A lovely apartment with a marble fireplace overlooking the garden is available at 69 Charles Street. Village rents are coming down, making this luxury apartment available with access to historic garden in WestView 1886 building. We are aware of the 20% drop in Village rents. Call George Capsis 212 924 5718—rent concession for right tenant.
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A Capsis Family Celebration
WestView Publisher George Capsis (right) is surrounded by his family at his recent birthday celebration. Seated left to right are his daughter-in-law Ariadne, son Doric and granddaughter Sophia. Grandson Teddy was unable to attend. Photo by Dusty Berke.
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A Long Strange Trip to the West Village and a 2021 Resolution
By Kieran Loughney The neon-green down parka was more functional safety gear than fashion statement. Stuffed in my backpack with a Grateful Dead tape, a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush, Buck knife and road atlas, it would serve me on wind-blown highways and alert approaching drivers that I was on the berm, with thumb
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Local West Village Artist Supports Cure for AIDS
By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. Until it was shuttered by the pandemic, Carlos Abisaab worked as a waiter in West Village favorite Barbuto. Finding himself out-of-work and bored, he created a family-friendly, LGBTQ-themed adult coloring book. The coloring book was launched on Amazon starting on World AIDS Day 2020 with 5% of proceeds going to Research
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Livable Streets Part III : Where They Are Headed
By Barry Benepe In the earlier part of this series, I pointed out how our former Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan advanced the design and use of streets to make them more pedestrian friendly. An excellent example was the reclaiming of the east side of Broadway above 17th Street for cafe tables and green plantings. In
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Alice—A Lovechild Restaurant Is Born in the Pandemic
By Karen Rempel The restaurant lifespan in New York has shriveled like a dried chanterelle. NY Eater estimates that 1,000 restaurants closed between March and November. The Office of the New York State Comptroller recently reported that New York City’s restaurant industry had 23,650 establishments in 2019, and projected that one-third to one-half of these
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Pompeii Flea Market/Bleecker Street Market
By Ede Rothaus Interview with Sheila Strong, Manager As part of WestView News’ ongoing coverage of the impact the Coronavirus has had on our Village community, this reporter visited the flea market on Bleecker Street adjacent to Our Lady of Pompeii Church and had a series of interviews with Sheila Strong, the Market’s manager. Following
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ShiZ’ka, Pianist
Join us on December 12 at 7:30 PM Powerhouse Classical Pianist SHIZ’KA Premieres “PASSAGGIO E IMPULSO” By Denise Marsa ShiZ’ka continues her association with St. John’s in the Village Musae and Denise Marsa Productions to perform her third live stream concert on Saturday, December 12th, at 7:30 p.m. The recital will feature music from her
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Community Events from Project NYC and The West 13th Street Alliance
By Birgitte Philippides-Delaney and Chandra/Jo Sgammato December is shaping up to be a busy month for Project NYC and The West 13th Street Alliance, with a variety of community events and a Virtual Holiday Gathering! But first, let’s look back on November. Along with our popular and therapeutic Yoga for Arthritis and Chronic Pain series,
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Local Finds. Local Love.
