By David S. Kerr I must have been six, or maybe just a little older, but I was with my Mom, Dad, and Grandmother, and we were visiting some dear friends of hers, the Whitakers. This was Goldsboro, North Carolina and “visiting” on Sunday afternoons after church was an important part of the culture. However,
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Caffè Vivaldi Closes
By Caroline Benveniste When Ishrat Ansari posted the news on Caffè Vivaldi’s website that the café/restaurant/performance and community space would be closing on June 23rd, after 35 years, we received many emails from distraught readers alerting us to the fact. The closing was big news—articles appeared in The Villager and Gothamist, and Jeremiah’s Vanishing New
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Have You Seen My New Perambulator?
By Gordon T Hughes Jr. The other morning, I was sipping a cup of coffee at my favorite haunt, Panino Mucho Gusto Cafe, when a young mother in yoga pants opened the door and pushed her baby into the petite cafe, in a gigantic, what I would call, baby carriage. Now, the cafe is not
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Junzi Kitchen
By Caroline Benveniste On July 16th or thereabouts, Junzi Kitchen, a Chinese fast-casual restaurant will open at 170 Bleecker Street. This will be the restaurant’s third location, and to the casual diner, it will be a delicious and convenient lunch or dinner option. But if you eat there without knowing its history, you’ll be missing
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The Proust Center Opens at Jefferson Market Library
By Sharon Girard “For a long time I used to go to bed early.” Thus begins the 4,000 plus page masterpiece In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. Some readers are lost after 50 pages. Others, bewildered and perhaps bothered, soldier on through to the end; they find themselves so thoroughly bewitched that they
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Horses that Heal: The Extraordinary Impacts of Therapeutic Riding
By Anastasia Kaliabakos Everyone has heard of American Pharoah and Justify; however, does anyone know about Sugar, Tito, or Duncan? When most people think of horses, they associate them with Western movies, racing, carriage rides, and even a pleasant vacation beach ride. Those who work with horses on a regular basis know that they are
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Then & Now: Milkwagon and Old Houses, 8-10 Grove Street
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Abbott’s streetscapes often included horse-drawn wagons, relics of an earlier age. In this Grove Street photograph, taken the same day as several others near her Commerce Street studio, a horse-drawn wagon is her central subject. Milk distribution in New York City, dominated by two giant companies—Sheffield Farms and Borden
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Village Hard-won School to Open
By Lucy Stone As the New York City public school academic year winds down and students eagerly await summer vacation, there is one middle school that will spend the next few months gearing up for its long-awaited opening. Co-located in a former state-owned building at 75 Morton Street, the new special-education middle school, P751 and
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A Criminal Fine Is Not A Grant
I think it is very important that we spotlight the instinctive double-think attitude of our politicians. The Federal government has indicted the management of the New York City Housing Authority for its sophisticated practice of concealing gross neglect in the apartments of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from the eyes of federal inspectors. Those
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Sunday in the Park
By Keith Michael Even though it’s still a few days before the official start of summer, it’s already swelteringly hot. And for some reason, rather than looking at me pleadingly over her shoulder to take her back inside to the air conditioning, this morning Millie’s leash is taut toward the river. The sun glares off
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Hospital is NOT a For-Profit—Has Duty
By Penny Mintz The Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel (CCSBI) faces an uphill battle, to say the least. People tell me, “There’s no way to stop it,” or ask me, “Isn’t it already closed?” Once, while I was seeking petition signatures (I’m running for Democratic State Committee), one woman said that Mt. Sinai/Beth Israel
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Spill the Tea: (Verb) to Engage in Gossip
By Stanley Wlodyka Within a minute or two of sitting down on the bench in front of Tea & Sympathy, Nicky Perry sweet-talks a miniature Chihuapoo Tzu puppy into coming her way. The precious pup drags his human, a rather serious looking fellow, along for the ride. Nicky bends down and scoops up the bundle
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She Was Always Ready to Sing
By Jess Berk I still can’t believe she’s gone. For most of my life my entire world has been about engaging in various battles with, for, or about her—so much so, that a film was made about us. “The Genius and the Opera Singer”—shown at Sundance and the Tribeca Film Festival—detailed our nearly lifelong battle
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Ruth Berk, Village Cabaret Singer and Owner, Dies at 94
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Ruth Berk, who would have turned 95 in August, passed the morning of June 8 at Beth Israel Hospital. The cause of death was heart failure, complicated by a stroke. Berk was a long time Village cultural figure. After an early career as an opera singer, she and her husband Leo
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In and Out
June was a busy month; with so many shops opening and closing, it was hard to keep up. The cuisines of the new restaurants spanned the globe: French; Italian; Moroccan; Mediterranean; Spanish; Chinese; American. The arrival (finally) of warmer weather made it a good time to grab an ice cream sandwich at Sherry B Dessert
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Jim Fouratt’s HAVE YOU HEARD!
