth. Joel Harnett, a civic reformer, was a distant seventh. The results were so close that the top six candidates each received more than 10 per cent of the vote, but none of them won 20 per cent. Koch was barely one percent above Cuomo in the initial voting. The law provided for a runoff between the top two candidates if no one received 40 per cent of the ballots. Koch defeated Cuomo in the primary runoff by ten points, and in the general election when Cuomo ran a strong race on the Liberal line. On winning, Koch declared peace with Carey, and the two men became political allies and friends. In 1982, when Mayor Koch ran against Carey's Lieutenant Governor, Mario Cuomo, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Carey endorsed Koch, who ended up losing to Cuomo. The breakthrough in Hugh Carey's political career came in 1974, when he defeated the better-known Howard J. Samuels by a three to two margin to become the Democratic and Liberal Party candidate for governor. Carey had been a congressman from Brooklyn for seven terms. Samuels, known affectionately as "Howie the Horse," had been the first chairman of the Off-Track Betting Corporation. He had the support of Democratic Party leaders and was personally wealthy due to the success of Kordite, a plastic product used in Baggies, wax paper, plastic wrap, disposable kitchenware, and sturdy trash bags, which he had invented and developed. Samuels came from upstate Canandaigua, and was widely referred to as "the upstate industrialist." Carey was the downstate politician. As governor, Carey made first-rate appointments to his staff, including David Burke and Robert Morgado as successive Secretaries to the Governor, Judah Gribetz as counsel and Michael Del Giudice as policy director. After he left office, Carey led a relatively private life with his family. Many years ago, Governor Carey received the park name "Leonine." It was a reference to his middle name, Leo, and his stately appearance. In New York State, he was, at an important time in history, the king of beasts.
PM PageNews 1 9 September8/19/11 2011 12:26 WestView
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Bellevue’s ER Needs Floor Support By Eileen Stukane We at WestView News thought it was ironic when we heard that Bellevue Hospital Center needed $868,000 to repair what was reported on the Web site, DNAinfo. com as “a sagging concrete floor.” In past issues of the paper, WestView has championed the effort to get a hospital in Greenwich Village, and, as such, we’ve covered the increased volume of emergency room patients at both Bellevue and Beth Israel Medical Center following the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in April 2010. Could the rising number of ER visits to Bellevue, which is now the only Level One Trauma Center in lower Manhattan, actually have been too much for the floor to bear? The weakened floor and the increased ER patient load are “unrelated,” according to Stephen Bohlen, a spokesperson for Bellevue. According to Mr. Bohlen, a visitor to the ER would not even notice the needed repair, which in a Bellevue statement is said to be “less than 10 percent of the 36,500 square foot emergency department.” Also, the repair is internal support, says Mr. Bohlen, who mentions that DNA Info never checked with the hospital before making its report. However, DNA’s report states that “Bellevue did not respond to multiple requests for comment.” Still there is no denying that Bellevue’s
Prepared for the Worst
continued from page 7 out the door, I found police barricades had been set up so we could get out of the building without the thrust of media and people crowding us. I looked to the right and as far as I could see down 12th Street, were the wonderful caring people of NYC. They were lined up to give blood or do anything else they could to help St. Vincent’s care for the victims of the WTC. My emotions got the best of me. Being in the hospital all night, I had been unaware of what the rest of the population was going through. The faces on the street gave me an insight into the magnitude of the grief. Two young Asian women came up to me with a picture of their sister. They wanted to know if she had been a patient of mine; I had to tell them no. The disappointment on their faces was more than I could bear. I took them into the hospital so they could register their sister as a missing person. Even though it is the tenth anniversary, it seems like yesterday. September 11th will always be a very sad day for me. But my memories will also be filled with the dedication of the professionals at St. Vincent’s,
emergency room is seeing more action, as the hospital cites in its own recent statement: Comparing the six-month period from January 2010 through June 2010 to the sixmonth period from January 2011 through June 2011, Bellevue had an 11 percent increase in the number of people treated and released from the ED (emergency department), from 48,650 to 54,004. Bellevue also saw a two percent increase in patients being admitted from the ER into the hospital, from 10,850 to 11,057 patients, and psychiatric ER visits rose more that seven percent. The $868,000 cost of the repair came to light when Bellevue submitted a request to Community Board 6 (CB6) for funds for slab repair, installation of structural piers, floor leveling and more. According to Mr. Bohlen, CB6 asks Bellevue and other institutions within its community if funding were needed. Every Community Board evaluates its neighborhoods and submits an approved item list for the Register of Community Board Budget Requests, which is then submitted to the city’s Office of Management and Budget. Bellevue, however, will not be using any city funds. After filing its request with CB6, the hospital decided to cover the cost of repairs with money from its own capital project program.
the bravery of the first responders, and the compassion of the community. And I will never forget the compassion and generosity shown by the people of the West Village. Whether it was the musicians playing classical music in the chapel, or the tables filled with food donated by residents and the area’s restaurant owners. The kind deeds and warm heartedness only reinforced my love of the neighborhood and the folk who live here. For me, the other tragedy is that when Saint Vincent’s Hospital needed saving for this community, nobody came to the rescue. I think Mark Carey expresses it best, “I found it amazing that thousands of people from the city came to assist in every way possible. At that time we were ONE community. That being said, I wonder where these people were when ‘OUR WORLD TRADE CENTER HOSPITAL’ was wounded, failing, collapsing, and needed life support? We are rebuilding the WORLD TRADE CENTER site, but we have stood by and watched its life support system get demolished. Dear Lord, we pray to never let this happen again.”
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10 WestView News September 2011
Helping Guard Us These Many Years
OUR LOCAL ANGEL: Dave Poster believes that if the pier closed at 9 p.m., it would have a positive effect on Christopher Street. Photo by Glenn Berman.
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As the door opened, I’m greeted with, “Hi Clark” (he refers to my wife as Lois Lane). The tone is genuine, friendly and sincere, considering the names given to some of Dave Poster’s patrol buddies from the Guardian Angels. With handles like “Shaggy,” “Crazy J” and “Phantom” (given to them to protect their personal identities), I can live with Clark, a reference to Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent. Interestingly enough, I think of Dave Poster as a superman; he’s a mild, softspoken man of 73 years. Born in1938 in the Bronx, Dave, at age two, and his family made the move to the south side of Rockville Center, Long Island. Dave attended the local schools before heading to the the State University of New York at Farmingdale, majoring in business. Dave played linemen on his college football team as well as played on the wrestling team. After graduation Dave did a three-year tour in the military as an M.P. (Military Police). While serving his country, he duked it out as a member of the military boxing team. Upon Dave’s return from military service, he found employment and worked at various major department stores in New York as an assistant buyer and in sales. Making his home in the West Village, Dave observed a progressive increase in criminal activity such as robbery, assault, prostitution and drug use. These conditions spiked through the years1980–1990. In 1989 Dave had a physical altercation that prompted him to attend a neighborhood block association meeting, where the Guardian Angels’ services were being considered. Dave who showed up in a suit, was asked to leave because he was believed to be a member of the press. Only after Dave convinced them he was just a West Village resident with concerns for safety was he allowed to remain. There were concerns that the Guardian Angels would be too militant and homo-
phobic, so it was decided that the Angels would incorporate community volunteers as part of the Christopher Street Patrol. Dave volunteered, as did others, for the task. Before long Dave was given the position of vice president of recruitment, as his background and training in the military were useful in determining the character of volunteers. Not everyone who volunteers is accepted. If someone violates the Guardian Angels ethical codes, he or she will be banned from further service. Dave was later made President Patrol Leader. Other community volunteer patrol leaders include such notables as Cathy Christel, Kathy Donaldson, Diana Horton, Terri Howell, patroller Angela Wedo and the administrative coordinator Barbara Baluta. Veteran Guardian Angels “Shaggy,” “Crazy J” and “Phantom” are just some of the regulars who patrol side by side with resident volunteers. Dave quickly learned what was needed in crime fighting from the Guardian Angels through their training and meetings. Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, is a steadfast virtual Rock of Gibraltar. Curtis, realizing the vast complexity and makeup of the West Village, asked Dave to provide sensitivity training for Angel members. The point of this sensitivity training was to see to it that everyone receive equal and just treatment and to keep personnel in check when dealing with the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. Dave furthered his training by enrolling in the Civilian Police Academy, where he took a 16-week training course that dealt with learning law, baton use, situation training and scenario training. Dave’s graduation was attended by the police commissioner. Dave also is a member of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) for Battery Park City. I asked Dave to brief me on the ongoing issue of Pier 45. The Neutral Zone, formerly a community center for LGBT
September 2011 WestView News 11
www.westviewnews.org youth, started out as a good idea and with good intentions. The hearts of the community were in the right place, but the project ended in disaster. With the community’s blessing, a center was run by the Greenwich Village Youth Council to create a safe space for LGBT youth to congregate and be themselves. The community got what it asked for and more: crime, violence, robbery, prostitution and drug abuse. The Neutral Zone only helped in escalating what this youth center was supposed to curtail. What was thought to give youth empowerment only gave them the power to be reckless, rude, raunchy and out of control. To better understand this, read the article in the September 2005 issue of The Villager, written by Dave Poster and Elaine Goldman (president of the Christopher Street Merchants and Block Association), found at thevillager.com/villager_125/gayyouthgonewild.html. After three years of butting heads, the Neutral Zone closed for good, and Pier 45 became the 24/7 hangout for youths spilling into the streets. In 1996 the outraged community set a fire under the heels of Community Board 2, who finally made a resolution to close the pier at midnight. The pier closed during its facelift, and for about three years it was quiet. No sooner had the pier reopened that it again became business as usual, with a closing time of 1:00 am instead of midnight closing time as previously established. The patrollers have had their front lines pushed back a bit. Furthermore, as the Meat Packing District became the new chic place, prostitutes made their way onto residential streets, bringing with them the johns, pimps and drug dealers.
