By Alec Pruchnicki When I started writing about the Elizabeth Street Garden last year, I made about a dozen trips there and to the surrounding parks, playgrounds, and gardens and became aware of an aspect of this controversy that has been unmentioned: race. This year, to confirm or refute my suspicions, I completed a very
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Kathy Chamberlain’s Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World
By Anne Olshansky During the 1840s, Jane Welsh Carlyle led a stimulating and privileged life. As the wife of the greatly admired but tormented and self-absorbed author Thomas Carlyle, Jane associated with London’s literary elite—surrounded by writers, artists, intellectuals, and revolutionaries during a period of social and political change. Many of the frequent visitors
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Glimpse of Success: Complicated by Feelings
By Janet Capron A review of my debut memoir, Blue Money, appeared in the July 14th issue of Shelf Awareness, a well-regarded online newsletter about books and the book industry (shelf-awareness.com). “Capron writes with the fearless, experiential drive of a Beat poet, though her images are more controlled and precise than the subject matter would
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New York Times Best-Selling Author Loves Blue Money
Caroline Leavitt, a New York Times best-selling author, read Blue Money two weekends ago and right away, on Monday, July 24th, published an interview with the author, Janet Capron, on her influential blog, carolineleavittville.com. Leavitt led off with, “Come on, who doesn’t want to read about NYC in the 1970s, when it was the most
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Bring Back Commercial Rent Control?
By Brian J. Pape, AIA Bring back? Until recently, I never knew it had existed. All we hear is how high rents and taxes are devastating the mom-and-pop retail communities. Even our State Senator, Brad Hoylman, recently published a report entitled “Bleaker on Bleecker” on his website. The survey found 18.44% storefronts vacant on West
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Vermeer Senior Chess Club: Promoting Health, Community, and Plenty of Fun
By Nina Leto Mayleas If it’s Wednesday at 4:00 p.m., the Vermeer Senior Chess Club is about to meet. Chessboards are lined up, and members take their seats for an interactive chess lecture and demonstration, followed by their own competitive games. Chess, the game of kings, is inspirational, fun, and a bright highlight of the
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Calvert Vaux and Frank Lloyd Wright: Two Architects, One Vision
By Barry Benepe Art is a form of searching where artists sometimes independently reach a common form or truth. I found this to be the case with Calvert Vaux and Frank Lloyd Wright who were two generations apart. Vaux was brought over from England by his mentor, and later his partner, the horticulturist Andrew Jackson
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Edward R. Enderlin, ‘Mayor of Perry Street,’ Dies
By Paul Critchlow Edward R. Enderlin, who considered the streets of the West Village his true home for the past three decades, died on June 17th. Mr. Enderlin, who was 64, had suffered from heart and pulmonary conditions and passed away at The Lee (133 Pitt Street, near East Houston Street)—the subsidized housing facility where
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St. Veronica’s Church: Telling the Neighborhood Story
By Terri Cook The Irish dockworker’s life revolved around the river, his family, and his church. St. Veronica’s Church on Christopher Street was his church. Longshoremen would attend early mass in the sanctuary before heading to the docks where the work was physical and not without danger. Oral historians tell of hearing the thump of
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Helping Children Locally
By Peter Alson In these mean times, it can be painful to think of the world into which we have brought our children. But it can also be inspiring to see how our children respond to hardships and what they do, together, to make the world a better place. This spring, a small group of
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The Healthcare Conundrum
By Nan Victoria Munger Consuming 17% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), “medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness,” says billionaire Warren Buffett. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other country. However, a 2014 report by The Commonwealth Fund compared the health care performance of the U.S. to that
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Fresh Food for Seniors
By Andreea Ioana Pantor On Tuesday, June 27th, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer announced the return of the Fresh Food for Seniors Program. This initiative began in 2012 when Brewer partnered with GrowNYC (an organization which utilizes environmental programs to improve quality of life), the NYC Department for the Aging, and over a dozen
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“What, No Hellman’s?”