Support some of our favorite West Village shops and designers. Curated by Karilyn Prisco Stephen Hall Art Pillows & Totes stephenhallart.com IG @samanthahall666 KEENTU 345 Bleecker “Teardrop Threader Hoops -Kenya” & “Mohawk Crossbody Bag – S. Africa” keentu.com IG @shop_keentu Death to Tennis Color burn, micro corduroy “Finbar Lava” Jacket deathtotennis.com IG
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327 Bleecker Demolition Begins
By Brian J Pape, AIA At what seems to be a snail’s pace, the demolition of the derelict building at 327 Bleecker, southeast corner of Christopher Street, has finally begun. Passers-by as long ago as 2010 noticed bulging exterior walls exhibiting cracks in the brickwork and trim. The city had to order its evacuation while
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GREENWICH VILLAGE LEGENDS: Why Ramsey Clark is Our Model for the Future
By Bruce Poli There are few unheralded heroes left today who have built what is now our great civil rights movement across America. One of them, whose stature is nearly equal to that of John Lewis but from a different perspective (and he was a close friend of Lewis’), is our beloved longtime West Village
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Fond Memories of Greenwich Village
By Susan Schwartzman As a young girl in my tweens, my mother took me to visit my great aunt, who lived in a tiny, cluttered studio on Bleecker Street. I had never been to Greenwich Village before. I was dazzled by all the shops and couldn’t wait to return. Unfortunately, my second visit to the
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Greenwich Village Legends
Richard Feynman: Physicist, Raconteur, Musician, Humorist By Bruce Poli This is a new monthly column highlighting the giants of American culture who have lived or worked in Greenwich Village. There’s Albert Einstein, there’s Stephen Hawking, there’s Isaac Newton. And then there’s Richard Feynman…winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965, and one of the most
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Neighborhood Cleanup with Candidate Erik Bottcher
By Bob Cooley Every Sunday at 11:30 a.m. volunteers gather at the NYC AIDS Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle (Seventh and Greenwich Avenues) to participate in a community cleanup program that provides a way to meet new neighbors while helping to keep our West Village clean. Led by District 3 council speaker candidate Erik
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In the Eye of the Beholder? Graffiti on West Village Buildings
By Brian J Pape, Aia, Leed-Ap Protest street art appeared everywhere during the months of civil rights protests in many cities, when plywood seemed to cover every storefront. We wrote about this recent phenomena and how, although not officially authorized, it typically added to the lively street scene and did not vandalize the building itself.
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Why Am I Running?
BECAUSE OUR CITY NEEDS VISION By Arthur Schwartz Our City is a mess! Our Community is a mess! WestView readers for the past ten years have read hundreds of articles I have written about problems facing our community and work being done to make our community better. In fact, for 30 years I have been
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Historic Salmagundi Art Club on Fifth Avenue hosts 42nd Annual Open Exhibition November 9-20
Last year’s exhibit included works by WestView News’ Dusty Berke and Karen Rempel. This year’s exhibit again includes work by Karen Rempel in the Parlor. November 9 – 20, 2020. Hours: Tuesday–Friday 1:00–6:00 p.m., Weekends 1:00–5:00 p.m. Social distancing measures in place. Photo provided by Salmagundi Club.
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Obscene Graffiti Scars Village
By George Capsis In 1917 the City ruthlessly cut through the handsome historic townhouses of the Village to run the 7th Avenue subway through it and left ugly towering blackened backyard raw brick walls. A few months ago, after the Black Lives Matter incident, huge crude nonsensical graffiti messages appeared like “MAGIC TRICK” with the
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Join Barre3 West Village’s Dynamic Fitness Community
By Karen Rempel Is the Quarantine Fifteen getting you down? Has your fitness lifestyle been disrupted due to restrictions during COVID? Are you yearning for a more active you, but don’t know where to start? Barre3 West Village (B3WV) has inspired an empowered fitness community since 2014. I became one of their devoted members in
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October 2020 Community Events from Project NYC/West 13th Street Alliance
By Birgitte Philippides-Delaney and Chandra/Jo Sgammato Project NYC/West 13th Street Alliance is proud to continue our virtual community events with these October programs to serve our block, our neighborhood and all New Yorkers, wherever they may be. Autumn is a good time to revisit your skin care routine with beauty experts Todd Harris and Brian
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HERMAN L. LOWENHAR
November 28, 1933 September 29, 2020 A light has gone out. Herman L. Lowenhar, the beloved President of Congregation Darech Amuno has died. Herman was a universal New Yorker, loved by many. He touched countless lives in his 86 years. He will be greatly missed. Please share your memories of Herman with us. Stories and
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Crowdfunding Campaign Update: A Reward Greater Than Cash
A Message from George Capsis The pandemic became real to me when the Northwell medical complex on Seventh Avenue attached a truck to their building to discreetly remove the bodies of virus victims. How it would financially impact the paper became very real when a leading real estate firm sent a polite letter backing out
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New York Spirit! Villagers Are Saving WestView News
Dear readers, neighbors, friends, and supporters, We asked you to help because our beloved local newspaper is in danger of folding forever. You answered with a surge of donations, messages, and even ad requests! George and the folks at WestView News are overwhelmed by your love and support for the paper. We’ve raised almost $15,000
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Farewell to a Long Time Resident and WW2 Veteran
By Arthur W. Yee If you lived in the West Village anytime during the 1950s–1990s, chances are you may have patronized the KY Yee Hand Laundry located on the corner of Bleecker and Grove Streets. To my recollection, there were about six other laundries in a six-block radius but KY’s was very popular and busy.
