By George Capsis Oh, wow, there on the six o’clock news were the rounded features of Barry Diller modestly purring in unctuous LA diction his pleasure at being approved to go ahead with Pier 55—an undulating concrete is-land held up by enormous mushroom-shaped piles, some more than 60 feet above the river. The Times offered
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Thoughts About the Presidential Primary and Debating Deborah Glick
By Arthur Z. Schwartz April, for me, was a month of highs and lows—in the political arena. Since I like to be transparent now in the manner I will be a public servant, I want to share my thoughts. I debated Deborah Glick two times in April. The first time was on April 9th before
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WestView Op-Ed
By Corey Johnson A contributor to WestView in his seventies offered he could not live in the West Village if it were not for his rent-controlled apartment—but even so, he was still having trouble making ends meet on a fixed-income. For decades the City and State have been passing laws and creating regulations to keep
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Why I Joined a Political Club
By Alec Pruchnicki Since the 1960s, I’ve been active in a variety of political causes. I learned back then not to be co-opted (a popular phrase during the ‘60s) by getting involved in “bourgeois” political action. Those who supported Gene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy worked hard, only to get Richard Nixon and several more years
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How to Buy Votes
By George Capsis Anxiously watching the TV weather forecasts the inevitable conclusion emerged—I had to do a big food shopping before the Saturday blizzard ended the possibility that I could make even twenty feet in the drifts with my new knee and unpredictable staggering gait. But where? The local, within walking distance, expensive markets or
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Max and I Have Lost Our City
By George Capsis Max Frankel, like me, is very angry at these 1000-foot asparagus towers with $100 million apartments that are springing up along 57th Street with Central Park as a green lawn before them. Indeed, with land at $1500 per square foot, they are popping up all over the place—and they are Avatar strange.
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I Am Running! A New Year, A New Campaign
By Arthur Z. Schwartz As I finish my 34th year as a resident of the West Village, I remain amazed at what a close-knit, vibrant community we live in, even as we grow and change in so many ways. 2015 was the year I was arrested for disconnecting surveillance cameras — cameras a greedy landlord
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Allegations of Corruption—Why No Response
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Way back in our November 1 edition, before either Sheldon Silver or “Dean” Skelos had been convicted of bribery, money laundering, and other acts of corruption, I published a piece which alleged that Assembly Member Deborah Glick had her own questions to answer. My interest had been sparked by a report
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From the United Nations through the West “Village” to Upstate
By Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper I live in both the Village and Upstate. Unlike Aesop’s two friends, the city mouse and the country mouse, I love both parts of my unbordered life. Whenever I think about the Village, I contemplate an older New York, one which was not too big not to fail. Whenever I
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It Runs in the Capsis Family
By George Capsis At last, yesterday, I got John Capsis on Skype sitting at his desk in Athens. He had chided me, as he always does, that as a “techie” American, I shouldn’t have so much difficulty Skyping with him. I first met my cousin John in the summer of 1949. He was waiting
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Thanks for the Memory
By Erwin H. Lerner I can recall with clarity a December afternoon when I was a cutesy featherweight first-grader, standing fifth in a class lineup from short to tall; fast on my feet and able to heave a basketball off a rattling metal backboard, through the hoop in Bronx Public School 91’s schoolyard. The
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Faitheist
By Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper I ran into my Muslim friend on the street a week after the Paris bombings. She was not wearing her scarf. All we had to do was meet each other’s eyes to realize that we needed to have a big long cry. “Donna, my mother told me not to
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Why Republicans Want Bernie to Win
By George Capsis The front page of the Times reported that half of all the money spent so far to support Democratic and Republican candidates for president came from just 158 families—$176 million. This is inevitable as more of world’s wealth slides into fewer and fewer hands. The top one-tenth of one percent owns as
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Assembly Member Glick: Dirty Money and Questionable Expenditures
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Everyone who reads WestView knows that Deborah Glick and I have some profound disagreements about policy, going back to my support for reconstructing Bleecker Playground, and her opposition to that project, and my support for building Hudson River Park and her vote against it. Folks also know that I was critical