By George Capsis Even I, the Publisher of WestView, am sometimes surprised by how good our contributors’ articles are. One of the best was Russell Neuman’s price comparison of Hellman’s Mayonnaise, which dramatizes the insane differences in food cost. If you still have the June issue, I suggest you re-read the article. Russell discovered a
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A Village Bird on the Wire
By Jim Fouratt There are secrets Greenwich Village holds that are whispered into ears about who and what is going on here. We want to share with you the topics being discussed locally. Lulu Bank Street spotted me sitting in the unnamed park that was to have been the AIDS Memorial Park. Lulu came over,
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Tom Doyle—Justice Is Near
By Arthur Z. Schwartz WestView broke a story last October about Tom Doyle, who lived with his husband, Bill Cornwell, on Horatio Street, in a house Bill owned, for over 50 years. (The New York Times picked up the story from WestView and ran with it.) When Bill died in 2014, he left the house
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The City Club Speaks
By Michael Gruen Resistance to Diller Island (Pier 55) has come from some key figures in the famed City Club of New York (they helped to save Grand Central Station). Here, the President of the Club, Michael Gruen, returns to the original charter of the Hudson River Park, which calls for the assiduous preservation of
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Justified Outrage Against Verizon
By Ellis Nassour I recently came across a Verizon internet ad, which states: Ready for your free HBO NOW trial? One month FREE trial. All you need is your internet. But, I am not ready—because you’ve taken my internet. The headline from a 2016 New York Post story reads: “Verizon Is Supposedly Screwing Its Landline
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VID—Democracy or Cronyism?
By Arthur Schwartz WestView has often featured reports on the most recent meetings of the Village Independent Democrats (VID), one of the City’s oldest “reform” clubs. This past May, the VID voted to endorse an array of candidates, including Bill de Blasio, Corey Johnson, and City Council hopeful Carlina Rivera in the district east of
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Amidst Bleecker Street Closures, a Survivor and a Reviver
By Nan Victoria Munger In 1979, Afghan millionaire Abdul Nusraty fled the communist government of Afghanistan, leaving behind his four cars and a 180-worker jewel factory to become a West Village storeowner. Since moving to New York and opening Nusraty Afghan Imports, Nusraty has twice been forced to relocate, not by Communists, but by landlords.
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Janet Capron: Uptown Girl Turned Prostitute in Blue Money
By Andrew Buemi The New York City of the 1970s, for many, represents some of the grimmest and grittiest times in the City’s modern history. The period brought economic uncertainty, increasing crime, and suburban flight. Yet, it was a time when fledgling creatives could still afford to live in Manhattan and burgeoning artists, activists, musicians,
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Second Act
By Eileen Millan After a fairly successful career as an executive assistant and artist, I was able to buy my co-op apartment 20 years ago. As you all know, times have changed and we never know what life will bring us. This is the story of my second act. I had just retired and was
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Take Broadway Home! Tony Award-Winning/Nominated Musicals
By Ellis Nassour “It’s been a season filled with creativity, diversity, innovation, exciting debuts, and a thrilling comeback,” says Charlotte St. Martin, Broadway League president. “There’s nothing like live theater, and no better way to see it than on Broadway.” If you haven’t been fortunate enough to grab tickets for the season’s hot musicals, however,
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Drink Pink, By Victoria James—A Timely Summer Read
By Caroline Benveniste Victoria James is not your typical sommelier. In a field dominated by men, it is unusual to see a young woman, particularly one who has already received numerous awards and made Wine and Spirits Magazine’s list of ‘Best New Sommeliers of 2016.’ Victoria is a local celebrity: She is the wine director
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Reflections on The Bitter End
By Anthony Paradiso The Bitter End club at 147 Bleecker Street, in the heart of the Village, has survived the test of time. Many stars, like Joan Rivers, Richie Havens, and even a guy named Bob Dylan, have come out of the club since its 1961 opening. There is no doubt that the Village scene
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Horton Foote’s The Traveling Lady Now Showing at the Cherry Lane Theatre
By Robert Heide The word from here to WestView readers, and to theatergoers in general, is that they ought to make a beeline to the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street, between Bedford and Hudson Streets) to see a great production of The Traveling Lady. Written by Horton Foote—a master craftsman known as the “American
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World Refugee Day Finds New Meaning
