Body Medium: Annika Rhea’s energetic collaboration of dance, live music, paint & audience By Hannah Reimann “The audience is part of the energy,” Annika told me. On September 28th at 7pm for our second Revelation Tuesday event at St. John’s in the Village’s gallery, we will have the pleasure of witnessing Body Medium, Annika Rhea’s
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Autumn in New York
By Robert Heide with John Gilman One of the favorite theater musicals of all time for many people including myself is The Fantasticks, which opened in the Village May 3, 1960. It attained a record of the world’s longest running musical after 42 years and 17,162 performances. The book and lyrics by Tom Jones are
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The Village Trip Festival 2021
By Roger Paradiso The Village Trip Festival comes back for its third year on Saturday, September 18th, through Sunday, September 26th, with a variety of events covering most of the arts. It is a celebration of what the Village was, is today, and could be in the future. It is definitely worth a visit online
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St. John’s Lutheran Church: The Progressive Anchor of Greenwich Village Turns 200
By Bruce Poli In the long and varied history of New York City, no institutions have had more influence than churches. And there’s a good reason: they serve to heal and strengthen our communities. Churches are found throughout the Greenwich Village Historic District. They were built as early as 1821 and as late as the
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Greenwich House Proposals for Senior Center Sites and Services
By Darren Bloch The past 14 months have been difficult for our entire Greenwich House community, and particularly for neighbors who have relied on our senior services for meals, support, comradery, and enrichment. While I could not be prouder and more impressed with the services our team was able to provide from a distance, we
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The City’s Oldest Homeless Organization, the Bowery Mission, Addresses Issues of Increasing Homelessness
By Anthony Paradiso The Bowery Mission’s flagship location is in the East Village and is one of eight campuses interspersed throughout New York City’s five boroughs, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The East Village location opened its red doors to the public in 1879, making it the oldest Christian rescue mission in New York City. Nearly
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An Extraordinary Life
By Randee Mia Berman It’s nearly impossible to wrap up a life in 100 words. Ilona Royce Smithkin was, in a word, extraordILONAry. Ilona was a painter, dancer, author, hat designer, sketch artist, cabaret singer, eyelashes creator, and divine friend. As a teenager in the ’60s, I admired her as a radiant Provincetown summer fixture;
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2021: The Year Summer Returned to The West Village
By Kieran Loughney The summer of 2020 never really happened in New York. With concerts cancelled, theatres shuttered, business conducted remotely and travel deferred, the city became a hollowed-out shell of its usually vibrant self. Plywood covered shop windows. Favorite restaurants and stores closed. Deemed a risk to public safety, movies and music in the
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REVIEW: Ferrara’s Film The Projectionist, on Nicolas Nicolaou, Owner of Cinema Village
By Anthony Paradiso “I don’t believe in [using] tricks to get people in the theater,” Nicolaou said. “[I believe in] good projection, a comfortable place, a nice theater to watch a movie in—that’s what people like.” Those are the words of Nicolas Nicolaou, who owns Cinema Village on East 12th Street in Greenwich Village. It
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The West Bank Meets the West Village
By J. Taylor Basker Westbeth Artists Housing is located at the convergence of West and Bank Streets on the west bank of Manhattan. Here, technology provides an opportunity for direct communication between the West Bank and the West Village west bank. A weekly program on Saturdays at 3:00 p.m., Zoom Palestine, is conducted from Westbeth,
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BikeThief Strikes Again
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP On a clear Wednesday afternoon, outside my apartment, I locked my ebike with a U-bolt lock. When I came back out a little while later, it was all gone—lock, stock, and battery. It’s happened to me before, and to many other people in the city. What can we do
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Beth Israel Hospital Staying Open—What Should It Look Like?