The closing of the Two Potato and Chi Chi’s bars have had a positive effect on Christopher Street. Now if only the pier would close at 9:00 pm — the number one issue according to Dave — it would make a big difference. Bad behavior is what makes it unsafe for all. It’s bad for business, shops close early and customers stay away at night. Dave is presently the chairperson for the Greenwich Village Block Association task force on prostitution and unruly street behavior. Dave mentioned that following the Dunkin’ Donuts incident, the added police presence has helped things calm down; it has been much safer. The Christopher Street Patrol is now in its 21st year of community service. On a personal note: Because of the work Dave Poster is involved with, he is sometimes depicted by persons and groups in opposition to his cause as being homophobic or prejudiced against minority groups. Nothing can be further from the truth. Case in point, the patrol itself is made up of a collage of people and personalities. Dave’s only concern is the safety and well-being of everyone who lives, works and visits the West Village and surrounding areas. This includes the LGBT youth who claim to come here because it’s the only safe haven for them. The West Village is only made safe for all by the police of the 6th Precinct, auxiliary police, PEP officers on the pier and persons like Dave Poster and the volunteers of the Christopher Street Patrol who do what they do with selfless love for their community and fellow human beings.
Pet Charity
continued from page 5 of this year. (Her work for NY SAVE has been entirely on a volunteer basis.) NY SAVE has had almost no operating expenses, but it may need to hire someone and secure an office in the future unless space can be donated. Many deserving cases have had to be turned away for lack of funds, but NY SAVE has handled more than 800 cases since its founding. It also can be used as a model for similar pet charities in other cities, so that the idea can take hold nationwide. This in turn will make it easier to obtain grants, and people who cherish the companionship of their pets will be able to get this needed assistance everywhere in America. Many efforts have been made to find more money for NY SAVE. A new winemaker offered to give the charity a percentage of its profits. A singles organization held social evenings, contributing part of the earning to NY SAVE. Auctions have been held by the Veterinary Medical Association at annual dinner dances, offering items such as an original print by Peter Max, and numerous pet carry-cases decorated by celebrities such as Donald Trump.
ONE IDEA THAT WORKS: can help raise funds for NY SAVE. Photo by Carol Yost.
One night, a pet-themed rock concert benefited NY SAVE. The charity has also had tables at various pet-related events. Many other ideas have been explored and discarded, but the organization is still looking. Every day I dream of winning the Lotto, and giving a few million dollars to NY SAVE. Just one idea that works will help.
Go to nysave.org to find out more about this unusual charity, a 501(c)(3) organization that accepts donations on its website.
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12 WestView News September 2011
Science from Away: Fracking Facts By Mark M. Green
concrete that line the drilled shaft to set up the next stage. Up to millions of galA huge amount of methane, a residue of lons of water and particulate matter (sand life lived long ago, is buried in many places and synthetic particles, containing a small deep in the earth, several thousands of feet proportion of a large number of chemicals below the surface, trapped under shale de- that control the viscosity and other critical posits. The shale is the end product of the properties of the water) are jammed down mud and clay that sustained this life while the well at astoundingly high pressures to on the earth’s surface as long as 500 million fracture the rock that is imprisoning the years ago. The impermeable nature of the methane. The particles in the water (propshale traps the methane from escaping to pants) act to hold open the newly formed the surface. Drilling through the shale into fissures, which otherwise might close back a pocket of methane acts like removing the up again from the high pressure at these cork from a bottle of champagne. A single depths under the earth. When the pressure drill hole would not release enough meth- applied at the surface is released, much of ane to be commercially feasible, but if many that water (produced water) comes back new passages, widely dispersed throughout to the surface carrying with it its original the methane-trapping shale, are created, constituents, which are hardly benign, in the released methane can be funneled into addition to the debris picked up thousands a single channel leading to the surface. By of feet below the surface of the earth and this method, enough gas could escape to a flushed out. Produced water is nasty, toxic single site on the surface to make money on and dangerous. the process. The chemicals originally put into the Setting off explosions, making seismic water are supposed to be proprietary, but a measurements, and by other means I don’t New York State report reveals the general really understand, the outline of the im- purpose of many of these chemicals and the prisoning shale can be determined. This toxic properties of some of them. There is information is then used to guide direc- much other useful information in this retionally controlled drills to penetrate that port. http://webcache.googleusercontent. shale. These drills can go vertically and com/search?q=cache:thmtau8w0y8J:www. horizontally. Small, well-placed explo- dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/ sions (using shaped charges) make holes ogdsgeischap5.pdf+draft+SGEI West View 9-11_SC_West_View_9-11 12:37 PMare Page 1 atSCthe right places in the flexible steel 8/11/11 and There powerful reasons for producing
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methane. First, this gas has the potential, because of the very large amount of it under North America, to greatly reduce dependence on imported oil and on domestically produced coal, although recent estimates, as reported in the August 25 issue of the New York Times, question this essential reason for drilling/fracking. Second, because there are four hydrogen atoms per carbon atom, combustion of methane (CH4) produces less carbon dioxide per gram than the burning of other fossil fuels, which have a higher ratio of carbon to hydrogen (-CH2-), a plus from the view of global warming. Third, there is a chemical process, named Fischer–Tropsch, which was used by Germany and Japan during WW II to compensate for lack of oil, by which methane can be converted to the higher hydrocarbons otherwise obtained from petroleum. Gasoline and diesel fuel can be made from these higher hydrocarbons.
So what’s the problem? You are dealing with enormous volumes of water laden with a mixed bag of chemicals, which have the potential for health and environmental damage both in the water used for the fracking and in the produced water. The record of fracking up to now has shown this potential to be realized all too often. There have been multiple situations where the produced water could not be properly contained and has drained into the ground and into streams and rivers. In other instances, the produced water has been left to evaporate from leaking lined depressions in the earth, so that dangerous chemicals can enter sources of potable water or evaporate into the air. There have been times when the large tankers carrying these fluids have spilled their contents. There are records of when the release of the enormous pressures needed for the
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fracking have led to blow-outs of the produced water. There are examples where improperly applied concrete (used to line the wells) has allowed both the original water and produced water to leak near enough to the earth’s surface to contaminate potable water sources. In other cases, improperly constructed drilling sites have allowed large volumes of methane to escape into the potable water supply. You can find remarkable pictures of water apparently on fire and even, in one case, of a homeowner’s well exploding from a spark as its pump started up. Just a few months ago a report appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) pointing to other ways that methane released by the fracking process can find its way into wells drilled for drinking water. The methane can percolate up to the surface through cracks in the thousands of feet of rock. The fracking industry’s claims that the problems arise from drilling practices, which the major players can take care of, is undermined by the PNAS report. It is widely recognized that self-regulation is not sufficient. In fact, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which gave the industry a free ride during the Bush years, has a study underway that will certainly increase regulation of the drilling and fracking industry. The report is due out by 2012 or so. The industry’s absolute certainty of this imminent regulation has already been factored in. Big commercial interests realize that even with increased well costs of up to half a million dollars for each well, considerable profit can still be made – that commercial viability is still there. And finally we come to another point, which has been the focus of much discussion among people who love the rural pristine nature of the countryside and who profit from the tourism industry that depends on that characteristic. Reading and seeing photographs about this drilling/fracking industry, which the Web is replete in, will demonstrate in words and pictures that this treasured character of a rural area will be greatly altered in the area where the wells are dug and for considerable distance around. Wall Street knows that in order to make money you have to know the truth, but not necessarily tell the truth. Here is the Web site of a hydraulic fracturing report put out last summer by people greatly interested in selling advice to people who want to make money. It is worth reading and especially the conclusion that fracturing will be both regulated and wide spread, but may be spared from the New York City watershed. scribd.com/doc/48255702/risks-hype-andfinancial-reality-of-hydraulic-fracturingin-the-shale-plays-July-8-2010-A-SpecialReport-Jointly-Presented-By-Ann-Davis
Reprinted from Mark M. Green's blog, sciencefromaway.com.