On a recent June afternoon, the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, located on 5th Avenue, between West 11th and West 12th Streets, invited passersby onto its shaded lawn for a celebration of World Refugee Day. With live world music and free food from Eat Offbeat, the event commemorated the contributions and
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Life on the Street in the Words of Writers
By Barry Benepe Walking is both the expression of freedom and an embrace of space. An automobile driver is imprisoned in a mobile metal box. Amos Hawley, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan said in 1962, “If it is true that life is lived largely on foot, that the deep and enriching
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Landlords and Tenants Agree: London’s Grenfell Tower Fire Was Preventable
By Joseph Turco, Esq. Greenwich Village/Westbeth artist Joyce Rezendes, who resided in London in the late 1960s, often compares its Kensington district to Greenwich Village. Of the Grenfell Tower fire, which occurred on June 14th, Rezendes recalls: “We protested the construction of those tall buildings back then because they were so out of place in
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Man of Mystery: Sam Kramer, Master Jeweler
By Barbara Riddle For years, I tried to pull the name out of the mists of time—the name of the avant-garde goldsmith on West 8th Street whose strangely anthropomorphic brooches and bracelets were modestly arrayed in a small glass display case below a Chinese restaurant on the North side of 8th Street, between 6th and
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Kill The Zombie Park Already Part II: The Fake Alternative
By Alec Pruchnicki It’s much easier to think of an alternative to a controversial project than to complete the years of hard work necessary to implement that alternative. Supporters of the Elizabeth Street Garden have proposed several alternative sites for housing—the biggest one being on Hudson and Houston Streets. But, there are problems with this
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Where Did My Neighbors Go?
By Mary Alice Kellogg Invasion of the Body Snatchers resulted from author Jack Finney’s imagination, but I’m living it in real time, as individuals, couples, family units—my neighbors—are disappearing. My West Village has always been a tranquil place—save for weekends—but now our streets are strangely empty during the week. The stillness is sinister. I search
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Up Close: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Exhibit at the World Trade Center Oculus
By Ellis Nassour Breathtaking photos featuring sections of Michelangelo’s ceiling and wall frescoes from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel are on display through July 23rd in Up Close: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel at the World Trade Center Oculus—Westfield’s shopping and transit hub at 186 Greenwich Street, one block South of Cortlandt Street. (The venue is also
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Are We Alone? Ruminations about Extraterrestrial Life (Part Two)
By Josef Eisinger© In Part One of this article, I posed the question: Is our story of life on Earth unique or did life also develop elsewhere? I also discussed some of the observations and laws of physics that affect the likelihood of life emerging and evolving on another planet. In this segment, I explore
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2017 TD Five Boro Bike Tour
By Eric Uhlfelder At least it didn’t rain this year! There was the occasional mist and it was cold up on the BQE and the Verrazano. But Bike New York’s 40th annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour was terrific. And what a milestone for the event. Having started in 1977 during the dark days of
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St. Luke Asks: Who Do We Let In?
By George Capsis I received a carefully-worded invitation from Wellspring Consulting, a firm that “provides strategic planning for nonprofit organizations,” to attend a meeting to help explore how St. Luke Church in the Fields could “expand its service offerings to meet the needs of the West Village community.” Following that meeting, I received a letter
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Post No Bills Except Ours—NYPD
A few weeks ago, I was walking home from Cinema Village on 12th Street after viewing The Lost Village—a film cataloguing how our old, familiar West Village is being shattered by inflation. The film featured interviews with female NYU students who are turning to prostitution to pay the breathtaking tuition and also Village restaurant owners
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MoMA Lost My Art
By Martica Sawin In 1979, MoMA curator Kynaston McShine was walking along SoHo’s West Broadway when he noticed a display of exquisitely-decorated artificial cakes in the window of the Holly Solomon Gallery. He tracked down the artist, Pat Lasch, and commissioned her to create a monumental cake for the Museum’s 50th anniversary celebration. Lasch, at
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11 Jane Street and Other Sorrows—What Are We Losing Here?
By Robert Widmann As parking garages go, this one was something of a sweetheart, like an old love you could count on—never overbearing, always sort-of cheery, not too gassy. When returning from places dark and distant, she welcomed the lonely sojourner looking to find home, with her low-rise crenelated fortress-top beset with eight diamond-shaped panels