By Arthur Z. Schwartz The fight to save Beth Israel Hospital—which has now been won—is about to enter a new phase: the decision about what services will remain and what services will be brought back to the hospital now that downsizing has ended. My own position on this issue was shaped by the hospital’s role
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A West Villager Travels Uptown
By Gordon Hughes For the past 22 years I have lived a wonderful life in the relaxed pace of the West Village. If you are a reader of WestView News you may have stumbled upon my “Travels With Charlie” style column. I love reporting on the unique aspects of our Village. I do travel north of
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CB2 Discusses Washington Square Park
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Washington Square Park (WSP) and Community Board 2 (CB2) meetings are manifestations of the agora, literally meaning “gathering place” or “assembly”, the central public space in ancient Greek city-states meant to accommodate the social and political order of the public. Established as a public park in 1827, in 1958,
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She Paints While Dancing
Movement Artist Annika Rhea will perform and create her art in Revelation Gallery at St. John’s in the Village on September 28, 2021. Right, a shot from her premiere exhibit this month at The Box Factory on the Bushwick/Ridgewood border. The exhibit is open by appointment only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 2pm-7pm through
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BEFORE, AFTER, AND TAGGED AGAIN—TWO WEEKS LATER
BEFORE, AFTER, AND TAGGED AGAIN—TWO WEEKS LATER. Members of the Sixth Precinct graffiti removal squad painted over these mailboxes in May. Within a few weeks, they had been tagged again. An officer told us that they get vandalized almost as soon as they are painted over and that the problem is city-wide. Photos by Paul
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Everything Old is New Again in the West Village
By Gordon Hughes As Peter Allen once sang, “Everything old is new again.” Boy, that sure is the case in the West Village. I was going through some of my past WestView News columns the other day and was delighted to see that so many activities I have written about over the years are returning
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The West Fourth Street Courts: Famous and Still Popular Today
By Anthony Paradiso The West 4th Street Courts, aka “The Cage,” is a small basketball cage encircled by a 20-foot-high fence. It is right across the street from the legendary IFC Center movie theater on Sixth Avenue. The West Fourth subway entrance is nearby, on Sixth Avenue and West Third Street. The entrance is marked
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It’s Been An Amazing Year
By Arthur Schwartz The primary for City Council in Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen is largely over. Although Erik Bottcher did not get a majority, his margin of victory over me is large enough that it seems mathematically impossible for me to win once the Ranked Choice process begins. I want to offer Erik
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“Build the Block” Meeting Addresses Washington Square Park Situation
By Frank Quinn On Wednesday, June 16th, the 6th Precinct held a “Sector A Build the Block” meeting at Our Lady of Pompeii Church to discuss conditions at Washington Square Park. Many local media reports described it as an “emergency meeting.” As a regular attendee at 6th Precinct meetings, what this reporter found unusual was
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A Very Concerned Citizen Speaks
By Steve Romano, MD It is the character of youth to rebel, but what has been happening at night in Washington Square is not just the natural excess of youth but the abandoned behavior sometimes induced by substance abuse—public urination, defecation and partial nudity, and over the top resistance to police orders. What follows is
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Celebrate PRIDE month with Church of the Village
GLOBAL VILLAGE COFFEE HOUSE JUNE 30: Celebrate PRIDE month with Church of the Village [NEW YORK, NY, June 8th,, 2021] – Join us for our second Global Village Coffee House, a PRIDE-themed event featuring music, poetry, comedy, and action opportunities. Taking place Wednesday, June 30th, at 8pm ET this virtual event draws on artistic expressions
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Postcard from an Expat New Yorker: It’s Happening Under the Bus
By Martin Belk Dear Gothamists: Did you see the events go down last Friday in Glasgow, the heart of the Scottish Independence movement? 1000 citizens halted a xenophobic dawn raid by Her Majesty the Queen’s Right Wing government on two asylum seekers. Hands in pockets, they peacefully crowded around the mini-bus, even laid under it.