September 2011 WestView News 13
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A Looming Medicaid Crisis By David Kaufman The number of New York City residents on Medicaid is likely to hit 3 million next year, the New York Post says, as more employers drop health coverage and force lowwage workers to seek government care (visit http://nyp.st/ogxYDN). So, nearly half the residents of NYC will be on Medicaid, even as the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the politicians allow or facilitate the closing, in domino fashion, of hospital after hospital—all safety net institutions in one way or another. Do these hospitals close because they take Medicaid? Do they close because they are easy targets with impoverished constituencies? Or do they close simply because the politicians and regulators truly do not care? North Shore LIJ, NYU and Sinai have millions of dollars to spend on PR and Lobbying so "somehow" they escape. Perhaps the strategy is to force more and more of these poor, underinsured citizens into the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation system facilities such as Bellevue and Metropolitan, and allow the wealthier, better insured residents, to enjoy the luxury of the academic medical centers with their gleam-
ing new towers, endless new construction, glamorous training programs, and grand research agendas. (Isn't it interesting how they never seem to have trouble getting the funding and obtaining the "ok", the Certificate of Need, from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene when they want to add beds or programs or equipment?) Of course, we all know that the bulk of the training and research occurs on the backs of the indigent/Medicaid/uninsured patients (dirty dark little secret), so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. If you live in Brooklyn or the Lower West Side, you will travel miles and wait hours to be seen in overwhelmed emergency rooms staffed with frazzled interns, residents and “attendings,” and completely courageous but burnt out nurses. Great. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. NYC has become an iceberg city: a vastly wealthy group above water and huge numbers of poor and struggling way below water. So the healthcare system will mimic that, with our politicians and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene creating, and openly endorsing a two-tier system--one for the rich and one for the poor. Who was it who said "let them eat cake"?....
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‘Democracy Now’ Help us Now! Diane Nichols, member of the Coalition for a New Village Hospital, visited the offices of TV/radio program Democracy Now! with copies of West View back issues, in the hope that Amy Goodman, host and executive producer, would make the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital one of her causes. Here is Nichols’ August 22, 2011 letter to Goodman:
Dear Amy:
On behalf of the Coalition for a New Village Hospital we are writing to ask Democracy Now! to investigate the illegal closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Our community is devastated by this loss that has left 350,000 people without a full-service hospital. Throughout the past year the story about this illegal closing has been documented in the local community paper, WestView News. Please see seven recent issues, enclosed. Members of the coalition have endeavored to meet with our elected officials over the past year, including Mayor Bloomberg, Christine Quinn and others. We wonder why there has been “no comment” on a matter of this importance. The Rudin Management Company has submitted plans to build luxury condos on the St. Vincent’s Hospital site! We don’t need condos … we need the return of a full-service hospital (and not a small glorified clinic which will not be able to cope with life and death matters). Fortunately, one politician spoke out: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said at a coalition forum meeting last February: “The bottom line is this hospital closure impacted the neighborhood in a very big way, and anyone who says we don’t need a full hospital is not being honest with the community. Two-hundred-forty-thousand people got service there and the fact that the board of the hospital ran it into the ground … I believe still needs to be investigated.” David L. Kaufman, M.D., who was instrumental in forming the Coalition for a New Village Hospital, is one of our most urgent voices. Dr. Kaufman says in the August WestView News: “I am watching a healthcare nightmare evolve before my eyes: first, St. Vincent’s, now a domino effect of Brooklyn hospitals … I cannot tolerate the damage this has and will do to the sick, the poor, the uninsured, the most needy who will suffer and die in our obscenely wealthy city. This is insane.” We urgently request that your investigative team at Democracy Now! look into this matter. Time is of the essence. We would be happy to provide any further information you might need and contact information of spokespersons for the return of a fullservice hospital. Thank you and kind regards. E. Diane Nichols
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14 WestView News September 2011
You Can Buy History A charming new shop offers historic and decorative vintage posters from all over the world as well as custom framing By George Capsis One of my first impressions of Paris was the ubiquitous stenciled warning “défense d’afficher,” which I learned yesterday was in response to the turn-of the-century tsunami of advertising posters that encrusted every available Parisian wall. As Elie Saporta, the co-owner of the new Greenwich Avenue shop La Belle Epoque, explained, “It was before radio, before television. There was no other way to sell the new products of the Industrial Age to the emerging middle class.” The battle for visual attention demanded quick, bold, arresting images that inspired artists like Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, and they quickly became sought after as home decoration. So valuable did the poster become that printers would overrun and sell to shops with a seal indicating they were legal and not stolen by the poster hangers. “Authentic vintage posters are the least expensive collectable art,” offered Linda Tarasuk, who after graduating NYU as an art major discovered them as a bold way to decorate her home and became an addicted
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collector, then dealer with Saporta. Their Columbus Avenue shop became the mecca for collectors as they became one of the top three dealers in the country. They have relocated to the West Village to flee the flood of Starbucks and return to a community that still values owner-owned shops. Their skill in museum-quality restoration and preservative framing is a large part of their business. La Belle Epoque is an unexpected gem in the West Village and a visit to the shop is as engrossing as a museum visit and lecture — but the joy is you can take a piece of history home.
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A VISUAL GEM: The interior of La Belle Epoque on Greenwich Avenue.
September 2011 WestView News 15
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Then & Now
A TRUE CLASSIC: Stanford White’s elegant Arch immediately became the centerpiece of Greenwich Village, truly dominating the uncluttered Washington Square of 1905, above. And while, in 2011, modern newcomers clamor for attention, the regal old Arch still holds pride of place. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, above; photo by Maggie Berkvist, right.
Washington Square Arch By Maggie Berkvist STANDING TALL: April, 1889, was a time for celebration. One hundred years earlier, in New York City, George Washington had been inaugurated the first President of the United States, and New York was planning a three-day festival to mark the centennial; but the businessman and philanthropist William Rhinelander Stewart felt something more was required. Living on Washington Square North, he attended the Church of the Ascension, at Fifth Avenue and West 10th Street, and knew architect Stanford White, who had recently completed its remodeling; so Stewart decided that to mark the occasion, White should design a Washington Memorial Arch, to be erected at the southern end of Fifth Avenue. Quickly raising the necessary funds, Stewart signed a contract in March 1889 with White for a temporary wood-framed, plaster-coated arch modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. And on April 30 the route of the centennial march was diverted at Union Square, from Broadway to Fifth Avenue, so that the eleven-mile long military parade could pass under the Arch into Washington Square. The temporary arch was an immediate hit, so that even as it was being dismantled Stanford White was being invited to submit a design for a permanent structure at the North end of the square to replace it. And on May 31, 1890, the cornerstone was laid — “The grateful shade of the tall
THE FORERUNNER: But first came the temporary Arch, in 1889, to celebrate the centennial of George Washington’s Inauguration as President. New York University Archives.