July 2018 As I go to press, the visible takeover—call it a coup if you want—by agents of the 1%is in full bloom. Just as Occupy Wall Street warned. The writing was on the wall when the Senate confirmed the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. His vetting by and recommendation to Trump
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Lies and Leadership
By Tom Lamia George Washington never told a lie, it is said. Our current president told more than 3,000 in his first year in office. Yes, the Washington Post was counting. When Dwight Eisenhower told the country, and the Soviets, that Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 aircraft were not acting on our behalf when
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Euphoria in an Ear of Corn
By Jane Heil Usyk You can hardly imagine a happier person these days than my husband, surrounded as he is by a variety of food stores. He is beside himself with joy about the opening of Trader Joe’s in SoHo, which has lovely, fresh food and very low prices and has, in his words, “liberated
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If You Can’t Fix It, Lie
NYCHA gives a course in lying and even has a textbook By George Capsis I clicked on the TV to find Mayor de Blasio, in front of a gaggle of terribly young City Council members, competently running down the council’s achievements as the session apparently came to an end. With only the slightest change in
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14th Street Fight Moves Forward
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Elevators coming to 14th Street and 6th Avenue On June 18, the 14th Street Coalition and Disabled in Action announced a big win in their joint lawsuit versus the MTA, NYC Transit, and the NYC Department of Transportation: Within the next four years, four elevators will be installed on the corners
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Radical Changes from New Developments in West Village
By Brian J. Pape If you haven’t taken a walk around the West Village lately, then you are in for a shock. Block by block, foot by foot, the West Village is going through a transformation that is both rapid and radical. Hudson Yards, that city within a city just a little north of us
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Thoughts on Memorial Day
A good friend — a dedicated sister volunteer with the Red Cross — wrote to me and wrote, in closing, “Thank you for your service.” This was my response to this dear woman: A very gentle bit of insight, from a person who greatly respects the work that you do and your dedication. I most
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‘Tis the Wedding Month of June
By Jane Heil Usyk June is wedding month, and this month Eddie is getting married. That sounds odd, because Eddie was two years old in the video I just saw, the one I am giving him for his wedding. My cousin Stuart made the video in 1986, which, to me, doesn’t sound that long ago.
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Caruso’s Quips
By Charles Caruso FBI: For Business Interests. CIA: Corporations In Action. ___ The eternal question: What’s in it for me? ___ Bleak beginning for the day: An old man’s cough from the next apartment. ___ After a divorce, how quickly ‘Mom’ becomes ‘Your mother.’ ___ Why travel? Shakespeare never went anywhere but he knew everything.
