An enlightening mayoral forum on education was held on June 14th at Murry Bergtraum High School near City Hall, co-sponsored by Class Size Matters, NYC Kids PAC, and other parent organizations. Six candidates participated, including Democratic front-runners Bill de Blasio, John Liu, and Bill Thompson. Notably absent were Christine Quinn and Anthony Weiner, and none

For the better part of the 20th century, the block bordered by West, Washington, Bank, and Bethune Streets was the site of Bell Telephone Laboratories, the world’s largest and most profitable privately owned company, ever. Much of its success can be attributed to the policy of Bell’s research department to hire brilliant scientists and engineers,

As a developer, Steve Witkoff spoke before the Charles Street Association guests in the elegant 150 Charles showroom. He smilingly confessed that he was indeed a “Villager,” living here after law school, frequenting the Bagel Shop on West 4th Street and now will be returning as a tenant to what may be the most elegant

“You’ll never get a hospital,” declared Michael J. Dowling in his Limerick accent,receiving a roar of rage from a packed West Village audience at PS 41. This was after North Shore LIJ and Rudin were successful in the bankruptcy court over the 11 buildings of St. Vincent’s for a mere $230 million in April, 2011.

During the opening night curtain call for Culture Project’s current production ofShaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto, Allan Buchman, Founder & Artistic Director of The Culture Project, announced that their main stage theater, currently known as 45 Bleecker Street, would be renamed the Lynn Redgrave Theatre. A naming ceremony and commemorative gala will

Only months after protracted zoning battles had finally set boundaries for the new Foundling School (PS 340) at Sixth Avenue and 17th Street, the school finds itself yet again in a cross-fire. The Foundling School,so named since it will be located on the first six floors of the Foundling Hospital once construction is completed, is

Death of a son prompts $1 million grant for new hospital It was as if somebody were out there making things happen. I received a call on a Sunday from Steve Witkoff whom I had met briefly, maybe four years ago. He quickly began to tell me of the drug overdose death of his son.

Dear Editor, The photo accompanying this article says it all! What mastermind in the City administration arranged to have so many bike racks placed in the street in front of the entrance to 175 West 13th Street, a busy apartment building? These racks block the ingress and egress to the building and thus, apparently violate

By Henry Stern The frustrated plot to seize political power is a staple of both history and fiction. From Guy Fawkes’s gun powder plot in London in 1605 through the party switches and seizure of power in the New York State Senate in 2009, politicians have sought to improve the outcomes of elections through various

“There is a beautiful young lady that would like to meet you,” Andromache called from the hall and in walked Sarah Jessica Parker; I found myself giving her a hug. She had met Bill de Blasio that morning and offered, that if he wanted to become mayor, he needed to get WestView behind him. I

“In strategic sessions, Ms. Quinn can speak colorfully of other law makers, often saying, ‘I’m going to cut his balls off.’” This Christine Quinn quote appeared in the New York Times on March 26 and documented her flat-out bullying and even vindictive rage directed at controlling City Council members. In one instance cited by the

I have compiled the start of a list of places which is below, alongside photographs of local restaurants. This is not an easy thing to do based on all the great places to eat in our neighborhood. I included restaurants I have reviewed and was happy to receive several responses from our readership with recommendations

“Just imagine…” This was the slogan created over five years ago when a group of determined community activists launched a highly successful campaign for the 75 Morton Street School. The ideal building has finally been secured, so now parents and community members can design their dream school, with good odds that it will come to

Daily News reporter Denis Hamill interviewed an ambulance driver from the closing Long Island College Hospital who had responded to call from a heart attack victim with only minutes to live. “I administered aspirin and nitro and forwarded his EKG by computer to the surgeons who read it and prepared the operating room to open

As someone who is often asked where should we eat and as a community service, to help highlight what where to spend money on good food, we are putting together a list of where to eat in the West Village. These are not meant to be the most expensive places but the best in terms

As candidate for mayor, John Catsimatidis pledges to restore an emergency room to the West Village Like me, John Catsimatidis, who owns Gristedes and is a Republican contender for mayor, was, and perhaps still is, a middle class Greek American kid who grew up on 135th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. We did not

Whenever my French friends visit New York, they ask me whether to go to the Empire State Building or Times Square first. It takes some explaining to convince them to skip both and to instead head to my home neighborhood, here in the West Village. “Don’t you just go there to buy shoes?” they ask.

