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
By Toby Bellin In 1985 I attended my first meeting as a supportive care volunteer at St. Vincent’s. The class of 24 was a very mixed group—a pre-med student, an actress, a writer, a lawyer, two nuns, a businesswoman, among others. The speaker at this first meeting was Marc, a classmate who had offered to
FDR-Style Program Urgently Needed to Address Looming Post-Covid Housing Crisis By Diane Sare, Candidate for U.S. Senate-NY 2022 The national news media is filled with stories about the extreme anxiety of renters and property owners wondering will happen when it is declared that the COVID-19 Pandemic has abated and there is no more forbearance on
By Hannah Reimann I spent two weeks in June on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Reachable by ferryboat from Rockland, it has a year-round population of 1200. The only guideline for out-of-state visitors at that time was to quarantine for 14 days. I could walk on the shore or wilderness near our family cottage, alone. I complied
By Anastasia Kaliabakos Mankind’s relationship with horses dates back millennia to when a horse’s ability to carry a human was first discovered. This use of horses has had a tremendous impact on their relationships with man on an individual level, and on humanity’s progress as a whole. Horses have been used throughout history as assistants
By Robert Heide The bigger than big book entitled simply Warhol by Blake Gopnik just published by Ecco, a Harper Collins imprint, is 39 pages short of 1,000, took over ten years to write, and is an astute comprehensive biographic study that is overflowing with practical, insightful information which focuses hard on the life and
Mid-Lockdown New York’s Artists Take Back the Streets By Katie Cercone As Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the May 25th police murder of George Floyd flared across the nation, with blockbuster images of looted Targets and shattered storefronts in their wake, Soho’s luxury brand retailers rested assured their fortresses of status-symbol high price tag
By Carol F. Yost On May 12, 2020, an op-ed appeared in the Daily News with the title, “Why I Slept on the Subways: They Were a Safer Refuge for the Homeless the Public Holds in Contempt.” It was written by Denis Dugan, who identifies himself as a homeless man. One paragraph reads: “With too
By Bruce Poli In 1978, Gilbert Baker—who called himself the Gay Betsy Ross—hand dyed the first LGBT Rainbow Flag to fly in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. He was rumored to have been inspired by Judy Garland’s Over the Rainbow, and the iconic symbol of the ‘nation’ of gay rights has had a
There’s Flash Dance. Dirty Dancing. And then there’s CoviDance. By Mia Berman Maybe I’m not as agile as Ginger Rogers. I admit it. I never partnered with Fred Astaire or Baryshnikov. And maybe I didn’t have the moves of Shakira. But what I did have was an idea. When the Covid pandemic hit, I began
By Jennifer Brozost Throughout this pandemic—this time of fear, uncertainty and frustration—I have been scared. Scared of what the future holds, scared of getting sick, and scared to leave my house to get groceries to feed my family. At the start of the shutdown I went to the supermarket and had a complete panic attack
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Development in NYC takes a long time, and it may also have to weather Great Recessions. Such is the case for 90 Morton, aka 627 Greenwich Street, once an abandoned, eight-story printing warehouse. When architect and developer Peter Moore and KMG Partners paid $37.8 million for the site in
By Debra Camitta Imagine you changed careers and started a new business and then suddenly the World and New York City went on pause. Like many others, that is what happened to me. What didn’t go on pause was my great love for flowers and creating floral designs. My passion for flowers started when I
By Lynn Pacifico Until the birth of my sister when I was four, my family lived in a little two-bedroom house that was owned by a great aunt. My brother, a year younger than I, shared a bedroom with me, his crib across the room from mine. A special relationship formed between us there, a
By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. Since the first Gay Liberation marchers took their first steps in the West Village on June 28th, 1970, “Pride” has gone from a protest march to a glitter-filled sparkle parade. We are grateful for so much to celebrate, and are confident that re-focusing the energy of the annual NYC Pride parade
By Jesse Robert Lovejoy The last time this happened was 50 years ago. The president and the generals appeared on TV nightly, reporting scores of victories and overwhelming body counts. The media bought the story. Vietnamese villages were incinerated, and towns were carpet-bombed. Thousands of young Americans bled and died in the rice paddies. The
Erik Larson’s new book intimately explores Churchill and Britain during the Blitz By Eric Uhlfelder BOOK REVIEW: THE SPLENDID & THE VILE Eric Larson’s remarkable account of Winston Churchill’s first year as Britain’s Prime Minister when Germany unleashed the Luftwaffe against England in 1940 is a read to be savored. The Splendid and Vile, Larson’s
By Barry Benepe In a previous issue of WestView News, I reviewed Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan in which he placed emphasis on making streets more pedestrian-friendly. In a future article I will expand on this under a vision called Livable Streets. Meanwhile, I would like to comment on an interim proposal forwarded
