By George Capsis On June 5th, the Swiss voted down a proposal to give everybody $2,555 a month as basic income—a law espoused and pushed by the “leftist” factions in one of the most politically conservative countries in the world. The reasoning was and is that, in this small very rich economy, there ought to
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You Can Return a Hospital to the West Village
By George Capsis We print 12,000 copies of WestView News each month and Steve and Tim trundle them around the West Village and try and get them into vestibules or leave them with accommodating doormen. I like to say we have 20 to 30 thousand readers, but I am not sure. We keep asking people
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Garage to Wall of Glass Gives Jane Streeters Pause
By Alexander Tobias Redevelopment plans for 11-19 Jane Street—presently a two-story parking garage that’s been serving the community for nearly a century—were unveiled at Community Board 2’s Landmarks and Public Aesthetics Committee Hearing on May 16th. On May 20th, the full Community Board unanimously rejected the proposal. Since the Board’s ruling is non-binding, the project
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St. Vincent’s Dr. Kaufman Heralds New Hospital
By David L. Kaufman, M.D. Sinai’s acquisition of Beth Israel has given us the sad opportunity to once again witness history repeating itself. It will be closed, and the real estate play is being implemented with Sinai to get hundreds of millions of dollars while New Yorkers get yet another luxury high rise. In healthcare
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City Sells 50% Interest in Federal Supported Housing
By George Capsis While I was interviewing a 77-year-old senior on how he survived on a social security check of $800 dollars he offered he had a West Village rent stabilized apartment and Section 8. I had heard the term before, but I really did not know what it meant. Then WNYC offered a
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Sarah Jessica Rings the Bell
By George Capsis When nearly 200 graying West Villagers along with just about every local politician shows up—as they did on Sunday, March 13th to protest the closing of a small modestly priced supermarket, there has to be a deeper story. Many of these senior protesters are, I believe, trapped—living in too-small, rent stabilized apartments
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A Smiling New British NYU President Invites the Community to Be Nice
By George Capsis “Can I speak to George?” came a phone voice on a bright Thursday April 17th morning. When I confessed that “George was speaking,” I received an invitation to a reception at 37 Washington Square West in the penthouse apartment of the very new British-born president of New York University, Andrew Hamilton. But,
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Diller Island Clears Hurdles
By Brian J. Pape, AIA The last regulatory agency approvals have been granted this week to a planned recreational pier in the Hudson River Park. Heavily promoted and widely criticized, Pier 55 was publicly announced in 2014 to a shocked set of interested parties, including members of the Friends of Hudson River Park, government
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Supermarket for the Gentrified Poor
By George Capsis On March 8th, I received an e-mail from local resident Kay Frost, which triggered an extraordinary series of events that is still unfolding as you read this. Kay’s letter mentioned some “very distressing news”—that the Associated Market at 14th Street and 8th Avenue was scheduled to close at the end of April
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The Social Cost of Public Housing
By George Capsis In the 1980’s one of the familiar New York news photos was of swaths of gutted tenements in the Bronx and Brooklyn abandoned by landlords who would not or could not pay for heat, maintenance and taxes that exceeded the income from rent controlled apartments—they just walked away. The city did something
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A Final Pitch for Bernie—Vote April 19th
By Arthur Z. Schwartz For six months I have been writing for the WestView News that “presumed” Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, was anything but a shoo-in. I have kvetched about the media’s refusal to cover the Bernie Sanders phenomenon, except for a week after the New Hampshire Primary. I dare say that the Sanders campaign
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The April 19 Presidential Primary Ballot—Lots of Choices!