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The Ellipse New Jersey: Turn Off Those Harsh Lights!
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP This is a call to action! In recent years, the entire Lower West Side of Manhattan has been plagued by the glaring harsh nighttime lights on the largest of the new apartment buildings that sprouted up in Jersey City. We call on you to write letters to the developer
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Stoop the Poop— NYPD Says Eff Poo to 80-Year-Old West Village Residents
By Karen Rempel Have you ever had to clean up a large pile of stinking human poop from your doorstep? Not the flaming bag of poo Halloween prank (which is usually dog poo), but a pile of poo topped with a pool of urine that spreads across your stoop and welcome mat? Whether you live
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The Sixth Precinct Builds the Block
By Karen Rempel On August 13th, the 6th Precinct of the NYPD held a “Build the Block” community discussion at the AIDS Memorial Park at West 12th Street and Greenwich Avenue. About 40 masked neighbors attended, including half a dozen folks from WestView News, to speak with a handful of NYPD Neighbor Coordination Officers (NCOs).
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“Whose Post Office? Our Post Office!”
Jacqui Taylor Basker, leading a group of approximately 40 West Village residents, shouted this and other chants outside the Hudson Street station at a rally in support of the USPS, and against recent moves made by Postmaster Louis DeJoy. DeJoy’s actions have received bipartisan concern, and many have seen the changes implemented as an attempt by the Trump administration to
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Free Groceries for Village Seniors
By Fr Graeme Napier St John’s in the Village St John’s in the Village has been running, and continues to run, a free grocery service for Villagers who have no access to the internet. It is one of the many services which have come into being to help particular groups hit hard by the pandemic.
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Manhattan’s Vacancy Rate Soars
How Long Will It Be Before Renters Return? By Anthony Paradiso Just days before the WestView News September deadline, I realized I could write about the decrease in residential rents. How would I be able to get quotes? I started calling the real estate agencies that operate in the West Village and telling them I
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Veteran State Assembly Member Faces Newbie Challenger
By Frank Quinn Deborah Glick, the veteran Democratic state assembly member representing District 66, which includes Greenwich Village, Soho, and Tribeca, is facing a challenger in the upcoming November election. Tamara Lashchyk, a longtime local resident, is the Republican candidate seeking the assembly seat Ms. Glick has held for nearly 30 years. Ms. Lashchyk agreed
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Murder on Christopher Street
By Roger Paradiso & Anthony Paradiso Dashawn Bush, 36, was murdered on Christopher St. in the West Village at around 4.20am on August 17th. His lifeless body lay out on the sidewalk in front of the Hudson Bagel shop on Christopher Street when police came upon the scene. Bush was taken to the Lenox Health
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Help Save the Voice of the West Village
Dear readers, neighbors, friends, and supporters, We are asking for your help because our beloved local newspaper is in danger of folding forever. With ad revenues sinking as our local businesses struggle to survive in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, WestView News can no longer make payroll and pay printing costs. We have distributed
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Extended Summer
By Tom Lamia It has been a strange summer in Maine. No stranger, perhaps, than yours in the West Village, but maybe a different kind of strange. I have spoken in this column before about the dependence of Maine’s economy on summer visitors. It is a well-known characteristic of life in Maine, whether for “Mainers”
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A Room of Our Own
By Sandra DiPasqua This is a story about the creative writing program for senior citizens that I have been organizing for the past three years, and some of the ways that it has made a difference in these seniors’ lives. We come together around a rectangular table each week to share stories and memories. Our
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Baguette About It!
Richaud is a an actor and producer who became a baker during the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. His delicious baguettes are now being baked in increasing numbers in the West Village. Recently featured on Good Morning America and in Forbes magazine, the word is getting out that there is an authentic and native French
