By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP The venerable Jefferson Market Library, inside the former Third Judicial District Courthouse building (ca. 1874-77), is getting an extensive ADA rehab. Since November 27, 1967 the building has served as the Jefferson Market Library—saved from the demolition ball by community preservation activists, and remodeled by architect Giorgio Cavaglieri. As
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Let the Sun Shine
By Keith Michael Overheard on the street: “Who decides when is the first day of spring? Do a bunch of people sit around a table and say, ‘This would be, like, a good day?’” It’s hard for me to imagine thinking that “spring” is merely a marketing ploy and not that there are grand rhythms
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Notes From Away: The Past Is History
By Tom Lamia “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” is from William Faulkner and often used to show literary cool when saying there is nothing new under the sun. I am going to use it here to make a different point—that in older societies the past is revered and relevant. One such older society is
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West Village Bookstores
By Gordon Hughes It was about three years ago when I was visiting Marrakech… I was walking around the French Quarter and ran into a used bookstore/cafe. Now that was new to me. I had seen Brenton’s Book Store with coffee and soft drinks but I had never seen a French cafe with lattes, pastries
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Crisis Text Line Helps the Text Generation
By Karen Rempel The Crisis Text Line is a free service founded by West Village resident Nancy Lublin. Nancy explains, “People in crisis can text for help just like you would text a friend. We wanted to make it fast and easy. So you text 741741 and you’re connected to a trained, empathetic crisis counselor
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The Whitney Museum Opens its 2019 Biennial Exhibition
By Martica Sawin Two years have gone by and the Whitney Biennial is here again on Gansevoort Street and will be with us until September 22. This is fortunate because, although it is not overwhelming in size or clamorous in appearance, it is a sobering, thought-provoking show that requires time to listen to and absorb
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Beth Israel News
By Penny Mintz It is hard to pry information from Mt. Sinai. On Wednesday, May 15, 2019, members of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel met, for the second consecutive month, in front of the main entrance to Beth Israel Hospital. The CCSBI wants to see the restoration of the hospital services, that were
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A School for Creative Innovators
Our encounter with The New School began with an invitation to a reception at the residence of the University President, David Van Zandt. A bronchial illness prevented me from attending so I wrote out my questions which he graciously responded too. —George Capsis Q: What was President Van Zandt’s image of The New School when he first
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Lenox Hill Hospital Plan Includes Park Avenue Condo
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Superstorm Sandy hit Manhattan hard in 2012, two days before Halloween. East River hospitals were crippled, transferring patients to other facilities. But transportation was hit too, so commuters mostly stayed home from their hospital jobs. My West Village home was at the edge of the flooding and without power,
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Gansevoort Peninsula Conundrum
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP The Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) has completed 72% of the entire park construction which started over 20 years ago, and is now designing the 5.5-acre Gansevoort Peninsula directly across from the Whitney Museum of American Art on Gansevoort Street. The design process will include several more workshops this
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Let Us Now Praise Judson Church
By Jane Heil Usyk Judson Memorial Church, a mainstay on Washington Square South, has been on the right side of hundreds of causes since the nineteenth century. Among its precepts is the idea that artists will lead the way in establishing ideals. This is an ancient idea, from classical times; but who today even thinks of it,
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It’s My Park Weekend in the West Village
It didn’t rain. For the first time in five weekends the skies were clear. All across New York City, on May 18th and 19th, volunteers were found who were eager to finally be able to work outside in the sunshine and get their hands into the earth in their local park, garden, and green space.
