By Robert Heide Several months back this year I received a call from a writer named Vernon Gravely who lives in Murphysboro, Illinois. He told me he was finishing up a biographical book about an actor named Robert Morris who had been an apprentice in 1956 at the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Connecticut. In
By Bruce Poli Few galleries have a backstory like this one. Art of Our Century, which opened at 137 West 14th Street in January, was named with a reverential wink at Peggy Guggenheim. It is located in the space that housed New York’s first Spanish-language bookstore—Librería Lectorum—and run by a true child of the Village.
It’s Monday night—the day after a tragic neighborhood incident. I call it stalking and grand larceny. My husband, Anthony Blanche, who will be 88 in October, born of Thompson Street (long before SoHo) ultimately living on Cornelia Street for fifty years, I for 34, was mugged in front of our door at noon. Yesterday we
By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. Whether it is to spare one’s parents, friends or loved ones, the pandemic has changed our daily routines and customs. Some have put an end to family visits. Others subject themselves to two-week bouts of self-quarantine before visiting friends. Blurring the lines between germaphobes and the rest of us, some strip
By Stanley Wlodyka Jiménez Vija Vetra, a dancer living at Westbeth, is exceptionally proud of her country of birth, which isn’t India, in case you made that assumption after having watched her perform. It’s surprising that she should feel so Latvian at her core, considering that she spent only a fifth of her life in
By Karilyn Prisco When the paper was brainstorming ways to boost subscriptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sarah Jessica Parker, our neighbor and loyal supporter of WestView News, volunteered to gift a pair of shoes from her SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker collection to the New Subscriber giveaway initiative. We announced our winner, Erin Mintun, in
Support some of our favorite West Village shops and designers. POOLSIDE, “The Poolside Tote: Large lace handwoven raffia www.wearepoolside.com SJP BY SARAH JESSICA PARKER “Rampling” in Hamilton/Rish, Pointed-toe pump, signature grosgrain, sjpbysarahjessicaparker.com ROTHY’S, 407 Bleecker “The Mask 1.0” in Camo, washable 2-pack, www.rothys.com Lingua Franca, 382 Bleecker “Nevertheless she voted” 100% Cashmere,
By Alec Pruchnicki A new expression or meme has come into the English language. A “Karen” (sometimes described as a “karen” to turn it into an adjective from a proper noun) is an entitled, obnoxious, spoiled, often middle-aged white woman who believes she has the right to special treatment. She is the type of person
By Alec Pruchnicki One way to possibly live to a ripe old age in New York City, a city in which people get killed over parking spots, is to avoid unnecessary confrontations. They can sometimes quickly escalate beyond your control. Most dog walkers in The Village have their dogs on leashes, but not always. When
By Brian J Pape, AIA A phenomenon of the pandemic, or a response to vandalism? We are hard-pressed to decipher between them as we passed the boarded up business windows throughout the city. First, the COVID-19 virus spreads throughout the world; governments began to lock down their cities in efforts to contain the spread and
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP I collected maps from the Brooklyn Historical Society, and made notes to relate them to Greenwich Village and waterfront changes. To do justice to the maps and to the readers, we present one map at a time, so that they can be reprinted at a larger size that is
By Jeff Hodges In the summer of 1978 I heard about a news outfit called Broadcast News Service that needed video crews to shoot from midnight to noon on weekends, working out of a car with a police radio scanner. I was a cameraman shooting punk rock, modern dance, and performance art in downtown Manhattan,
By Barry Benepe Part I: Suffering the Grid Manhattan is uniquely blessed or cursed, depending on your point of view. The rigid uniform rectangular street system was designed to maximize building development on the undulating landscape without thought for its natural topography, water courses, water bodies (including both the North and East Rivers, which Ann
By Alec Pruchnicki Wait! Don’t roll yours eyes and think of this as another rabid anti-Trump rant. Even as a legal layman, I think there are possible arguments for answering this question in the affirmative. There are plenty of people in The Village with more legal training than me and more internet skills, so my
By Toby Bellin Tuesday, September 11, 2001 before 9 AM on the crosstown bus on my way to work. Passing Fifth Avenue, I see a few people standing in the street looking up at the World Trade Center towers. I see black smoke rising from the top of one of the towers. That’s an awful
Abstracted from “A Scientists View of Almost Everything” by Mark M Green When the Scots revolted against the feudal demands of Edward I and mustered an army around the turn of the fourteenth century it lead to a massive English response causing the Scots to lose their richest and most populous city, Berwick. According to
By Malcolm J. Bowman Storm surges and sea level rise represent existential threats to the future well-being of New York City, coastal New Jersey and the south coast of Long Island. Superstorm Sandy was a rude awakening to the clear and present danger of how climate change and rising sea levels threaten the very existence
By Anastasia Kaliabakos The Hagia Sophia, a remarkable model for Orthodox churches and beautiful example of Byzantine architecture, has recently been in the news due to its sudden conversion from a historic museum to a mosque. Located in Istanbul, Turkey, this structure has stood the test of time, serving as a place of worship for
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles were the two main Byzantine Greek architects that Emperor Justinian I commissioned to design the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from 532 to 537. Hagia Sophia means Holy Wisdom. The church is also known as Ayasofya (Turkish), Sancta Sophia (Latin), and Church
By Barry Benepe I once asked my therapist, Alice Gerstman, how many people who had returned to life from death were grateful and how many disturbed at being wakened from a deep sleep. She replied, “About half and half”. None reported a glimpse of heaven or even purgatory. Several years ago, a close friend told
By Eric Uhlfelder For decades, when I ventured to the Catskills it was to ski. When the temperatures turned hot and humid, I would head to the East End of Long Island to pleasant hotels and B&Bs. My photography hung in local galleries, and for a long time I felt a part of the place.