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Going Past the Red Bucket: Broadway and HIV
By Drew Minard The AIDS Epidemic was first reported on 40 years ago this year. In many ways, the camaraderie that has been felt so strongly within the Broadway community throughout COVID-19 parallels how it survived that devastating and transformative time four decades ago. The fear and confusion that many endured bears a resemblance to
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AID FOR AIDS: Recycle Your Meds, Every Pill Counts
By Ede Rothaus Do you have unused unexpired prescription and over-the-counter medications? AID FOR AIDS can recycle and distribute them among people with HIV who can use them abroad and at home in the U.S. You can drop off your donation right here in Manhattan, or arrange for free pickup. Celebrating its 25th anniversary year,
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Hope and Grieving in the Village Jazz Community
By Tim Ferguson As warm weather returns and we begin to see the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greenwich Village is coming back to life. With that re-awakening, jazz fans have some reasons to feel hopeful. Smalls (https://www.smallslive.com/) and Mezzrow are both back to regular shows for live audiences! While there are
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Cubbyhole in the Cubbyhood
By Karen Rempel Our very own Cubbyhole Bar reopened in April. Cubbyhole is one of only three remaining lesbian bars in NYC. The others are Henrietta Hudson on Hudson Street (reopened May 15) and Ginger’s Bar in Brooklyn (still closed). It wasn’t easy for Cubbyhole to adopt a new business model and offer outdoor dining
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The Importance of Intergenerational History: A Tour with Christopher Street Tours
By Michael Venturiello I’m a young, queer historian—not by choice, but by accident. When I first moved to New York City in 2016, I was fortunate enough to live in the heart of Greenwich Village in a spacious, one-bedroom apartment. One night, I flicked on some casual Netflix and David France’s How to Survive a
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Restaurants Close Streets Without Input from Local Residents
By F. Seidenbaum I challenge Villagers to walk on Waverly Place from 7th Avenue to Christopher Street any Friday or Saturday night from 10 pm until after 1 am. Then to consider what it’s like living nearby: the outdoor shouting, screaming, chanting, singing, by groups and individuals, invade residents’ apartments; the area becomes a giant,
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Sneak Preview of Gansevoort Rehearsal Space
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP At the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Streets, diagonally across the intersection from the Whitney Museum and the High Line Park entrances, a new mixed-use building has arisen where an old meat-packing structure once stood. The Meatpacking Historic District has undergone many drastic changes in recent years, transforming from
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6th Precinct Graffiti Cleanup Team
The 6th Precinct Graffiti Cleanup Team at work on Bedford Street and Sixth Avenue. They had perfectly matched mailbox and lamppost paint, courtesy of the local block associations. Stay tuned in the following issues for more on the community groups teaming up with the police on the cleanups. Credit: Paul Vlachos.
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Mansions of Meaning Seeking Home in West Village
By Steve Feldman A chance meeting over the purchase of a recycled kitchen may result in Mansions of Meaning having a home in the West Village. When George Capsis and Dusty Berke met me at the Renovation Angel Luxury Outlet in Fairfield, New Jersey, a conversation about sustainability grew into the excitement of establishing a
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RAD = B-A-A-A-D: NYCHA Developments
By Penny Mintz NYCHA buildings all over the city, including the Fulton Houses in West Chelsea, are in dire need of repairs. That’s a well-known fact. Those repairs will cost approximately $40,000,000,000—another well-known fact. “Forty billion dollars!” NYCHA chairperson Greg Russ is reported to have said, “Where am I going to get forty billion dollars?”
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How to Register for Next Spring’s Greenwich Village Little League
By Anthony Paradiso The Greenwich Village Little League’s Spring season runs every year from April to mid-June. The President of the Greenwich Village Little League is Peter Marino, who told me by e-mail that the league started registration “a little later than usual” in late-December instead of December 1 this year because the league wanted
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Missing My West Village
By Gordon Hughes Well, it’s been just over a year since I left my co-op in the West Village and since writing my column for WestView News. Boy, do I miss New York, especially the Theatre District where I worked. I miss the Village where I played. I miss George Capsis, who brought me into
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A Church Named Graffiti—What’s That?
By Brian J Pape, AIA Friends of mine living near Tompkins Square Park gave me a tour of prominent graffiti in their area, pointing out better-known artists’ signatures or tags, as opposed to recent, unidentifiable works. Many of the wall murals were sanctioned and related to the businesses there. A set of murals on a
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Gansevoort Peninsula Progress By Brian J Pape, AIA
By Brian J Pape, AIA The David Hammons sculpture “Day’s End” has finally been assembled after a long year of preparation. The concrete pilings had to be precisely set in the water to receive the tubular stainless steel framing that exactly duplicates the outer shape of the original pier house at this Pier 52. The
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A Tale of Three Small Businesses
By Penny Mintz We locals feel at home in our neighborhoods when we sit on a stoop and see a familiar face; when we connect through our children’s school; when we take the sun in a local park. The most significant contributor to our sense of community, though, is probably our connection to, and reliance