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Forty Seven Years Late for the Meeting
By George Capsis “Should I continue to lay on my back watching Judge Judy or should I, on this chilly dark evening, go to the Pier 55 (Diller’s Island) meeting way over on East 15th Street”? I could sense Judge Judy wining when I got a call from Nelly “You got to go for your
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Deborah Glick Loses Big Downtown
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Sometimes following District Leader races is like reading tea leaves. The races are for insiders to evaluate and understand. But sometimes they explode with meaning. Like in 2013 when I was re-elected after an 8-year break and beat the candidate endorsed by Assembly Member Glick, State Senator Hoylman, and City
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Intro. 775—A Solution Without a Problem
By Caroline Benveniste Much has been written about Intro. 775, a bill proposed by City Council Landmarks Chair Peter Koo and Land Use Chair David Greenfield which ostensibly streamlines the landmarking process. For those who have not been following, the salient points of the bill are that once a landmarks application has been calendared, the
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Illegal flyers are a Blight on the City
By B. Benson The offensive practice of postings stickers and flyers on any public street furniture, lamp posts, traffic signal boxes, payphones, newspaper dispensers, etc. in New York City is very much illegal and with good reason. Such stickers and flyers create a visually jarring eyesore. The Department of Sanitation’s Code of Digest specifically prohibits
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Coming of Age in Havana
By Robert A. Moore Photography of many aspects of Santeria, the Afro-Cuban religion popular all over Cuba, is strictly prohibited. But my friend Lazaro, who lives in Cuba, encouraged me because it was his decision to choose his own ‘making’ as a Santero, which is a high priest in “The Religion,” as English-speaking followers call
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No Avatar City
By George Capsis On NY1 a very intense Mark Peters, the city’s Commissioner of Investigation, was cataloguing the horrors in the city homeless shelters as revealed in a study ordered by Bill de Blasio—vermin, pools of urine, and festering dead rats. Outraged by the situation, I tried to get the commissioner’s office or the
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Race and the City
The Crisis Continues By Arthur Z. Schwartz I had an interesting experience a couple months ago, entering the R Train at City Hall, just before a tall guy named Bill de Blasio. It took him five minutes to walk the length of the car because he was mobbed. High fives, lots of selfies (by passengers),
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Bernie Sanders Can Be Elected President. Amazing!
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Last Sunday, I ran into a neighbor who I hadn’t seen in a while, and she said: “Are you really for Bernie Sanders? Do you think he can win?” I responded: “Yes, I am for Sanders. I actually think that Hillary Clinton has peaked, is headed for big trouble with
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I’m Mad at You, George
By George Capsis “I’m mad at you, George—you told Carol Yost that just because she was old she didn’t need to live in the Village anymore, that she should live in Florida to make room for young people. I’ve lived in the Village twenty years, George, and I am NOT going to Florida! I’m
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Mama Read to Me
By Maria Hadjidemetriou “No mamma,you read to me like when I was little” my daughter Julia said, and I did. This pattern during bedtime stories continued and it soon became evident that she didn’t want to read because she was struggling. I had discovered my child’s first learning crisis and it broke my heart.
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A Life of Apartments (Part Three)
By George Capsis Part Three concludes this walk down memory lane and looks to the future. If you missed Part One or Part Two, you can find them at http://westviewnews.org/2015/04/a-life-of-apartments-part-one and http://westviewnews.org/2015/07/a-life-of-apartments-part-two/ The Depression stretched a very long time—from 1929 all the way up and into the War. In that 15-year period, prices stayed
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There is No Plan
How Air Rights Could Radically Change the Waterfront (Part Two) By Barry Benepe Last month we emphasized the worst scenarios which could take place as the Hudson River Park starts to sell air rights. Andrew Berman, Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, noted that the legislation—passed at the
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A Life of Apartments (Part Two)
By George Capsis Part Two continues to chart a lifetime’s worth of apartments. If you missed Part One, you can find it at http://westviewnews.org/2015/04/a-life-of-apartments-part-one After leaving the apartment near the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, we moved to 105 Hamilton Place—a very narrow eighteen-foot wide brownstone that my father bought for $13,000 dollars.
