By Brian J. Pape, AIA 39 years ago, this summer, upon the publication of Edgar Tafel’s memoir Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd Wright, my father-in-law Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum arranged an introduction with the author. I visited Mr. Tafel’s Greenwich Village architecture office and got the book inscribed with “To Brian Pape—with best wishes
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Designing Waste—Strategies for a Zero Waste City
By Mary Chandrahasan, Partner, NDNY Architecture + Design Here are some interesting numbers to get you thinking about waste. Did you know that nearly 40 percent of all food in the United States is wasted? Food waste accounts for 20 percent of materials sent to landfills and is the main contributor to landfill methane emissions,
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Gotta Go!
By Keith Michael Another Sunday. Another walk in Hudson River Park. At the end of her leash, Millie has already walked me around her neighborhood block this morning, taking care of corgi-business, and now I’m walking myself (at the end of my own inner leash) along the river promenade, absorbing the view. The summer is
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Escape to Nowhere
By Ananth Sampathkumar, Partner, NDNY Architecture + Design “Man Struck and Killed by Falling Debris from New York Building Fire Escape,” read the headline from an online paper covering the incident in Soho earlier this year. The irony is all too obvious. The structure that was meant to save lives ended up taking one—because of
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West Village Original: Carmen Grange
By Michael D. Minichiello This month’s West Village Original is Dr. Carmen Grange, born in 1922 in Colón, Panama, to Jamaican parents working in the Canal Zone. Grange studied pre-med at Trinity College in Dublin and returned to the U.S. to do her residency, eventually opening a practice on West 13th Street. A resident of
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Tech Tips & Tricks
By Peter Rooney Welcome to a monthly column to help you turn your computer into a friend, brought to you by one of the oldest computer clubs in the world—right here in the West Village. We are the New York Amateur Computer Club, http://www.nyacc.org. Each month we’ll explore a technical topic, and attempt to answer
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Michael’s Recipe for When You Talked Too Long
By Jane Heil Usyk Here is a quick, delicious, lifesaving recipe for nights when you come home late and only have five minutes to make dinner; it’s also very cheap. The other night, for example, we were at our usual Monday night powwow with Simon, our wonderful opera teacher, who teaches opera appreciation and goes
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West Village Sows their Oats
By Naomi Sternstein We like our oats to talk to us, and humbleness is not required. This much holds true on the topic of oat milk. Our Oatly oats tell us all about their “oatsome deliciousness and what our products can do” and we drink it right up. Sometimes we like their too-cute dad-humor asides
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Tom Savage: Writer, Poet, and Playwright
By Lorraine Gibney On Saturday, August 11th, I had the privilege of interviewing writer, poet, and playwright Tom Savage at the LGBT Community Center on West 13th Street. For more than three hours Mr. Savage freely discussed his fascinating escapades as a prolific writer during the 1960s—when he hobnobbed with the most iconic figures and
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Don’t Just Sit There, Resist! Part V: Hey, Young People. Vote!
By Alec Pruchnicki There appears to be a lot of enthusiasm within the Democratic party for the upcoming midterm elections. The recent victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, as I like to call her), the numerous victories in special elections around the country, several high profile primary fights in New York, and massive opposition to the
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Can You Be Both Pro-Affordability and Anti-Development at the Same Time?
By Donna Schaper It isn’t easy to be virtuous in Gotham today. Maybe it never was. You can be an organization as lofty as Habitat for Humanity and be accused of selling out, destroying gardens and siding with developers. So-called “Haven Green” has given the devil a lot of opportunities to repeat history. In a
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Notes from Away: No Time for Paradise
By Tom Lamia In Maine, summers can be short when you are least expecting them to be; yet they are glorious even so. The glory I speak of is the bliss that comes with knowing that a moment long-awaited has arrived. It would be tempting fate to go about crowing of how a particular summer
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Hoylman/Epstein Work to Save Hospital
By Penny Mintz Members of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel (CCSBI), including one of our founding members, State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, met with State Senator Brad Hoylman in early August. This is the fourth in a series of meetings CCSBI has held with elected officials. Since April the coalition has met with City
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Jim Fouratt’s HAVE YOU HEARD!