By Robert Heide and John Gilman *lyric from the song Bleecker Street from Simon/Garfunkel album Wednesday Morning, 3 AM – 1964 Recently, in virtual quarantine during these pandemic times, heeding the constant reminders to stay home and only when it was essential to go out, to wear our masks, we became nostalgic for better times,
By Brian J. Pape In and Out, by Caroline Benveniste (WestView News, July 2020), reported the flurry of re-openings of restaurants with outdoor seating that were able to take advantage of the city’s “open restaurant plan” for more than 8,600 businesses. Gene’s “Est. 1919” Restaurant at 73 West 11th Street has been closed for months,
Yesterday I interviewed my friend Ramsey Clark, 92, about his lifelong relationship with his great friend John Lewis. Ramsey Clark was Attorney General during The Great Society and wrote and supervised both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. He said of his beloved friend Lewis, with whom he
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Years of debate went into how our westside riverfront should be designed. Many of our readers will recall when the Hudson River Park (HRP) opened 20 years ago, or even 12 years ago, when the public esplanade had a string of sturdy masonry comfort stations plus an elegant little
By Jesse Robert Lovejoy Recently I heard from guy I knew as an undergrad at Yale in the 1960s. He’s been at work collecting several thousand signatures from alumni in order to get on the ballot for next year’s election of alumni trustees. He’s an impressive guy with an impressive career, and would like to
By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. My first column in WestView News appeared a year ago. How has my column added to the general discussion? What has been the response from readers? Have people found it valuable? How much funding did my column help raise for the charitable cause I set out to support? I invite any
By Kieran Loughney Isolation. Lockdown. Seclusion. Words now part of my daily conversation bring me back to a time when these terms had a different context. I return in my mind to a place where another invisible enemy was confronted. A place where there were strict limits on personal freedom and no assurance of a
By Russell Saray “His mask is bigger than his Speedo.” “Look straight ahead, honey.” I gripped Steve’s hand with my wedding ring in full view. Onward we marched along the six-foot-wide wooden boardwalk, our masks up, holding a chilled bottle of Guiluhem 2018, our house rosé that we consumed in copious amounts like Kool-Aid at
By Bennett Kremen When a raven-haired, high-minded beauty like Anyaskaya d’Borovik, the renowned doyenne of a spirited Greenwich Village dance troop, succumbs in passion to a rugged, willful man like “Sonny Boy” Aiello, the question always asked is, “Why?” Anya, a sophisticated, fiercely dedicated artist, flourishing in radiance throughout my novel, The Performance, keeps pushing
By Alec Pruchnicki, MD I’ve written about how I disagreed with Trump on political grounds, but this piece is why I oppose him on serious medical grounds. After impeachment early this year, Democrats, including myself, were starting to plan for the election in November. When COVID came in, everything changed as life and death decisions
By Katie Keith “Mark it Covid” has become a phrase around our house. I’m not sure exactly what it’s a placeholder for. “Put a Fork in It”, maybe. “So It Goes,” is a possibility (Vonnegut). Or it could be just a thing to yell across the room after weeks on end of spending too much
By Bruce Poli Earlier this year I was driving on 14th St. in the right lane. In the left lane was a police formation of several cars. Suddenly a van was sticking out into my lane so I put on my left turn signal, waited for the right space between police cars, went around the
By Nancy Davidoff Kelton My father died in 1997 at age 88, yet he wakes me up some mornings and guides me through my days. On Father’s Day and every day, particularly now, I am grateful for his gifts which include: A sense of humor: It goes beyond tilting our heads upon seeing Aunt
By Lynn Pax “Get yourself grounded and you can navigate even the stormiest roads in peace.” Steve Goodier We live in a nature-deficient society. It is estimated that we spend 93 percent of our day indoors. We live far above the earth in high-rises, wear synthetic clothing and plastic-soled shoes, and we cover recreational areas with
By Dan Schlesinger The New York Amateur Computer Club holds free monthly meetings open to the public at NYU. Presentations cover computer technology and trends. Currently, during the coronavirus pandemic, NYACC meetings are online via Zoom. At the April NYACC meeting, ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor Dina Schlesinger interviewed Elizabeth, her online student
By Alec Pruchnicki The dramatic, and sometimes deadly, confrontations between civilians and the police reminded me that growing up in The Bronx we also had a set of rules of engagement when dealing with police. I came from a working-class area, Arthur Avenue. We had no particular love of the police, and they returned the
Click and donate to our crowdfunding campaign:
