By Dean Chavooshian After centuries of guidance, scientific discoveries and philosophical inquiries, man is empowered more than ever to address the fundamental question: With all the wisdom we have gained through the ages, how can we live a fulfilling and meaningful life? Of all human pursuits, defining wisdom is one of our most elusive endeavors.
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Neighborhood Preservation Updates
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP West Village Houses Residents Fight Back The West Village House (WVH) co-op board reportedly spent $300,000 exploring the feasibility of an unsolicited Madison developer’s offer. How can the WVH board spend that when they now say it “never was on the table,” when there is so much pressure to
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West Village Through the Lens of LABYL
By Mary Chandrahasan and Ananth Sampathkumar One bright sunny morning in March, we headed out for an early morning stroll in the Village equipped with our latest virtual toy called LABYL (or Learn About Buildings you Love). We set out to find and share under-appreciated architectural constructs both old and new. LABYL is a free
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People Parking – Outdoor Dining Rather Than a Wall of Steel
By Barry Benepe Public space in New York City is largely contained in its 5,000 miles of streets. Many of the largest park lands lie far from where most people live and work. A few, like Washington Square and such West Village parks as Bleecker Playground and Abingdon and Jackson Squares, are visual and functional
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Facelift for Jackson Square and Jane Street Garden Fence
By Barry Benepe A recently rebuilt Jackson Square is about to be rebuilt once again to repair and reconfigure the individual landscape elements while retaining the basic design. It will continue to be bordered by its cast iron picket fence punctuated by three centered side entrances framed by granite gate posts. The granite set blocks
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Ramsey Clark: Living Legend of the Great Society
By Bruce Poli “The measure of your quality as a public person, as a citizen, is the gap between what you do and what you say.” “Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves. “ “A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.” West Villager Ramsey
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Musings and Personal Remembrances on the Music of the April Concert
By Michael Feldman In July 1956, I was a 17 year old graduate of Music and Arts High School, a not bad clarinet player and a fledgling conductor of minimal skills and no training. When the grownup conductor at Music Trails Camp, Lake Placid took ill, I raised my hand, when asked the obvious question
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Tech Hub
By Andrew Berman Mayor de Blasio has filed an application for a rezoning to allow a large new “Tech Hub” to be built on the south side of 14th Street just east of Fourth Avenue, on the longtime site of a P.C. Richard and Son store. Sandwiched between two high-rise New York University dorms, the
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No Stopping This Train
By Stanley Wlodyka You’ve seen her. Just as you lift your hand to grab her attention and offer help, she swoops down like an Olympic weightlifter and picks up the stroller, baby and all. She turns around, impatiently blows at a strand of hair that’s fallen out of place, and looks right through you. “Come
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Repetition of Unhealthy Patterns
By Christina Winholt Humans seek comfort in the familiar. Freud called this repetition ‘compulsion,’ which he famously defined as “the desire to return to an earlier state of things.” This takes form in simple tasks. Perhaps you watch your favorite movie over and over, or choose the same entrée at your top restaurant. More harmful
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Update on Beth Israel Lawsuit
By Arthur Z. Schwartz In November 2017, a lawsuit entitled Progressive Action of Lower Manhattan, George Capsis, and Arthur Schwartz v. Howard Zucker, as Commissioner of the NYS Department of Health, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital was filed in New York State Supreme Court. The goal: to not only stop the shutdown of Beth
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14th Street Traffic Plan: It’s Not Being Handled Lawfully
By Arthur Z. Schwartz It is rare to see our community so united. And when it is united in opposition to a government project, you know something is wrong. Over the last month, as a West 12th Street resident, and as Democratic District Leader, I have attended a series of meetings held by over a
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Chelsea Market Changes Upstairs and Downstairs
By David Porat Chelsea Market, which has been rather constant over the last 20-plus years, is changing. About two weeks ago, it was announced that Google, a significant tenant in the building and landlord of 88 8th Avenue, known as the Port Authority Building, along with Pier 57 at the end of 15th Street (which
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14th Street Plans Stir Protest
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Greenwich Village and Chelsea block associations have begun organized action in February, forming the new 14th Street Coalition. They join with many other groups across Manhattan to prevent impending blows to the quality of life in their downtown areas and streets. Led by David Marcus, Gary Tomei, Judy Pesin,
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Google Gobbles Meat Market
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has reached an agreement to acquire Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion. Jamestown, the sellers, won approvals from the city to add almost 300,000 square feet on top of the property back in 2012. That would increase the number of office floors above the famous ground
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We Still Need Beth Israel
By Penny Mintz City Council Member Jumaane Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat running for lieutenant governor, spoke with Progressive Action of Lower Manhattan (PALM) members in late January. He presented progressive credentials quite impressively and answered questions about the threatened closing of Beth Israel Hospital’s main building at 1st Avenue and East 16th Street. But Williams
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Treasures Abound on West Village Streets
By Gordon T. Hughes, Jr. The other morning, I was having coffee at my favorite morning haunt, Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto, when one of the regulars commented to me, unsolicitedly, “You know, you can furnish your entire apartment from STUFF off the streets of the West Village. Never pick up anything with cloth however. Bed
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Great American Playwright Maria Irene Fornes
A New Documentary Captures Her Incredible Journey from Cuba to Paris to a Life in Greenwich Village By Robert Heide I first met the playwright extraordinaire Maria Irene Fornes in the Village in 1965 at the Caffe Cino on Cornelia Street where my play The Bed was having a successful run. She was introduced to
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The Jar
By E.N.J. Carter My mother never talked about Ireland. My uncle, who she crossed the Atlantic with as a teenager, said she had a tough time of it. Who wants to be suddenly told that you have to leave your country and your friends? To have the feeling that it was too dangerous for a
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Senior Share Apartments: Now Renting
By George Capsis I recently got a call from what sounded like a very nice senior lady who read my February 2018 front-page proposal to build connected apartments with seniors on one side and young people on the other. The young occupants would be just out of college and would want to live in the
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Modern Middle Eastern Dining in the West Village
By Caroline Benveniste As I planned our January visit to Tel Aviv, I confess that I mostly focused on food. I had a long list of places to try, gleaned from articles and friends’ and relatives’ recommendations. There were also a few places that I’d heard about because the chefs had either opened or were
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Linking Residents in Distress and Neighborhood Community Officers
By Jessica Berk According to the New York Police Department (NYPD), the new model of policing will be the Neighborhood Community Officer (NCO), to bridge numerous gaps between us and them. This model is “built on improved communication and collaboration between local police officers and community residents.” That’s their press release, but unfortunately, the 6th
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New Fence for the Jane Street Garden
By Barry Benepe A new cast iron picket fence, similar to the one now surrounding Abingdon Square Park, will be erected around the Jane Street Garden before the end of the year. The entrance to the garden will be relocated from Jane Street to 8th Avenue to conform to New York City Parks & Recreation
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Abingdon Square Food Paradise: A Sequel
By Barry Benepe In the January 2018 issue of WestView, I described some of the farmers that came into the city from the surrounding region to set up their products at thte Abingdon Square Greenmarket on Saturdays. An additional farmer, with an outstanding array of farm-made cow cheeses, is Consider Bardwell, founded in 1864 in
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It All Started with Pop-Pop
By Dierdre Anderson Pop-Pop, aka Vincent Scailo, my Italian grandfather, sparked my initial love for food. Namely, the preparation part. Growing up, family get-togethers were all about the food. Of course we loved to eat, but with equal passion we loved to create. Together. While Grandma Helen simmered and stirred, my mom seemed to constantly
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The Song that Changes Lives
By Helene Abrams and David Giller Something very special happened to the children of P.S. 55 in the Bronx: A song wove a room full of children into a reverberating hymn of confidence, and a movement for building children’s self-esteem was born. It all began with “I’m A Person,” a simple and inspiring song with
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NYC Annual Cat PURRRTY Revisited
By SuZen Some 30-plus years ago, my love affair with cats began with a Siamese cat named Sushi, whose life changed mine and fostered my exploration into the world of cats. As chronicled in my book, The Love Story of Sushi and Sashimi: A Cat Tale (published by Capri Press), Sushi meets and falls in
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Goodbye Bette! Hello Bernadette!
Two Village Girls Who Made it Big on Broadway By Robert Heide In summing up the 2017 Broadway theater season, Michael Riedel in his New York Post article, entitled “A Sure Bette” (dated December 29, 2017), cites Hello Dolly! as the top, hot ticket of the year. He writes about producer Scott Rudin and director
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Invisible People of the West Village
By Joel Gordon Each day, as I travel to my studio across town, I walk past the ‘invisible people’ that don’t exist. I watch passersby who don’t make eye contact; it’s much easier to ignore the homeless existence. However, these people didn’t intend to become homeless or plan to live on the street; each has
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The Far West Village: A Valentine
By Catherine Revland I have an indelible memory of a map in my sixth grade geography book in which dots indicated the size of population centers in the United States. The entire midsection of the country was sparsely dotted, like pepper on a child’s egg, and my home state had hardly any dots at all.
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Italytime to Present Three Eyes on Pinocchio
By Jane Heil Usyk In March 2018, the cultural organization Italytime will present a theatrical piece called Three Eyes on Pinocchio—an Italian story updated by three prominent writers. It will be presented in English in the downstairs area of Our Lady of Pompeii Church. (That space has been transformed into an attractive, elegant area with
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Hindle Wakes at The Mint Theater Company
By Eric Uhlfelder It’s hard to understand the puritanical mindset prevalent only a century ago. But one can imagine its appeal: a simple way of bringing order to a chaotic world by making clear distinctions between right and wrong. Of course, things are rarely black and white, and trying to treat all problems that way
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My Birthday Message
By Arthur Z. Schwartz I turn 65 this month. I finally move to middle age. (Hey, I have 12 and 14-year-old daughters!) This is my birthday message. The world around us continues to be very disturbing. We have a president who not only has authoritarian tendencies, but also engages in common bullying, using his Twitter
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Dog Lovers Bliss Out During Westminster Week
By Leslie Adatto Three dog-filled days in February bring some of the most spectacular canines in the world to within sniffing distance of our West Village neighborhood. Westminster Week starts on Saturday, February 10th, takes a break on Sunday, continues on Monday, February 12th, and concludes with the world-famous Best in Show competition on Tuesday,
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Flamenco and More at the Creative Cultural Center at St. Veronica
By Caroline Benveniste All too often, we report sad real estate stories—buildings being torn down and replaced with condos or offices, local shops closing because of steep rent increases, and other changes that make the Village less unique. Finally, we have a story that starts like all the others but ends happily. The Church of
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Kill the Zombie Park Already Part V: Well, Now It’s a Business
By Alec Pruchnicki “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”—Eric Hoffer The great cause of preventing housing on Elizabeth Street is slowly transforming into a business, although with nonprofit pretensions. On December 8, 2017, Council Member Margaret Chin’s office released an announcement that developers for the
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Walk Into The Temple of Understanding
By George Capsis Dusty floats in the infinite, spiritual dimension so when we began talking about how to use the Church of St. Veronica—a 115-year-old, very dead church—she took me to a meeting of The Temple of Understanding, just opposite the United Nations Headquarters. There, a Buddhist priest got up in saffron robes to begin
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The Importance of an Impartial Health Care Needs Assessment
By Penny Mintz Newsday, the Long Island daily, ran a story on January 16th (entitled “Southside Hospital upgrades emergency room, creates more parking”) about a Northwell hospital in Bayshore that is expanding its emergency room five-fold and has been opening a new hospital unit every seven weeks for the last 18 months. Instead of enlarging