SEPTEMBER 2018 VOTE AS IF YOUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT! If you are a registered Democrat in New York it is important to vote in the Democratic primary on September 13, 2018. I also know that most people in the City ignore the primaries. I know from personal experience. When I replaced Arthur Schwartz who
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Why I Am Voting for Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams
By Arthur Z. Schwartz On Thursday, September 13th (make sure not to forget that our state leaders, ever anxious to depress voter turnout, moved this election to a Thursday) we face an incredibly important primary election in NY State. While Trump neophytes are winning Republican primaries, progressive Democrats are winning races all over in States
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Postcards to Voters (Now Arriving in NYC by the Thousands!)
By Sarah O’Neill Nine of New York’s Democratic State Senators have caucused with Republicans for years, tipping control to Republicans. Thankfully, we will have challengers for each one of them in the primary on Thursday, September 13th. And from now until September 7th there is an easy, fun way to help the good guys: #PostcardsToVoters
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DOT Lies to the Feds About 14th Street Plan
By Arthur Z. Schwartz I reported last month that the 14th Street Coalition, a group of 15 Block Associations, condo associations and co-ops, had won a major victory in their fight to keep the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) from shutting down 14th Street to vehicle traffic, other than buses, as part of the efforts
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The Price of Immortality
“OK, give me a business plan,” Steve Witkoff ordered, as he finished agreeing with Sarah Jessica Parker that St. Veronica should offer something for everybody, not only seniors, but young people and even kids. When I sat down to write the “Business Plan” I was stuck. How do you write a business plan to create
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Cynthia Nixon Comes to 69 Charles Street!
By George Capsis Arthur Schwartz, who besides being a prolific political contributor to WestView, is currently the lawyer for Cynthia Nixon’s campaign to become the next Governor of New York. As such, he kept e-mailing me he was going to get Cynthia to come to 69 Charles Street for an interview. And bang! The day
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9/11 Lawyers’ WTC Evidence Can’t Be Ignored
By Dusty Berke On April 9th a PRNewswire press release went out to over 3,000 mainstream media announcing that a nonprofit organization of over 30 attorneys along with many 9/11 Family members were going to file a formal Petition the next day with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York demanding a
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Jim Fouratt’s HAVE YOU HEARD?
AUGUST 2018 Let’s start with some GOOD NEWS: Cynthia Nixon will be the Working Families Party’s candidate for State Assembly, competing for the seat with Deborah Glick, who has held the office for 25 years. While everyone I know tells me they are voting for Nixon in the Democratic Primary in September, when Nixon is
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“The Glory of God is a Human Being Fully Alive.”
By Fr. Graeme Napier Thus, down the ages, sings St. Irenaeus, the second-century bishop from the little Aegean sea town of Smyrna who had heard the preaching of the soon-to-be-martyred Polycarp—a disciple of John the gospel-maker, to whom St. John’s in the Village is dedicated. Before I went to Oxford to study mathematics and philosophy
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Celebrating Mae West at the Jefferson Market Library
By Michele Gouveia “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.” —Mae West With her double entendres, voluptuous figure, and distinct Brooklyn accent, Mae West became one of the most famous and imitated women of the 20th century. This year marks the 125th anniversary of her birth, and to celebrate the
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Vacation!