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I Did Not Get My Paper This Month
By George Capsis When I was a kid the Daily News went up from two cents to three cents (the same as the Times) and I said so who is going to read the News now? The funny thing is I don’t even know the price of the Times at this moment
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Corruption? Leadership Needed!
I grew up in the Bronx. We didn’t expect a whole lot of heroic leadership from people holding elected office there when I was young. More frequently than not (it seemed) a politician would get indicted and no one made a big deal. Two Democratic County Chairmen (Stanley Friedman and Patrick Cunningham) and two Congressmen
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Teleported Shopping
A shining nursery van pulled up in front of my window on Charles Street as I struggled to get out another issue of WestView. Three uniformed attendants got out and began moving elegant plants in elegant containers to adorn the entryway to my neighbors’ brownstone—making my ancient plastic window boxes distorted by winter ice look
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A Life of Apartments (Part One)
As I sat in the long sunny-windowed waiting room of the Hospital for Special Surgery perched on the very edge of the swirling ice-gorged East river, I thought how my life—all in New York, I was born on 103rd street and 3rd Avenue—had been measured by the apartments our family has lived in. The very
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Rent Control a Bad Deal
Dear Mr. Capsis, The loss of your paper for West Village residents would be a tragedy. That said, youreditorial comment in “Only The Rich…”while well intentioned was erroneous inimplying that rent control was a good deal, [and] in fact cementing that view by using the $500 and $600 rents of people you know as examples.
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Titanic Facts
Hello George, Your coverage of Pier 55 is thoughtful and informative as are all your articles on the Village, and I thank you for that. What I take exception to is a contributor listed on your masthead who doesn’t do his homework. Page 5, Barry Benepe; Pier55: An Island Rises The Titanic lost over 1500
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Mourn For The Cops, Ignore The Demagogues, Close The Divide
Like many New Yorkers, black, white and Latino, I was outraged by the fact that the cop who choked Eric Garner to death will not face a criminal trial on charges that he did something wrong which led to an innocent man’s death. Our justice system shouldn’t work that way. And like most New Yorkers,
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An Editorial: I Will Vote for Vision
In the last election the West Village and the surrounding 66th electoral district voted 4156 for Teachout and 1885 for Cuomo – wow more than two to one. The term “entrenched” clings to Cuomo who refused to even debate the un- known Teachout and released a barrage of unnecessarily expensive TV commercials Some 30 years
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Tom Greco
There is a discernible difference between the candidates running in the September primary for the newly drawn 27th Senate District in Manhattan. Tom Greco, business owner and community activist from Hell’s Kitchen, is the best choice. The record of Greco’s opponent, Brad Hoylman, is dubious at best. Sure, he is the hand-picked selection of the
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HUNDREDS PACK CITY PLANNING COMMISSION HEARING, CALLING FOR REJECTION OF NYU EXPANSION PLAN
On April 25th, several hundred people turned out for the City Planning Commission’s one scheduled hearing on the NYU’s massive proposed Village expansion plan. The turnout was so great that the hearing lasted from 10:30 am until 8pm, with many waiting several hours for the opportunity to speak. The overwhelming majority of attendees were opposed
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The Rich Become Reformers By Seeking Restrictions On Campaign Financing
Now that Governor Cuomo is in midst of the second year of his first term, people are pointing to his success as a manager and as an executive. His popularity rating is 68% (according to the latest Quinnipiac poll) and while there are certainly disputes over specific measures he proposes to eliminate the perennial state