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The Shootings in San Diego, the Increase In Anti-Semitic Attacks, and My Soul
By Arthur Z. Schwartz On April 27, just as WestView went to press, there was a shooting/murder in a synagogue near San Diego. It was the second shooting in a synagogue within 6 months; last October there was a shooting/murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue. I am not a religious Jew, and I have learned to
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The New School—A Galaxy of Great Names
What follows is a chapter entitled “1955—The Village Finds Its Voice,” from the soon to be released book “A Drama in Time,” by John Reed. The stories in this historical look at The New School are written in present tense to capture the restlessness and vibrancy of the legacy. In her opening remarks at The
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Stop Privatization of Pier 40, Says CB2
By Bruce Trigg, MD A new generation of Robert Moses-style power brokers plan to privatize the last major public space in Lower Manhattan—if we let them. That’s right, they will push for last minute legislation in Albany to amend the Hudson River Park Act to permit the building of 700,000 square feet of commercial office
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A Tribute to Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr.
By Michael Duane Johnson Seven months ago, George Capsis, Publisher of the WestView News, in the Village of Manhattan, offered me an opportunity to write a piece for his paper about myself. I could not find the words or spirit until now to do so. I have no idea who I really am. For the
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Cornelia Street Café Alive in Exile
By Karen Rempel Those who have been mourning the loss of the Cornelia Street Café might be heartened to know that the café lives on. The currently homeless Cornelia Street Café recently crossed the East River to host a series of evenings at the Brooklyn Commons. The trio of evenings included performances by many Cornelia
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Five Milestones of Technology That Made Us What We Are Today
By Josef Eisinger© After musing in these pages about the evolution of life on Earth (WestView News, Feb. 2019) and about the rapid pace of technological innovations (WestView News, Jan. 2018), I propose to select in this article five technological landmarks that arguably had the greatest influence on human behavior in their wake. This is,
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9/11 Tiles for America
By Dusty Berke The 9/11 Tiles for America is the only grass-roots tribute to the tragic events of 9/11 that remains in the West Village on the corner where it first began. It was created by Lorrie Veassey, the owner of Our Name is Mud, a local paint-your-own pottery shop, as a way to brighten
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Save the Date for Renegade Dreamers
By John Gilman 58 years ago Bob Dylan wandered into the precincts of Greenwich Village and almost immediately sparked a major resurgence in folk music in coffeehouses and musical hotspots like Gerde’s Folk City and the Cafe Wha on MacDougal Street. A new film by Karen Kramer entitled Renegade Dreamers chronicles the activities of young
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The Future of Our Fields
By Lara S. Mullarkey The sun broke through on the morning of Saturday, April 6 just in time to shine on Greenwich Village Little League’s Opening Day. Hundreds of families flooded Pier 40, along with a roster of local politicians including Deborah Glick, Brad Hoylman, Corey Johnson, Brian Kavanagh, Scott Stringer, and Madelyn Wils (president
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Notes From Away: Modesty Becomes Her
By Tom Lamia I try to ignore the ignorance, pettiness and mean-spiritedness that increasingly permeate White House actions. This is not because I don’t notice, but because I feel powerless to object. This distressing situation only seems to worsen with time. Yet a particular incident among the daily outrages does offer hope. It comes from
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Drink Your Tea
By Keith Michael Millie’s bounding “corgi kibble dance” inspired by a small handful of kibble tossed onto the floor is just the distraction needed for her while I sneak out the door. I’m on my way to the Hudson River Park Trust offices at Pier 40 for a meeting planning another summer of Sunday morning
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My Favorite Restaurant
We’re asking readers of WestView to submit a description of their favorite neighborhood restaurant. The review we select for publication receives a FREE one year subscription to WestView News. Please submit your local favorite to: westviewarticles@gmail.com GRAND PRIZE WINNER Roberta Curley Recommends: TAVERN ON JANE Jane and Leroy Streets When I crave unique, inventively prepared fresh
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Pier 40: What to Do, Again
By Brian J. Pape To quote a beloved Yogi-ism: “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” At a heated Community Board 2 public hearing on April 18th, the CB2 response to elected officials’ request to change the Hudson River Park (HRP) Act of 1998 was discussed, specifically regarding possible legislation to allow development of commercial
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New Intergenerational Housing Ideas
By Brian J. Pape George Capsis asked me to please find the nonprofit company he saw in a TV presentation about “shared” apartments designed for unrelated individuals who are living collectively on either side of a shared kitchen and bath because this was like senior share apartments he wrote about in an earlier edition. A
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Is Your Habitual Procrastination Making Your Depression Worse?