By Christina Winholt Do you want to take your vacation twice? How about a dozen times? Is it possible to relive your vacation as many times as you would like if you practice being in the moment while you are laying by the pool, hiking your favorite mountain, or seeing the sights? One of the
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Notes from Away: Maine’s Test Case
By Tom Lamia After having his nose and jaw broken by his drunken father, an 11-year-old boy ran from his Lewiston, Maine home never to return. Living on the streets, with French as his first language and not attending school, he survived, but with memories, one supposes, that were not charitable towards all. Of his
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West Village Original: Catherine Revland
By Michael D. Minichiello This month’s West Village Original is writer and author Catherine Revland, born in 1940 in Fort Ransom, North Dakota and raised in Fargo. Formally educated and trained as a writer, with over 40 years experience writing for a variety of print and online media, she is also a regular contributor to
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Tech And Creative Hub Developments Around Greenwich Village
By Ananth Sampathkumar, with Brian J. Pape July 10th was a big news day for two important developments around Greenwich Village. The first breaking story was about the new Tech Hub being proposed at 124 East 14 Street (between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue). Back in February 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled the new
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West Village for Kids
By Yalini Anne Sampathkumar, 9 The West Village has lots of fun things to offer for kids all ages. Here are a few good places to visit with kids. Jefferson Market Library: Jefferson Market is a wonderful library. It has lots of activities like book signings, learning about animals, crafts, and games every Friday. On
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Oh, Baby
By Keith Michael August is when a wave of baby birds appears in the trees, on the park lawns, and from the windowsills. Recently fledged, their metronomic chirps to “Feed me, feed me” are a familiar sound of summer. My corgi Millie’s metronomic bark to “Feed me, feed me” is, likewise, a familiar sound of
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IN AND OUT
July is usually a slow month, but this year there was lots of activity. In particular, the Village has become more of an Asian food hub with the opening of three Chinese restaurants and one Japanese ramen bar; and another Japanese restaurant is in the works. Open TOP OPENINGS Junzi Kitchen (170 Bleecker Street at
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Don’t Just Sit There, Resist—Part IV: Take the House!
By Alec Pruchnicki If you think President Trump’s performance in Helsinki was great, and the direction of the nation is just peachy, this article is not for you. This is for people who consider Trump a danger to the country and the world, and are desperately looking for a way to resist. There is a
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Class War in Greenwich Village: Mini Versailles or Senior Housing with a Garden?
By Jim Fouratt Recently, when I called attention to the possibility of “class war” over a city-owned lot on Elizabeth Street, I was half joking. In 2012, when Councilwoman Chin was being pressured by both Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn to approve the massive NYU expansion in her district, Chin finally relented, after
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The Value of Knowing Nothing
By George A. Davidson A few years after graduating in the class of 1967, I returned to Columbia Law School to judge a moot court along with Professor Willis L.M. Reese. After the argument, Reese told me that it had been his privilege to work with two brilliant men in his life, Austin Wakeman Scott,
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The West Village
By Lorraine Gibney Every person who has walked through the West Village understands that this place is unique. My family arrived in New York during the time of the Revolutionary War. Fortunately, much of our history during the 1800s was documented by my first cousin James Riordan Sr. Needless to say, the West Village has
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Developments at Hudson River Park – Celebrating 25 Years of Piers
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP On May 30, 2003, the first completed section of Hudson River Park (HRP), which began in 1999, was officially opened to the public in the West Greenwich Village portion from Pier 45 to Pier 51; and Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) is celebrating, even while it struggles to meet
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The Impracticable Life of NYC’s Street Vendors
By Milad Momeni New Yorkers. We love the hustler. We venerate the feisty businessperson who lays it all down for their dream. Nevertheless, as the city becomes more gentrified and the police omnipresent, the amount of available space for poor people who work for themselves is slowly diminishing. This tendency is even more visible if
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CB3 Resolution Aids Beth Israel’s Demise
By Penny Mintz July was a very busy month for getting people to sign an order to get candidates on the ballot for the Democratic primary on September 13th. So it was a slow month for the work of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel (CCSBI), a 12-member organization of community groups that have
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Comment: You Can’t Stop a Problem Unless You Admit to It
On July 14th, I received a two-page letter via the US mail. The following was just one small part: “The reason I am writing this is as follows: I have a friend who has an acquaintance on the Greenwich House Advisory Board of Directors. According to her, Greenwich House plans to close its 50 year