By Arthur Schwartz New Yorkers finally get to jump into the Presidential Primary process on Tuesday April 19. Polling places are open from 6 am to 9 pm. If you are not sure where you vote call 1-866-votenyc (866-868-3692) or type pollsitelocator.nyc into your computer or smartphone. Most people in the West Village vote at
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WestView Editor Caucuses For Bernie in Nevada
By Christy Ross In a cheery kindergarten classroom at Mountain View Elementary School, I joined 20 of my Elko neighbors to caucus in the Nevada Democratic primary on February 20. Fourteen of us (including myself) stood among the low tables and tiny chairs on the right side of the room to indicate our support for
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Thoughts About Justice Scalia and the Supreme Court
By Judge Frederic Block I am writing this article the day after Justice Antonin Scalia died. I am under no illusion that the vast majority of WestView readers are no fans of this reputed leading voice of the so-called conservative ranks of the High Court. Many of them probably hope that his replacement will be
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Youth Does Not Follow the Banner of Compromise
By George Capsis Times veteran op-ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof, tells a good story of how in 1981, he, as a young Washington Post intern, called the office of the newly elected mayor of Burlington Vermont to learn how this very American small town could have elected a “socialist.” After a lengthy interview with what he
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Fighting for the Minds of Children
By George Capsis I was idly watching channel 13 when I became aware of a video of children in Middle Eastern dress, single filing into a shed-like classroom in Syria. I watched with growing revulsion as a young, bearded ISIS teacher calmly—as if he were teaching the alphabet—taught the children to hate. What riveted me
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Inside Bernie Sanders
By Arthur A. Schwartz By the time you read this, the Iowa Caucus results will be counted and either Bernie Sanders will have won or he will have suffered a narrow loss. Whichever way it goes, his campaign has awakened a movement in America which must not be lost. I haven’t been to Iowa, and
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Single Payer 101
By Alec Pruchnicki, MD Medicare Vs. Blue Cross By Alec Pruchnicki, MD “ This is not Denmark,” Hillary projected loudly and got heavy applause when Bernie Sanders once again contrasted our chaotic and expensive medical services with the simple, direct government-provided and controlled system used in Denmark. The Times recently offered that the Sanders health
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Supertall in Manhattan
By Brian J. Pape There is a phenomena here in the city that is similar to suburbanites seeking a rural experience by buying a house on the fringes of a new subdivision, reveling in the views of the countryside, only to find the next row of houses built will block their views and crowd their
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Who Really Writes the Editorials for The New York Times?
By George Capsis I asked this question when, on December 14, I read a Times editorial actually endorsing a plan by two investment real estate developers to build a massive three-block long towering river complex of 1586 apartments that will shadow the historic West Village for a century or more. Our Times editorialist buys the
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The Sanders Revolution Is Not Being Televised—But It Is Real
By Arthur Z. Schwartz As we neared the end of 2015, some astounding things were going on in the polls. A late December poll commissioned by CBS News showed Bernie Sanders within 5 points of Hillary Clinton in Iowa, with 5 weeks to go, and 12 % ahead in New Hampshire (where she had almost
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Which President Will Say No to Wall Street? Times editorial offers that Hillary is silent on plan to avoid the next Wall Street recession
By George Capsis Some years ago, in the old Times building on West 43rd Street, I found myself sitting down at a very large oval table as one after another very distinguished New York Times journalists came in to take their places to interview my acquaintance and maybe even friend, Dr. S. I. Samoylenko
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Affordable Housing Becomes a Museum Exhibit
By George Capsis To replace the semblance of a human presence after 55 years of marriage, I keep WNYC on all day—and my ears pricked up during lunch when I heard the familiar nasal voice of Leonard Lopate saying “with skyrocketing rents placing affordable housing outside the reach of thousands if not millions of
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Decisions by Default
By George Capsis On Wednesday October 20, The New York Times ran an article outlining a plan to save the corroding, 15-acre Pier 40 by accepting $100 million from two real estate investment firms for the Pier’s air rights, allowing them to build 1,586 apartments, a hotel, and retail stores in five buildings facing Pier
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Bernie Sanders Can Win But Will His Being Jewish Get in the Way?
By Arthur Z. Schwartz On September 18, I was reminded why politics and elections can be inspiring. Seated with Westview Publisher George Capsis and 1500 others at Town Hall, I watched the Presidential candidate who has drawn the biggest crowds and the most fervent support as we head towards the 2016 election. And it
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What Do We Do with Our Syrians?