By David Parker I’m David Parker and I’ve suffered with severe depression and anxiety since I was a young child. Fifteen years ago I was living alone in London having separated from my then wife, and I was suffering through an extreme bout of depression. I recalled a friend’s advice that if bad thoughts were
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New Technology is Not Always Progress
By Bill Pullano The latest innovation of Fifth Generation (5G) networking wireless connectivity will soon be mainstream. Some claim 5G will be revolutionary, making all of our lives better by enabling many of the formerly mundane objects found throughout our homes and apartments to seamlessly connect to the internet, further enhancing our world through the
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Note to Mt. Sinai: We Care About Beth Israel
By Penny Mintz It seems that most people are completely unaware that Mt. Sinai intends to close the Beth Israel building on 16th Street and First Avenue. On the afternoon of Tuesday, April 16, 2019, four committed members of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel joined me at the corner of 16th Street and
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My Time at The New School—1958
By Les Plosia If The New School is anything like it used to be, count me a big fan. Then in my upper 20s, I would tool south in my MG convertible on the West Side Highway two evenings a week from my junior editing job at Prentice-Hall publishing house on the New Jersey side
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Lamenting the Loss of Our Lady
By Barry Benepe We have traveled to Paris every year for a month in the early autumn, staying on the west end of the Ile St. Louis adjacent to the Pont St. Louis leading to the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. We could look over at the eastern apse of Notre Dame with
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They Came for the Rally and Stayed for the Wake
By Cynthia Chaffee and Mary Ann Miller On a rainy, chilly, first full day of spring, a surprising number of people showed up at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson and 11th Streets—the reason? The sale of the building to the notorious landlord Steve Croman. The White Horse Tavern opened in 1880 and has been
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The New School: First Century
By George Capsis On the first sunny Saturday in April we sat down for sandwiches on a bench in front of the Café Panino Mucho Gusto (favored by the older crowd as a place to just sit and talk). A passing stranger looked down at me and asked, “WestView?” I responded, “Yes,” followed by his “Like your paper.” “Are
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A Historic Renovation for Jefferson Market Library
By Frank Collerius For 50 years, the Jefferson Market Library has been a staple of the Greenwich Village community, offering traditional library services and innovative programs such as Jefferson Market University, popular storytime programs, and exhibitions that celebrate the history of our neighborhood. The building—originally a courthouse well known for its role in notable criminal
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Five Cosmopolitan Artists at Westbeth Gallery in April
By Jane Heil Usyk “Worlds Seen and Unseen” is the name of this show featuring five well-traveled women who have been practicing their art for many years. It opens Friday, March 29th, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and will run from March 29th through April 20th, 2019. The hours of operation are 12:00 p.m. to 6:00
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Greenwich Village Staple Collaborates with NYC’s Music Venue Darlings to Feature Emerging Artists
See them Up-Close and Personal thanks to the New York Presenters Consortium A staple of the downtown new music scene since 2015, the Uncharted Concert Series at Greenwich House Music School (GHMS) has emerged as one of New York’s most exciting and unpredictable live concert series, and it’s right here in Greenwich Village. This year
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Gary Sherball’s “Two Suspects” an Unexpected Joy
By Joel Gordon Judge Gary Sherball came to 69 Charles and sat and talked about the upcoming reading of his play with music at the Bitter End. He implored several times “come, come, and bring people.” I failed to put it in my calender and only recalled it when our photographer Joel Gordon called from
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Both Sides Now: Celebrating the Legacy of Joni Mitchell
By Cal Smith In Celebration of Joni Mitchell’s 75th birthday, the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, and in continuation of her ongoing seven-year celebration of the music of Joni Mitchell, West Village resident Hannah Reimann will present concert performances of Mitchell’s music, entitled Both Sides Now, from April 22th through May 4th as part of Fort