By Eve Zanni Rom Ferri was born into a loving, musical family; the youngest of 5 children in New Jersey. His father was an opera singer who sang at La Scala in Milano and whose also appreciated Louis Armstrong’s singing. 2 of Rom’s uncles played guitar, mandolin and banjo in some of the major big
By Bruce Poli West Village author David Carter, renowned for his detailed, truth-telling history Stonewall: the Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution (St. Martin’s Press, 2004) endured years of criticism and challenge to his decade-long researched book on the Stonewall Rebellion—its forelife, life and fallout. Raised in rural Jesup, GA, Carter—who moved to Greenwich Village
By Joe Bongiovanni Let’s begin our study of money with this question—because everywhere, inquiring minds want to know—what is money? What serves as money isn’t derived from either a natural or a man-made material of any kind, and its study is virtually absent from our entire education system. Like Political Economy and Civics. The most
By Sue Peters In response to the shutdown of the economy, Congress passed the CARES Act. To date, Congress has appropriated $670 billion in funds to aid small businesses with Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Also in the CARES Act, Congress appropriated $454 billion in funds for larger businesses, states, and municipalities. These funds, however,
By Karen Rempel It’s time for marriage counselling, not divorce. Defunding the NYPD is not the answer, but education and dialogue is. The police have been getting a lot of negative press; and it is justified, no question. The tragic murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and the resulting unprecedented worldwide
Many thanks to the generous donors who contributed raffle items, and to all the subscribers and donors who support WestView News with your wrinkled green love. And the winners are: SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker Shoes from the Evergreen line ERIN MINTUN Hunter, NY Limited Edition Harvey Milk Stolichnaya Vodka and Custom Cocktail by
By Brian J Pape, AIA Even before the ‘soft’ re-opening of many enterprises in mid June, Pier 45 & 46 at Christopher Street to Perry Street had become a beehive of activity seldom seen before, more than the usual runners and walkers. During the pandemic closure of non-essential businesses, one industry category has discovered a
George Floyd Echoed in Pride Parade By George Capsis On the very hot humid Sunday of June 28th, Dusty offered me a seat right in front of the Stonewall Inn to watch the hour long informal Pride parade which was heavily intermixed with the Black Lives Matter messages. Walking home to Charles Street, I was
By Karen Rempel Proud marchers fill Seventh Avenue during New York’s World Pride Parade 2019, led by the Research Foundation to Cure AIDS’s founder, Kambiz Shekdar. Photo by Ismael Ramirez. Last year’s NYC Pride March was truly epic, with over 5 million spectators and participants. You may recall WestView News’s spectacular 4-page pull-out coverage,
2019 / Stonewall 50 / World Pride Swann Galleries—four Pride photographs, one sold in The Pride Sale, the first-ever Pride auction at Swann Galleries one of the three top NYC auction houses. One Photograph in NY Historic Society’s Stonewall 50 exhibition Five Pride photographs appear in Generation Woodstock ABC TVs episode of the series 1969
By Jake Fishbein When I started working from home on March 11th, I didn’t think I’d still be working from home today. I imagined being quarantined for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and then returning to seeing my friends, hosting workshops in person, and visiting my parents in New Mexico with relative ease. Instead,
By Spencer Wolff On July 27, 2009 a group of some sixty refugees, armed with rocks and makeshift weapons, assaulted the UN refugee bureau (UNHCR) in Rabat, Morocco. Windows were shattered, guards and police injured, security cameras smashed to the ground. Eventually the Moroccan army was forced to intervene. Those of us in the building
By Randee Mia Berman Was planning a trip to Verona But now we’re trounced by Corona We’re all in a panic We’re getting quite manic Next year in Barcelona? The virus wickedly spreadin’ So where in the world is this headin’? Some stay quite calm Like we ‘re in a sitcom; Others feel it’s like
Of course we don’t “need” WestView News, and if, like the several other vanished Village newspapers, it evaporated tonight there might be just a momentary regret at not being able to check the In and Out column to once again remind ourselves that our Village memories are disappearing faster than they can become a memory.
By Calogero Salvo During this reclusive period, my mind has been flying to other moments of my life where, similar to the current experiences, I felt fear. The fear I lived during the AIDS pandemic in the early 80’s when I was a young man was extraordinary. I thought death was imminent. My life and
By Anthony Paradiso and Roger Paradiso George called me and complained, “we are trapped in our homes and we are clicking faster and faster through those 150 channels with increasing speed. If I could just see a really nice film from beginning to end the way I did in the Del Mar on 137th Street
By Nancy Davidoff Kelton I am 72 and was born and raised in Buffalo. Since college, I have lived in Manhattan. I am a writer. I work at home and talk to myself. My husband, Jonathan, now works at home. I have to talk to him. Other than that, I have not much changed my