By George Capsis The scene of groups of Germans smilingly greeting Syrians with food and blankets needs to be considered against the gleeful applause Donald Trump gets when he suggests walling off Mexico. Perhaps this is in part because the new generation of Germans may still feel guilt for the death of 6 million Jews,
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Can Saving Lives Be Profitable?
By George Capsis Over the Labor Day weekend, the Leonard Lopate show ran a segment with two doctors talking about the high cost of US medicine. Then in the following Tuesday’s Times we learned that hospitals really don’t know what it costs them to provide medical services (I mean they have no idea). They do
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Bernie Sanders Says
“There is a lot of sentiment that enough is enough, that we need fundamental changes, that the establishment — whether it is the economic establishment, the political establishment or the media establishment — is failing the American people,” “If it’s too expensive to care for our veterans, don’t send them to war.” “There is far
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Mrs. Green’s Has Opened!
By George Capsis For over a year the large store space that use to house Duane Read on Hudson and Bank has displayed cheery signs that it was about to open as Mrs. Green’s—a health conscious food market. On Monday, August 24th it did! But wow, more than a year—what was holding them up? Was
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An Open Letter to Debra Glick Retire or Face a Challenge (Maybe from Me)
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Twenty-five years ago an upstart threatened to run against longtime Greenwich Village Assemblyman Bill Passanante. Bill had become a progressive force in the State Assembly and in local politics over thirty-six years. He was way ahead of his time, introducing a gay rights bill and domestic partnership legislation. He supported liberalized
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Why Iranian Activists Speak English
By George Capsis Senator Schumer lost it for me when he came out against the Iran agreement. Yes, he is Jewish, but he is also a US Senator and a Democrat. Every time they mention his name, they say he is slated to become the Democratic leader, but how can he be leader if he
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My Arrest. It Wasn’t Fair and It Wasn’t Fun.
By Arthur Schwartz Taken in handcuffs from the 6th precinct out onto 10th Street, Arthur Schwartz experienced the searing humiliation of eyes asking “what crime did that man commit.” And the humiliation continued when police escorted him into the Criminal Court where he had brought dozens of clients. Now he was the criminal. Lawyers
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Former Attorneys Take Croman to Court: The Game of Tactics
Greed Bites the Hand That Steals for It Intro by George Capsis The hand-cuffed arrest and subsequent arraignment in Criminal Court of activist attorney Arthur and the false anonymous call to the health department that raw sewerage was contaminating the kitchen of Nelly’s restaurant, Lima’s Taste are just two of many actions taken by two
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Do Not Take Diller’s Thirty Bucks
By George Capsis I was taking a vacation from my morning Times while at Bridgehampton, when MaggieB. emailed me a June 11th article by veteran Times writer Charles Bagli (he writes a lot about real estate), with a title that gave me a quick shot of joy—“Civic Group Sues to Halt Hudson River
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Westbeth Board Sues to Conceal Numbers
“I always thought that the basic tenet of Journalism was to get both sides of the story” was the bristling challenge from sixty-one year-old Executive Director, Steven A. Neil of the forty-five year-old low rent artist enclave, Westbeth, in response to the May cover article by historian and Westbeth tenant, Catherine Revland, who repeated the
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Why You Never Get a Bill from the Hospital
“Knee replacement, or knee arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure to replace the weight-bearing surfaces of the knee joint to relieve pain and disability.” –Wikipedia After 87 years, the cartilage separating my left leg bones had eroded, and the leg went off in unexpected directions (I could be mistaken for an old man). I considered knee
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Stonewall Landmark
HONORING A MOVEMENT: The Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide on Tuesday, June 2 whether to consider the Stonewall Inn for city landmark status—making it the first landmark honored for its significance to the LBGT community in New York. According to the Times, a yes vote by the committee will almost assuredly lead to “eventual designation
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Will Westbeth Be the Next St. Vincent’s?
“Quintessential New York location! Spectacular sunset views!” The Web site for Ramscale Productions tantalizes wedding planners with photos of its 3,500 sq. ft. penthouse and 1,000 sq. ft. terrace. How thrilling to have a wedding party in a gorgeous penthouse loft in the hottest neighborhood in town! The artist residents of Westbeth are not so