trees sheltered the sun’s hot rays from but a small portion of the multitude assembled …” wrote the New York Times. And Henry Marquand, chairman of the Arch Committee, made a speech in which, roundly chastising a critic of the project who had complained, “the neighborhood in a few years will be all tenement houses,” proclaimed, “Even should this prove true, no stronger reason could be given for the arch being placed here. Have the occupants of tenement houses no sense of beauty? Have they no patriotism? Have they no right to good architecture? … This is the arch of peace and good-will to men.” Bravo for Mr. Mar-
quand (and his Shakespearean oratory) — and so much for the critic’s forecast! Five years later, on May 4, 1895, the Times opened a long account of the dedication ceremonies with, “Yesterday was NewYork’s own day.” The arch was launched on its career as a proud Greenwich Village landmark. From day one it attracted an impressive array of artists and photographers, though none, probably, for such a novel project as the early 20th-Century artist John Sloan and his colleagues. In a 1917 speech to the U.S. Senate, President Wilson had urged that “all nations avoid entangling alliances … free to live their own lives ….” This, it seems, inspired Sloan and a local live wire named Gertrude Drick to declare Greenwich Village’s independence. Knowing that a small door on the west pier of the arch was often left unattended by the policeman on duty, they gathered up a little band of rebels, including the artist Marcel Duchamp, to invade the arch. With all the necessary equipment for staging a revolution — food, liquor, hot water bottles, lanterns, balloons and toy pistols — they waited until the cop had wandered off, then climbed the stairs to the top of the arch. There they enjoyed a picnic, read aloud poetry and, finally, their “Declaration of Independence of the Greenwich Republic,” finishing off the ceremony by sending off the balloons, firing the cap pistols, and toasting the “new republic.” A peaceful coup with no casualties, the escapade provided an enjoyable news item for the locals,
THE MINI REBELLION: as documented by John Sloan is his 1917 etching, “Arch Conspirators.” Harris Schrank Fine Prints
and John Sloan recorded the event in his etching “Arch Conspirators.” Apparently the upscale neighbors were not amused. Until the city’s parades moved further uptown, the arch was the place for many a major event. In 1911, it was the site of a march to honor the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and in 1918, of a funeral procession for a young former mayor, John Purroy Mitchel, killed in World War I. In 1933 a march to protest Nazi policies and anti-Semitism passed through on its way from Madison Square to Battery Park. Fifth Avenue buses also went through the arch en route to their turnaround point in Washington Square until 1971, when the square was redesigned by Robert Nichols to become a park, rather than a traffic viaduct. But by 1991 the Times was reporting that the arch was being fenced off; that while the stonework was structurally sound, the façade was deteriorating and loose fragments dropping off. Finally, in 2003, coming in under budget at a mere $2,731.000, the arch got its much-needed face lift, to become a majestic presence once again … if slightly dwarfed by its upstart 20th Century neighbors.
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16 WestView News September 2011
Two ‘B’s, Two ‘N’s & Making Light of Music for 45 Years
SOMETHING NEW … ET COMMENT … Way over west on Christopher Street … in fact within stereo distance of Hoboken … is a loft with a man named Bob Goldstein in residence. The other night he threw a rather sensational party to introduce a new concept in total entertainment. At 8:00 the line of people-in-waiting
stretched down the stairs and onto the street. The production was not quite ready for the public. At 8:30 the doors were opened. On the door was posted a sign … “Bob Goldstein’s LightWorks” … The loft is decorated with posters of early films, framed photos of old movie stars, actual early projectors, and other camp and pop paraphernalia. The host received in an eight-button blazer with three buttons on each sleeve which caused him to
bear resemblance to one of those “March of Dimes” fill-up-the-card-with-moneyand-send-it-in-to-blah-blah. He wore a polka dot shirt and Pop tie. At the far end of the loft were three large white movie screens. All around the room were strings and strings of colored lights, floods, spots and a mirror ball on the ceiling. An hour or so later and Act I of the extravaganza. This in low key. Over the center screen were five strings of tiny lights arranged in scallops. Following a rock-androll overture on booming stereo, the banks of lights started to flick on and off. Then a slide program about Thomas Alva Edison and his inventions … all to a pop-camp dialogue. The second portion was a bit more upkey. This, a documentary on Twenties and Thirties movies: A film program of Thirties film musical clips along with slides of the opening of the Roxy, Paramount and Brooklyn Paramount concluding with the famous shot of Gloria Swanson standing in the ruins of the Roxy wearing a red feather boa and $170,000 worth of jewels. This again with background stereo of tunes like
“Little Girl,” movie spectacle music, and more lights. The third and final portion which spontaneously brought the whole audience to its feet in a frenzy of frugging, featured a European Scopitone twist film on the center screen, with the side screens featuring wildly colored abstract and cubist slides in rapid sequence. The silver ball on the ceiling reflected on all the walls, the strings of lights blinked on and off rapidly, floods and circling spots flashed around the room. The entire production rather like the finale at a hopped-up Fourth of July or 14th of July celebration. “The LightWorks” is an extraordinary experience and with a bit of perfection should prove to be something very new, and very exciting. When everyone looks iridescent, when the sound is up to 400 decibels, when all of your senses are assaulted at once … well there’s not much more you can say. Watch out for Bob Goldstein … his “LightWorks” may well replace the discotheque, movies, TV and everything else. —TED JAMES, JR. FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1966
September 2011 WestView News 17
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When Christopher Street First Saw the Light(Works) Another little-known chapter in the history of the West Village By Bobb Goldsteinn
These are some notes about the birth of disco lighting and the term “Multimedia,” two more additions to the world that originated here in the West Village. Much of the draft was first written as an event proposal in February 2001 to commemorate the 35th anniversary of LightWorks. Hopefully, by its 50th anniversary, it will appear in book form. (Note: In 2004, I had my name legally changed to Bobb Goldsteinn, a spelling I HAVE been using since the mid-'80s.) In the New York Herald Tribune of March 21, 1966, Eugenia Sheppard wrote, “You have to have an invitation. You have to know somebody who knows somebody who knows Bob Goldstein to be invited Downtown to see his LightWorks.” “Downtown” was my second-floor, loft-sized American Federal townhouse/studio at 181 Christopher Street, where I set up the “LightWorks” — an elaborate manymedia environment, installed on the four high, whitewashed Philadelphia brick walls that rose above a shiny, hardwood floor. The space had a touch of a gentleman’s library, with a spinet piano in one corner, but the walls and ceiling had enough mounted units to light a successful Off-Broadway theatre and a planetarium. The room was also outfitted with state-of-the-art projection equipment, a Siemens 16-millimeter with double soundtrack capability, three lighting consoles — two of them towers — a dozen Kodak carousels and that mirrored ball that Sheppard claimed I had reintroduced to social dancing. Since we were a residence, we could not legally take an admission charge from the hordes that came to see, be seen and drink the wine we purchased in bulk and served gratis. Almost nightly, from November 27, 1965 until the next Memorial Day, when we closed to re-open weeks later in the Hamptons, my living room was the place to be. In 1966, I brought people to our waterfront, a part of town they would have never ventured to, except to take an ocean liner to Europe or to see someone off. According to pop culture chronicler Albert Goldman (author of “Ladies & Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce,” “Elvis” and “Lennon”), writing in New York magazine, I was “the designer of the futuristic dance hall.” Stephen Sondheim attended four times while he was working on “Follies,” and Mike Nichols came twice and appropriated the
“Hair Dance,” one of our most popular numbers (set to the Rascals’ “Good Lovin’”) for Broadway’s three one-act musicals, collectively called “The Apple Tree,” which he directed. This was also the room where, just after Memorial Day weekend of 1966, three of my many repeat guests — Alan Patricof, Elinor Silverman and Iris Sawyer — approached me with a proposition. Patricof is now a retired venture capitalist, who orchestrated Rupert Murdoch’s first two buys of American media institutions (New York magazine, away from Clay Felker — which broke Clay’s heart — and The Village Voice, away from its original Village ownership, which is why it has never run an article about the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital, so they are no longer what they claim to be: “The Voice of the Village”). Silverman is now known primarily as “The Cat Lady.” (She’s the long-time publicist for the New York Cat Show though she’s never owned a cat.) Then there’s Sawyer, who, some years later, became “the woman New Yorkers most wished would go away” over her disastrous public affair with Tom Kempner, much to the displeasure of his wife, Nan. The reviled Sawyer did go away: she eventually assumed the name of the Greta Garbo character in “Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise),” and as Susan Lennox (with two n’s), fled to England and started hawking jewelry. It seems that Patricof and the ladies had found a grayshingled, barn-like structure on some Southampton land jutting into Great Peconic Bay, way north of the highway. Originally built to house sailboats under construction or repair, the waterside structure had been transformed a few years earlier into a summer-stocky supper club named L’Oursin. (French: “sea urchin”; English: “our sin.”) But it was not thriving. The three wanted to “turn on” the Hamptons by introducing it to “Bob Goldstein’s LightWorks” at this club, but when I drove out to see the room, what I encountered was a boxy, wood-girdered soaring space that was vastly out of proportion to the scale of my city LightWorks Lab. I would have to design — and the crew and I would have to construct, install and rehearse — a totally new set of multimedia structures and mechanisms, created just for the summer club. And LightWorks would have to be ready in exactly forty days’ time, or we would miss our July 4 launch date.
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But we prevailed, and LightWorks, the world’s first commercial installation of disco lighting, premiered at L’Oursin on Sunday, July 3, 1966, with a gala benefit for a Kennedy-clan charity, hosted by Brooke Shields’ stepmother, Didi Auchincloss. A few weeks later, the LightWorks, the pop music, the film and slide projections — and the now de rigueur mirrored ball — were used for the first time ever to accompany a runway fashion show for a designer quite hot at the time, Milan-based Ken Scott, the creative mind behind Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe in “Two for the Road.” Other notable evenings that summer included the American premiere of 20th Century Fox’s secret-agent flick, “Modesty Blaise,” starring Monica Vitti. The movie company leased an entire train to bring out all the media from the city, partied them until sunrise, and then shipped them back to town to sleep it off. LightWorks habitué Goldman said this about his first night spent at LightWorks at L’Oursin: “Pushing (myself ) into the murky interior of the club, I found my way to a table. Then, after attuning my senses to the stunning mélange of sights and sounds coming from every direction, I made a snap decision to remain there the rest of my life.” It was also there that summer of ’66 that I coined the term “Multimedia.” But that’s another story, and with a Hollywood payoff. Thirty years later, this term was selected by the Gesellschaft fur Deutsche Sprachgebrauch (Society of German Language Usage) as the “most important new word of the year,” winning out over “Eurogeld” (which means money in any language). So what started out at my West Village studio as a onenight Christmas entertainment in 1965 has, to this day, triggered an ongoing revolution in the visual presentation of all forms of music in every medium. For instance, on “American Idol” and its summer sister, “America’s Got Talent,” the stage lighting works as hard as the acts do. Without such spectacular kinetics, these shows would be just two more examples of amateur talent nights ripped from the playbooks of radio’s Major Bowes and Broadway’s Michael Bennett.
Bobb Goldsteinn, WestView’s Theatre Editor, saw the original productions of “Oklahoma,” “Gypsy” and “The Book of Mormon.”
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18 WestView News September 2011
Sharing the Summer House By James Lincoln Collier No doubt some readers have shared a summer house at some time or other with friends or relatives and will not need this cautionary advice. For those who have not, take heed. There may be people who find it satisfying to face congealing meatballs or aging tuna noodle casserole in the refrigerator in the morning, but it can’t be the majority of the American people. Sharing a summer house no doubt has its charming moments — for example at six o’clock in the evening when the first martini is wending its way into the bloodstream, accompanied by a juicy bit of gossip about somebody near and dear who has made the mistake of leaving the room. But such moments are few and far between. As it happens, my family has had, since the Ice Age, a small, rather dowdy cottage on a lake in Massachusetts with an implausible Indian name. Perforce, we sometimes share, not only with siblings and cousins, but occasionally with their guests, some of them recent arrivals from obscure Balkan nations who speak a language they believe to be English but isn’t. In a short space, I can only touch on the many snares that await the unwary sharer. One that quickly springs to mind is the fact
that some of us are early risers who like to retire early, while others only begin to warm up when the moon starts to set. Frequently, then, as Frank and Emily Houshare are falling in to a heartening doze, the Wetwhistles on the porch below are rising into full cry, demanding stronger wine and more rumbustical laughter. Frank and Emily grin and bear it for what seems like eons, and then Frank bangs on the floor with a shoe. The unruly noises from below fade briefly; but within ten minutes there is a burst of shrilly laughter and loud guffaws at some witticism that will not seem very funny when repeated in the morning. Once again Frank and Emily, now both at once, bang on the floor, this time harder. Again the rumbustication from below fades, this time accompanied by a good many giggled shushes; but inevitably the rumbustication rises once more. Above, Frank and Emily pull the covers over their heads, which shortly begins to asphyxiate them. They rearrange the blankets in such a way that their ears are covered but their noses are free, and in this fashion they manage to achieve the simulacrum of a doze. It needn’t be said that when the Wetwhistles appear at lunchtime demanding black coffee, the conversation during the ensuing meal is scant and rather brittle.
That ought to be enough, but of course it isn’t. Unfortunately, Frank’s doctor has put him on a low salt diet; Emily breaks out if she eats anything with mayonnaise in it; Honey Wetwhistle has been told to take off at least ten pounds; and Hank Wetwhistle is a “raw fooder.” Furthermore, the Wetwhistles have invited a guest from Croatia whose stomach goes into reverse if he doesn’t get a regular dosage of goat’s milk. As a consequence, a half hour before every meal, four or five people are in the kitchen bumping into each other and demanding to know what happened to the sour cream. The meal that follows is indigestible, which hardly matters for nobody is in much of a temper to digest anything but gruel anyway. Then there are the children. The Wetwhistles do not have any, explaining that they are “too selfish” to have children. This is only half of the truth, the other half of which is that nobody, including the Wetwhistles themselves, can possibly imagine who — or what — the Wetwhistles’ children would resemble. However it is abundantly evident that the Houshares have children, as the little tykes spend most of their time speeding back and forth through the area where the grown-ups are enjoying their cocktails, snatching at the pickled oysters as they romp by, which will shortly make at least two of them violently ill. Meanwhile, the youngest, little Angela, weeps bitterly because the others will not let her join their game, which involves hitting each other as
hard as possible with sticks. The fun will only end when one of the children, in a dispute over ownership of a small turtle, which has withdrawn into its shell in horror, hits the other in the nose with his stick, necessitating a good deal of mopping up blood with cocktail napkins. At this point, some of the more level-headed women decide that the merry throng better have something to eat beyond pickled oysters, and they head for the kitchen to comb the refrigerator for edibles, which prove to be leftovers, apparently from the Civil War. The meal is eaten in silence except for the restless noises of the children kicking each other under the table, and Hank Wetwhistle’s futile attempts to elevate the mood by telling a story of unparalleled indecency, in the middle of which Honey Wetwhistle, who has heard the story before, suddenly snaps, “All right children, time for bed.” The children, needless to say, have been waiting for the dirty part of Hank’s story, and begin to howl that it’s too early, they haven’t had a book and so forth, at which point the company leaves the table, all of them quietly vowing that they’ll never do this again. But over time the bruises will fade, leaving only the memory of happy days at the summer house, and sooner or later they will find themselves once again surrounded by pickled oysters and glasses in hand, while the children, now a little older and more dangerous, swirl like flying squirrels through the happy crowd.
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September 2011 WestView News 19
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The Church of the Ascension’s Magnificent New Organ Dennis Keene gets the instrument of his dreams
By Barbara Chacour The Church of the Ascension is the beautiful old church we all know, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 10th Street. WestView News heard that the church had acquired a new French organ and interviewed the music director, Dennis Keene, to learn more about it. The Manton Memorial organ is an ambitious project completed last spring after a year in which the church was closed for renovation and reinforcement. It is the largest organ built in France in the past 50 years and first French-built organ in New York City. The organ was made possible by a grant from the Manton Foundation to honor the memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, who were active members of the Church of the Ascension for more than 50 years. Dennis Keene came to The Church of the Ascension as assistant to organist and choirmaster Vernon de Tar after studying organ at Julliard and in Paris. He studied conducting in the United States and Paris. Since becoming music director upon de Tar’s retirement in 1981, Keene has further increased the Church’s prominence in sacred music, most notably creating “Voices of Ascension.” This professional chorus gives concerts at the Church and elsewhere and records under the Delos and Naxos labels (CDs are available from Amazon and at performances). For information and tickets for the 20112012 series of nine concerts (5 choral and 4 organ) go to voicesofascension.org. Keene also conducts the semi-professional church choir at services. The rector, Reverend Andrew W. Foster III, and his congregation consider music to be part of the Episcopal church’s sacred mission, as it has been historically.
The interview: Asked about the origins of the project, Keene says that the former 40-year old organ was in need of such lengthy and expensive repairs that it made sense to consider acquiring a new one. The criterion was a world-class “eclectic” instrument. Keene explained that organs, intrinsically complex, vary enormously from country to country and over the centuries. Surveying American-made organs around the United States, he found that even the most versatile models would not allow the range of music he wished to perform to be played as intended. The American-made organs were especially inadequate for the particular sounds of French composers, such as the baroque period’s Couperin, the romantic Franck and the 20th century composers, Messiean and Durufle. Touring European churches, Keene quickly recognized his ideal when, in St
A WORLD CLASS “ECLECTIC” INSTRUMENT: Organist Dennis Keen at the mobile electric-action console for symphonic works. Photos by Maggie Berkvist.
Remy de Provence, he heard an organ that had been designed and built by Pascal Quiorin. In mid-2007, Quiorin visited New York to look at the church and discuss the best design for this particular building and for the particular needs of the parish. Construction took place back in his workshop in Provence. The instrument was completely assembled there, then taken apart and put into shipping containers for transport here in early 2011. The project came in only a week behind schedule, a delay caused by a dockworkers’ strike in Marseille. The interior of the church is 50 feet high and seats 600 and is known for its good acoustics. WestView asked about unknowns, such as how the final product would sound, wondering if the big project felt risky. Keene said he had total confidence throughout in the team of builders. He called Quoirin a visionary. The organ itself has two consoles, one an attached “mechanical-action” console situated on the left side of the church for older music, and a large electric-action console for symphonic-style compositions. The electric console is on wheels so that it can be moved to the center for concerts. Pipes are separated on each side, which presented the challenge of how the tones would mix. Keene reports that all involved were thrilled with the results. Small and medium sounds are clearly audible and the volume of the “tutti” sections is just right. The builders received a standing ovation at the inaugural service, something they had never experienced in Europe.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HISTORY: The “mechanical-action” console and pipes, for older music.
The organ is also visually striking in a church already famous for its 19th century art works--a mural by John LaFarge, carved reliefs by Louis St. Gaudens, and some stained glass windows by Tiffany. The organ pipes are in cases of pale ash wood. Babou Vauquois Quiorin, wife of the builder, carved the elaborate wooden birds that decorate the organ cases and was responsible for the polychrome decorations on the cases as well. The console cases are of darker stained French walnut. The pipes are shiny metal.
Some history Music has been part of the mission of The Church of the Ascension since its founding in the late 1820s. Records show that a New York-built organ was installed at a cost of $2,400 in 1830 at the church’s original site on Canal Street. That is approximately the cost at that time of building one of our cherished Greek revival townhouses. The church’s annual budget has always included an organist and chorus. The loyalty of its music directors is noteworthy. Jessie Craig Adam was organist and choirmaster from 1914 to her death in 1939. She and the church were involved in the women’s suf-
NOTES TAKING FLIGHT: Carved by Babou Vauquois Quiorin, wife of the organ’s builder, wooden birds decorate the ash wood encasing the organ pipes’.
frage movement. Her choir was renowned. Vernon de Tar, Dennis Keene’s predecessor, served for 42 years until his retirement. As mentioned, Dennis Keene originally served as his assistant.
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20 WestView News September 2011
Try to Remember the Birds of September A Rainy Day Whets the Thirst for Birding
Mother Gadwall Patrolling. Photos by Walter H. Laufer, dedicated Hudson River Park birder!
By Keith Michael This is not a day for birding. And, if I tried to take Millie out, she would just slink along the front of our building glaring up at the downpour as her personal misfortune. Where do the Gadwall and their summer ducklings hunker down during a deluge like this? And the Barn Swallows? Are they under the piers playing Parcheesi®? One of the conjoined pleasures of the verb “to bird” is also “to NOT bird”! There is delicious anticipation in where the next “good bird” will show up, and reminiscing why the last “good find” was unforgettable. Past, present and future make a tangy bouillabaisse. Just last month, on my usual morning walk to Hudson River Park (with Millie inspecting every centimeter of sidewalk along the way) and during a jog out to Pier 45 (drawn that day by the remarkable blue calm of the sky after a Zeus vs. Thor slapdown storm the night before), literally out of that blue flew a Semipalmated Sandpiper! Bird #75 was welcomed to my West Village List. A diminutive shorebird, grayish with a flickering wing stripe, its peeping call sounded alarmed.
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The Adorable Gadwall Ducklings of the summer
Was it distressed that it had strayed from its migrating compatriots? If I were smaller than a dinner roll I’d be alarmed too that the mudflats of Jamaica Bay were still so far away. Or, maybe after flying from Canada, those extra miles are more like a sprint to the next Starbucks. Millie rolls onto her side with a hruff. I start puttering through my stack of birding field guides. My original Peterson from when I was just out of tot-hood peeks from the pile by my bed. (Millie has probably buried a treat in the binding.) The Cardinals, Robins and Bluebirds bear embossed lines from pressing my pencil hard through tracing paper years ago, like Cary Grant divining the address of the fateful auction in “North by Northwest.” My Kaufman or Sibley is now my first grab for identification: to confirm, once again, “Is it an immature Black-crowned or Yellow-crowned Night-Heron?” It’s the 1946 narratives of Richard Hooper Pough, though, that I can really curl up with. At this time of year, the O’Brien, Crossley and Karlson “The Shorebird Guide” offers endless enjoyment quizzing the vagaries of scapulars and “primary projections.” The spanking photography tour de force “The Crossley ID Guide” is like a new HBO series — daring me to get hooked. Oh, if only, as a six year old, my bunk bed had harbored THAT! September starts me thinking about the winter raptors that will sneak into the neighborhood. They’re stealthy enough already, but the bare trees, and hunger, make them more visible. Here, a Red-tailed Hawk scowls within the overbite of the O’Toole Building; there, a Cooper’s Hawk out of nowhere terrorizes the resident Mourning Doves. Not that the summer Peregrine and Kestrel sightings haven’t been swell, but after the porcelain days of September, the prospect of a bite in the air and a wintering Sharp-shinned Hawk makes me tingly. After birding the same streets and riverfront, at every
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hour of the day and in every kind of weather, the newcomer stands out like royalty at a Hollywood premiere. Seventyfive species for the neighborhood is great but what about the next one? I’d love to see a Spotted Sandpiper, its fanny rhumba-ing on the rocks by the sanitation pier. How about a Great Blue Heron disoriented in front of the children’s waterpark telescopes? Would a Brown Thrasher in its radiant burnt sienna finery be too much to ask? Or that skulking elite, a Connecticut Warbler, in the viburnum near the dog park? And what if that ultra-globetrotter of this summer, the Gray-hooded Gull that wowed birding crowds at Coney Island, might still descend for one roosting second on an exposed pile of Hudson River Park! It is suddenly quiet. The rainstorm clamor on the air conditioner has slowed to a metronomic splot. “Millie, it’s stopped raining. Do you want to go out?” Yawn. Stretch. “Leash!”
Summer Barn Swallows
An immature Black-crowned Night-Heron
!
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September 2011 WestView News 21
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Adopt-A-Pot Celebrates Pottery and Plants Raising Funds for Jefferson Market Garden
THE LEAVES INSPIRE HER: Artist Marianne Yoors’ is donating her pottery, like the pieces below, to the Jefferson Market Garden’s Fundraising sale on October 1st. Photos by Maggie Berkvist
By Susan Quist Earth is the stuff pottery and gardens are made of. To celebrate her love of both, on October 1st, world-renowned artist Marianne Yoors will stage Adopt-A-Pot, a fundraiser for Jefferson Market Garden. Amidst ferns and blooms that border garden paths, Adopt-A-Pot will offer vases, platters, plates, bowls, small sculptures, and at least one birdhouse—all chosen with gardens in mind, all donated by friends from Greenwich House Pottery, where Marianne can often be found up to her elbows in clay. Though she now finds joy at the Pottery’s hand-building tables and is hard at work on biographical book and film projects, Marianne first found fame at a tapestry loom. With her husband Jan Yoors, a Word War II resistance hero, and his first wife Annaberte, her childhood friend, Marianne came to the United States in 1951. Combining medieval weaving techniques with a modernist sensibility, this innovative trio created monumental, bold, abstract tapestries collected by museums around the world. Yoors tapestries have received recent coverage in the New York Times, Modern Magazine and Metropolis Magazine. And October will be a busy month. A Yoors tapestry from the collection of James Rorimer, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be featured in Crafting Modernism, opening October 12th at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design. Another will travel to London from Todd Merrill’s Bleecker Street store for an exhibit opening October 10th at the Pavilion of Decorative Arts. Marianne, who survives both Jan and Annaberte, will be
in Paris for the opening of a Yoors tapestry exhibit at Galerie Chevalier October 20. A few days later she and her artist son, Kore, will celebrate his birthday in Belgium, where his father Jan Yoors was born. On Oct. 30, they will celebrate Marianne’s 85th birthday in Holland, where she and Annaberte were born. But Marianne’s October schedule begins with Adopt-A-Pot, and her desire to raise funds for Jefferson Market Garden. Why did she get herself into this? Marianne says, “I love leaves, and I use the leaves as inspiration for my pottery.” Many of the leaves that inspire her work come from Jefferson Market Garden, the garden closest to the family’s Village studio and home. And Marianne knows the Garden needs all the help it can get. When the Women’s House of Detention was torn down in 1973, the city had plans to sell the land to a real estate developer. Villagers objected in the streets and at city hall, Mayor John Lindsay relented, and Jefferson Market Garden rose from the rubble as a beautiful example of civic activism. Designed originally as a viewing garden, Jefferson Market Garden now opens its gates May through October, six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday, noon to six, weather permitting. The Garden is closed on Mondays for maintenance work. A pioneering public/private hybrid, Jefferson Market Garden is planted on city land, managed by the community, staffed by volunteers and two part-time pros, and funded—not by the government—but by private grants and donations. In recent years Garden weddings have provided additional income. But bookings fell off this year, thanks to needed brickwork on the library’s adjacent back wall and the protective shrouding that came with it. This has left the Garden short of cash as it faces a shaky economy and increasing environmental extremes. Adopt-A-Pot offers the opportunity to acquire a unique piece of garden-themed pottery and to support Jefferson Market Garden—the only community garden included in the New York Times Best Gardens List. Adopt-A-Pot will take place October 1st, Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue. Pot adoption begins at noon. Cash or Paypal donations accepted. (Rain date Oct. 2.)
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22 WestView News September 2011
The Ties That Bind: Reflections on 9/11, the Norway Shooter and Men’s Fears of Liberated Women By Barbara Riddle As a native New Yorker, I anticipate with sadness every year the September anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers. I personally did not lose anyone close to me, but I did lose something precious—the blithely confident and optimistic America of my childhood that we all took for granted. Every day since then has been a struggle as I repeat to myself and everyone I know that we must not let “them” win—we must continue to examine the moral choices we make, the consequences of our actions, the place of America in the world. And then, with the recent horrific July 22, 2011 terrorist attack by a lone, rightwing, Aryan, Christian fundamentalist in Norway, the world was once again reminded that members of any religious group can perpetrate insane solutions to complex problems. The isolated, twisted Norwegian loner named Anders Breivik claimed to be a fan of numerous anti-immigrant bloggers and authors, many of which he discovered on American Web sites. In addition, as astutely pointed out by journalist Michelle Goldberg (best-selling author of “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism”), Breivik is obsessed with the “ damage done to modern society by liberated feminists.” His twisted rationale for his acts was that Norwegian society
had been damaged in a way that would permit Islam to take over and dominate; the idea of a harmonious multicultural society was inconceivable to him. In his writings, he approvingly quotes from Patrick Buchanan’s “The Death of the West,” which argues that “...the rise of feminism spells the death of the nation and the end of the West.” Perhaps the tragic events in Norway will remind us that we ignore such statements at our peril. The stakes have just been raised very high. It is all too tempting to suggest that Anders’ problems might have been solved simply by having the right girlfriend. Yes, I do feel the same way about those former students of mine from the Middle East. Providing more lonely young men with the right romantic partner (of either sex) can go a long way towards spreading tolerance and bringing world peace, in my opinion. (Once again, “It’s the sexuality, stupid….”) And now I want to describe for you a scene indelibly stamped in my memory: a mother, a grandmother and two little girls, about five and seven years old, in a public library in a Stockholm suburb. I was there just this past July, waiting to check out the latest Harry Potter book for my Swedish granddaughter. The grandmother, in native dress and hijab (head scarf ), smiled a toothless smile at me as the young Middle Eastern clerk checked out their library
books. The mother, also in hijab, was busily in charge; the little girls, in Western clothing, were literally bouncing with excitement as they received their books. I didn’t mind waiting at all. This is the best of what Western Europe has to offer its immigrants from Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan. This scene would be unimaginable in Kabul. My family visit to Sweden ended on July 22. On that date, I took a morning flight to JFK from Arlanda airport. While I was on line at Customs at JFK, I saw something on a television monitor about a bombing in Oslo. My heart sank. By the time I was riding home to the West Village in a Super Shuttle van crowded with happy young tourists, I had learned that the lone terrorist was a rightwing Christian extremist who had gone on to slaughter scores of young people at a summer camp. The camp was for politically aware teenagers and was sponsored by the Norwegian political party that favors a welcoming attitude towards immigrants and that is working to create a multicultural society. The reaction of the mayor of Oslo? “More democracy.” Not, “We will forbid the building of churches in the future because this terrorist is a self-proclaimed Christian….” This event is a much-needed wake-up call urging us to pay more attention to the
phenomenon of homegrown right-wing terrorism, in the United States as well as in Europe. Is it too late? Listening to the Republican debates in Iowa, one wonders if sanity will prevail. I just learned the term Dominionism, and you should too. (Hint: Dominionists share a belief that all aspects of world government should be in the hands of Christians, and seemingly more than one Republican candidate for President is associated with this philosophy.) My deepest hope, as a teacher of immigrants and as a citizen of a nation formed by immigrants, is that we will continue to focus on our strongest weapons: education, knowledge, and self-empowerment for those who currently have nothing to lose, namely the women and children of the Middle East—in their own countries and wherever fate takes them—and the unemployed, uneducated young men in the Middle East under the age of 25, who make up 80% of the population in some areas. The only way to make ourselves “safe” is to make their lives worth living.
Barbara Riddle is a Greenwich Village native, a regular WestView contributor and the author of the novel “The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke.” Write to her at poodlesontheroof@gmail.com or read her blog: www. poodlesontheroof.blogspot.com/
Fashion Design Protection Is in Vogue By Anne Marie Bowler Demand for high-end fashion is busting at the seams. As the debt crisis lingered a few weeks ago, I witnessed determined fashionistas waiting in line, in the rain, for blocks, for the Alexander Wang sample sale. No matter the market, it seems, fashion remains in style. Indeed, on any given day, a stroll down Bleeker Street has me asking myself, “What recession?” So, as luxury fashion reaches a peak — and the norm has become that once a designer’s creation reaches the runaway, it is instantly transmitted to a faraway place for mass reproduction by the likes of Forever 21, without permission or compensation to the creator — we ask, “Aren’t fashion designs protected by the intellectual property laws?” No, not yet. If, for example, we heard a Diana Ross song on a car commercial, sung by someone else, we would assume that the car company got a license from Ms. Ross to
use her song, and that Ms. Ross is being compensated. So why not with fashion? As the law currently stands, fashion designers are excluded from copyright protection. Yes, fashion designers may pursue claims under trademark laws (as we recently saw Christian Louboutin do, unsuccessfully, with his red sole) or claims under counterfeit laws (as for copying Chanel’s “C,” Gucci’s “G” or Louis Vuitton's “LV”). But what about the designs themselves, like Diane Von Furstenberg’s wrap dress, or Alexander McQueen’s 10inch Armadillo shoes, seen by the masses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer? Thanks to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY ), with the advocacy support of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, among others, the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (IDPPPA) will likely become law this fall and provides copyright protection for fashion designers. The act has been in the works
for years, and reinvented through several revisions. Like any legislation, it has been a work of comprise by the industry. What does the IDPPPA mean for fashion designers? The standard is quite high for a designer’s work to fall under the purview of the law, but it’s a start. This amendment to the Copyright Act protects fashion designs that have been copied without the consent of the owner. A “fashion design” is defined by the act as “the appearance as a whole of an article of apparel,” whose elements “are the result of a designer’s own creative endeavor; and provide a unique, distinguishable, nontrivial and non-utilitarian variation over prior designs for similar types of articles.” The act covers apparel including clothing, footwear, headgear, bags, wallets, and eyeglass frames. It does not cover a design that is not so similar in overall visual appearance “as to be mistaken for the protected design” or designs that are the result of independent creation.
Realistically, what will the act cover? It is yet to be seen, and it is likely to be left for the courts to interpret; for example, how do we determine what is an original element when much of fashion is a derivation of seasons and centuries ago? Fashion designers are always inspired by something, right? But the same is true for musicians and authors, who are entitled to copyright protection, and each case that comes before a court gives further guidance to the artist and the industry. Regardless, the act is a stitch in the right direction for the designers who watch others cash in on their creations. Anne Marie Bowler is an attorney who lives in the West Village and co-founder of the law practice Gabay-Rafiy & Bowler LLP. Her representation includes fashion designers and creative artists. She can be reached at 212.941.5025 or bowler@gabaybowler.com. This article is for informational use only and is not intended to provide any legal advice.
September 2011 WestView News 23
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Pan y Chocolat Snack Bar
By Duanduan Welcome to our new column, SnackBar, a little place in this big rushing world that serves up a bit of downtime, along with some good, simple snacks (we would like to offer an aperitif as well, but this column doesn’t have a liquor license, so you’ll have to bring your own bottle). The snacks featured here will come from traditions all over the world, and no, you will not find any of them in vending machines or by the checkout counter. Snack time is sorely underestimated these days, a mini-vacation where all you have to plan for is a place to put your feet up and finding something to munch on. I was first introduced to this ritual in preschool in Shanghai, and I’ve been hooked ever since. We kids all sat at a long table, with our own enamel mug of soymilk and exactly two blonde Oreos each.* I would space out bites of cookie to make sure that my last mouthful was cream filling and not overly stinky soymilk. Unfortunately, outside of preschools and kindergartens, formal snack time has become a relic of a more carefree world. I’m a bit miffed about that; snacks aren’t just for kids. Once upon an afternoon, the British had their 4 o’clock tea, the French had le goûter, the Spanish had la merienda, and the Japanese their oyatsu. Today, it’s hard to imagine nibbling on watercress sandwiches with little finger extended. Instead of taking a break with a bite of piping hot churros dipped in creamy hot chocolate, we’re more
Yield: 4 servings Time: about 5 minutes Ingredients 4 slices of crusty rustic bread, 1/2-inchthick slices 2 ounces dark chocolate, broken or shaved into bite-sized pieces Extra virgin olive oil to taste Sea salt to taste
TAKE A BREAK: is Duanduan’s advice; put your feet up and find something to munch on. Photos by Maggie Berkvist
likely to grab a granola bar and mug of office coffee. We can do better. Here’s a classic Spanish snack called pan y chocolate that requires minimal effort and features two primal ingredients of snack-time happiness: bread and chocolate. Treat yourself at breakfast on a lazy weekend, or indulge on a rainy afternoon. (You can even make this at work if you have a toaster oven.) Grab a loaf of your favorite rustic bread, preferably with a crunchy crust and a light, fluffy inside. Toast the slices under the
New and Local By David A. Porat
Dos Toros Leo and Oliver Kremer found their way to New York from the East Bay of San Francisco and became homesick for a certain breed of California Mexican food they grew up on. The menu is simple: burritos, tacos, quesadillas and platos (burritos without the tortilla), made from local ingredients with concern for sustainability and without jacked-up prices. They originally opened at Union Square about two years ago with the formula and have now expanded to Father Demo Square, across from the fountain off of Sixth Avenue. Customers choose from carnitas, pollo asado or carne asada for a built-to-order dish with many options, including guacamole as an extra. As Leo says, it is in the details, from the specially-selected Monterey Jack cheese that is melted on the delicate, thin-skinned flour tortilla and then
Rustic Bread with Dark Chocolate, Olive Oil & Sea Salt (Pan y Chocolate)
“Redrawn leeches” dessert
generously filled with the “right stuff ” to a Mexican Tecate beer for only $2.30. Taking out or eating in, the place delivers good food at good value and supports two young entrepreneurs and a dedicated staff who are growing a business.
Dos Toros Taqueria 11 Carmine Street (212) 627-2051 DosToros.com
Method 1. Set the oven to broil and move rack to the top. Toast bread slices until golden and crisp. Remove from oven. 2. Distribute chocolate evenly and generously on the toast. 3. Return toast to oven for a few minutes, until the chocolate melts and becomes a molten lake on the toast. Remove from oven. 4. Immediately sprinkle sea salt to taste and drizzle with olive oil. Enjoy hot.
broiler or in a toaster oven until they’re golden and crisp. Now break a few pieces of dark chocolate, or shave the chocolate if you like to make a beautiful mess, and pile it generously on the toasted bread. Return to the oven for a few minutes till the chocolate melts into molten lakes, but rescue the slices from the oven before the edges burn. Sprin-
kle a bit of sea salt on the molten chocolate and drizzle with olive oil. “Crunch!” goes the sea salt and the toast to the meltingly mellow chocolate and olive oil. Enjoy it hot and let the crumbs and joy fly. * No, they were probably not real Oreos, but they were pretty good knock-offs.
RedFarm Eddie Schoenfeld, a Chinese food-driven gentleman, and Joe Ng, a pedigreed dim sum and Chinese food chef, are opening RedFarm on Hudson Street, a floor above a laundromat. Its location is the only thing somewhat traditional about RedFarm. The two most recently worked together at the Chinatown Brasserie. The new venture is a contemporary Chinese restaurant that fuses together many styles of Far Eastern cuisines but with more references to Chinese than Thai or Japanese. It has been in previews and is due open any minute. “Previews” means diners have enjoyed a tasting menu with many highlights from the yet-to-be-confirmed regular menu, all for free. Having been lucky to score an invitation to preview the menu, highlights included a small bite platter, or dim sum delicately presented, which included a yuzu wasabi shrimp that tasted great but was hardly run-of-the-mill dim sum. Main courses included a hearty stone pot chicken, richly flavored with star anise and shitake mushrooms, a rib eye which had a pleasant Asian flavor but more importantly
Dum Sum bites.
was a very good if not prime piece of marbled meat. We also tasted the shrimp, scallops and mussels with rice wine, tomato and Italian basil. Again, tomato and basil were not unwelcome but not too Chinese. Dessert was a lychee mousse served most ceremoniously in a teapot. Having a large communal table and casual rustic farm ambience, with some references to the highly successful ABC Kitchen, and a staff that seemed very smooth and accommodating in previews, RedFarm is a neighborhood place that can take you many places!
RedFarm 529 Hudson Street (212) 792-9700 RedFarmNYC.com
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24 WestView News September 2011
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September 2011 WestView News 25
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Hudson Street’s Sanpanino: A Kid-Friendly Oasis of Superior Italian Sandwiches By Nancy Matsumoto Part of the charm of walking into Hudson Street’s Sanpanino, besides the standout grilled panino sandwiches, is its neighborhood vibe. Seating is minimal, and on “meatball Wednesdays” the line-up for San Marzano tomato sauce-covered meatball sandwiches can stretch out onto the street. It is in early September, though, when the real local action begins. That’s when school opens at P.S. 3, directly next door to the shop, at St. Luke’s School across the street, and at Village Community School around the corner on West 10th Street. Starting around 7:45 am, hungry students and their parents begin filing in to buy a bagel, croissant or a sandwich for lunch. (Invariably, the greatest rush comes during the few minutes before the bell rings to signal the start of class.) When school lets out for the day, another crowd of kids converges on Sanpanino. “Yeah, you get to know them,” says owner Leonardo Scarpone. The kids, especially, can be funny. “They’ll come in and ask for 45 cents back. I’ll say, ‘I know that’s your change, but what did you order?’” They’ll ask to use the shop’s phone to call their mom, or they'll use Sanpanino as a rendezvous point with parents. On occasion, adds Scarpone, “a parent will call me up because they forgot to pack a lunch.” Scarpone doesn’t mind making a sandwich for the “lunch-less” child and delivering it to the school security guard. “We’re almost like the annex to P.S. 3,” he says. One of the shop’s strengths is its kidfriendly menu. Half-sandwiches at student prices are available, or soup and sandwich combinations and small bottles of juice. Another attraction, though, is Scarpone, 38, himself, who welcomes kids and knows a thing or two about them — he taught middle school social studies in West Brighton, Staten Island for three years before succumbing to the entrepreneurial itch. That part of his genetic make-up came from his Puglia-born parents. Scarpone’s father owned a salumeria on 20th Avenue in Brooklyn and his mother launched a bridal shop on Staten Island. His mother was also a great home cook. Scarpone grew up on her food, and on the products of two other Brooklyn salumerias where his father worked, A&S Pork Store and Bari Pork Store. “They made the best sandwiches,” he recalls. The concept for Sanpanino is rooted in those childhood memories. When Scarpone founded Sanpanino in 2000, “there weren’t so many upscale sandwich shops in the city — there was a big void,” he says. Scarpone developed a plan for a type of hybrid sandwich that combined Italian and Italian American traditions, but, he explains, he “leaned more toward the Italian.” He describes that meant not the
NEIGHBORHOOD VIBE: If it’s Wednesday, Sanpanino’s regulars know, it must be meatballs. Photos by Nancy Matsumoto
packed sandwich of six mixed meats, but one or two meats, fresh mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He stuck the prefix “san” onto the Italian word for “sandwich” (panino), reasoning that it “sort of sounded like the patron saint of sandwiches.” Then he brought his dad, Antonio, to teach him how to make mozzarella, which is still made on the premises. The most popular of the 14 specialty focaccia sandwiches on the menu at Sanpanino are the Prosciutto Di Parma, with fresh mozzarella, plum tomatoes and basil; the Grilled Eggplant, with mozzarella, basil and olive tapenade; and the San Classico, which involves sopressata, mortadella, mozzarella, roasted peppers and basil. Scarpone tries to stay high quality and local when sourcing his ingredients. His prosciutto is imported from Italy, and his beef and poultry come from Ottomanelli & Sons Meat Market on Bleecker Street. The focaccia and almond cake come from Royal Crown Pastry Shop in Bensonhurst. All of this fare is several giant cuts above a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and Scarpone admits that his kid customers are living large compared to previous generations, or even present generations not lucky enough to live in New York City. “I don’t
think I knew what olive tapenade was when I was eight,” he says. Sanpanino 494 Hudson St. (between Christopher and Grove Streets.)
New York, NY (212) 645-7228 Reprinted from Walking and Talking, West Village resident and journalist Nancy Matsumoto’s blog (nancymatsumoto.blogspot. com).
A FRIENDLY PRESENCE: Owner Leonardo Scarpone knows food — and kids.
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