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A Long Ago Lesson On The Cost of War
By David S. Kerr I must have been six, or maybe just a little older, but I was with my Mom, Dad, and Grandmother, and we were visiting some dear friends of hers, the Whitakers. This was Goldsboro, North Carolina and “visiting” on Sunday afternoons after church was an important part of the culture. However,
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The Chelsea Hotel
By Brian J. Pape and Bruce Poli These two articles compare the good and bad sides of the most powerful forces in New York City—artistic and historic character… and profit seeking “progress.” To see both sides, Brian J. Pape and Bruce Poli have chosen the Chelsea Hotel—touchstone of the great musical, literary and performing arts
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Play Emerges as Important Factor in Early Childhood Arts Education
By Joe Salas That children benefit from early and sustained access to music and arts education has been widely known. Music education helps develop language and reasoning, increases coordination, and builds imagination and intellectual curiosity. It’s been shown to help children maintain focus in the classroom, improve academic performance, and so much more. At the
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Giving is Ancient — The Need is New
By Graeme Napier The Open Door was a characteristic West Village response to HIV/AIDS. It was located where the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute is—in the courtyard of Saint John’s in the Village (West 11th Street at Waverly Place). At a time when men and women with AIDS (especially those who were young) were ostracized by
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Health of the Hudson
By Isabelle Stinnette We may not always notice it, but New Yorkers live along waterways that mix saltwater from the ocean with the fresh water from the Hudson. This unique ecosystem is called an estuary, and its health is as important as our own. Though it is hard to overemphasize the environmental damage created by
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My Friend Eric Schneiderman
By Arthur Z. Schwartz On April 10, 2017, I texted a politician whose thoughts about running for Governor had been cut short by Cynthia Nixon’s candidacy, and said, “Don’t go home. #MeToo is going to get Eric Schneiderman soon.” On May 7 my premonition came true. Eric and I had been friends. We were both
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Broadway Hit: Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women
By Robert Heide Three Tall Women is the play that won Edward Albee his third Pulitzer Prize for playwriting when it was first produced off-Broadway in 1994. His earlier Pulitzers went to A Delicate Balance (1966) and Seascape (1974). Prior to Three Tall Women, Albee was labeled by Broadway producers as “box-office poison” after works
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The Untold Love Story of the Birth of Hollywood
By John Bredin Born on Mott St., Blanche Walsh was America’s first movie star. She also played a key role in my family story. I’m on a mission to re-write Hollywood history. A very important woman has been left out. But don’t the women usually get left out? Well enough, I say, of this patriarchal
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So, You’ve Been Away
By Gordon Hughes The other morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee at Cafe Panino Mucho Gusto, when of all things, I ran into a pal and neighbor—not from the Village, but from Chester County (where I have a horse farm). I was so surprised to see him in this foreign location, but what
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Bridges in the Sky
By Ananth Sampathkumar and Mary Chandrahasan About two decades ago, we were first introduced to skybridges. Cesar Pelli, the famed Argentine American Architect, was explaining how his firm and Thorten Tomasetti, a structural engineering behemoth, devised a clever way to erect and support the tallest skybridge in the world at the Petronas Towers in Kuala
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Clarifying My Maternal Ancestry
By Allyn Freeman Last November, I ordered a DNA kit from My Heritage, an assay that would disclose my DNA along the matrilineal line from mitochondrial samples. In effect, I would learn my mother’s lineage, and nothing about my father’s background, which is a different test. The company charged a $12 shipping and handling fee,
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June 6th — 50 Years Since RFK’s Death
On June 6, 1968, a year of intense turmoil in the U.S. and in the world, our country, still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King, watched in horror as Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down. RFK was not just John Kennedy’s little brother. At the time of his death he was New York’s
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14th Street Closure: MTA Talks, DOT Balks
By Arthur Z. Schwartz It was apparent to anyone attending the “Town Hall” meeting held at the New School on May 9 that the L Train shutdown, that we’re dealing with two very different approaches to the notion of public input. On the one hand, the MTA/NYC Transit Authority, and its new President, Andy Byford,
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Panic Attack First Aid Kit
By Christina Raccuia Fear overwhelms us all sometimes. We feel like we’re going to die. It’s an overwhelming feeling of impending doom and we don’t know what to do except to run, as these feelings can take over. However, as crazy as this may sound the best thing to do is to stay and face