Dear Editor, I too stayed in the Henry IV hotel in Paris – up two flights to the lobby, and then three more to our room (or so it seemed). The door to the room didn’t close properly, the sink had a drip, there was only a broken down ¾ bed. The toilet was indeed

Billionaire Developer Resigns To Pursue Alternate Pier 40 Plan Douglas Durst is no stranger to controversy or success. His family (Douglas is the third generation to run his real estate development business) fought the redevelopment of Times Square, but eventually built its signature building, the Conde Nast Building at 4 Times Square, the most environmentally

Historian Catherine Revland asks if some ancient migration was West to East In his book, Songlines, Bruce Chatwin visited remote groups of Australian aborigines that each sang a song with the same melody but a different verse, one that described the natural features of their home territory. When all the verses were put together side

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn just exhibited another example of her blatant misuse of power in furtherance of her own ambitions. Quinn’s Tammany Hall-style of governing has threatened our democratic electoral process for 2013. That should worry all New Yorkers as they now begin to focus on who may become the city’s new

When Sandy hit on the evening of Monday, October 29 we were watching TV. Something which has never happened before occurred – the upper right corner of the screen went black and the legend appeared “please wait” and then it just went all black. This is serious I thought. All the power failed and we

This has been an interesting few months, so it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s begin with the New York Times article by Anemona Hartocollis that came out on October 9: “New Style of Health Care Emerges to Fill Hospital’s Void.” As I have said before, one can almost imagine this piece being written

Walking with my dog Mr. Butter, I came upon this willful destruction of the St. Vincent’s Hospital chapel. It was particularly poignant as I thought of how many times this non-believer sat in the chapel while waiting at the height of the AIDS pandemic for a friend or lover to die upstairs. Now, where so

If you want to know how and who will save the Hudson River Park, look to money. More and more, it is the people with money who dictate solutions and those are usually in their interest. We have, right here in the West Village, another example of money and the lack of it dictating a

I spoke to Stephan Weiss on the phone shortly before he died and asked him if the Charles Street Association could have its December holiday reception in his studio on Charles and Greenwich Streets. He began very positive, but as we talked, he imperceptibly faltered thinking, I’m sure, of his lung cancer. “Well perhaps you

Barry Benepe, the creator of the Union Square Farmers’ Market, takes a hard look In the September issue of WestView, Alec Pruchnicki wrote a superb in-depth analysis of the proposed Neighborhood Improvement District (NID) as a possible source of funding for the five mile long Hudson River Park. This park, created by the New York

The discovery of the African Burial Ground is being called the most historically important urban archeological find in U.S. history, not only because of its unexpected size but in the way it has influenced people to educate themselves about the long-neglected history of people of African descent in New York City. According to one historian,

By Henry Stern One of the perennial questions citizens ask about government is: why is it so corrupt? People who read newspapers, listen to the radio or watch television encounter a steady flow of stories recounting misconduct by public officials or the details of their arrests, trials and, in many cases, convictions. The crimes of

Old Senate Adage—“Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste” Oh, wow, I pick up the Saturday August 18th Times and bang there’s a big spread on Pier 40 with a bunch of photos. How did it get there? Did Times reporter Lisa Foderaro see my WestView article in the August issue or Lincoln Anderson’s

Whenever I meet my neighbors on the street or at the Abingdon Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, it doesn’t take more than a handful of syllables before they realize that I’m not from these parts. No matter how hard I try, my ‘the’ still sounds like a ‘ze’. I nod politely when they ask if I’m

Little has been written about the history of people of African descent in Lower Manhattan, even though their numbers were so large that our neighborhood and environs were once called “Little Africa.” Hardly anything has been documented about this area’s importance as a major hub on the Underground Railroad. Other cities have magnificent Freedom Trails,

As a physician, I sometimes have to give my patients and their families bad news. I try to do it as gently, but accurately, as possible, and always with an attempt to include any possible hopeful information that may exist. This article will follow that pattern with some very bad news, in my opinion, but

It was a hot late afternoon on the 14th June and excitement was in the air. Cop cars and TV news trucks were parked up and down Seventh Avenue South and people were flocking to side streets lined with metal barriers, waiting to catch a glimpse of the President and the First Lady, who were

The Hudson River Park Trust (the “Trust,” or “HRPT”), the State-City agency that built and runs the Park, urgently needs about $200 million for “capital maintenance” – repairing and rebuilding major elements of the Park. New York City and New York State are supposed to pay to build the park, and in addition to the