By Stanley Wlodyka The artists of A Diamond Jubilee are vastly different from one another, but they each can reveal the secrets to longevity and a fulfilling life. By the year 2050, experts predict that the segment of the population over the age of 60 will more than double, jumping from 900 million to 2.1
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“Are You Jewish?”
God Sends a Kosher Editor Oh wow, a $35,000, roughly 40 foot house-bus, in front of United Cigar and Christoper Street is blaring Yiddish music—this I gotta see. What I find is a very young rabbi waiting to step out and greet young men who look Jewish and return them to the kosher path. A
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In and out
August was a surprisingly busy month—and since I was away for a couple of weeks I was particularly grateful to WestView readers for their observations. There were two major cocktail bar openings, a couple of restaurants, and the first shop to open in one of the properties that Brookfield purchased on Bleecker Street. Chelsea Market
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Tech Tips & Tricks
By Peter Rooney Welcome to a monthly column to help you turn your computer into a friend, brought to you by one of the oldest computer clubs in the world—right here in the West Village. We are the New York Amateur Computer Club, http://www.nyacc.org. Each month we’ll explore a technical topic, and attempt to answer
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West Village Sows their Oats
By Naomi Sternstein We like our oats to talk to us, and humbleness is not required. This much holds true on the topic of oat milk. Our Oatly oats tell us all about their “oatsome deliciousness and what our products can do” and we drink it right up. Sometimes we like their too-cute dad-humor asides
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Can You Be Both Pro-Affordability and Anti-Development at the Same Time?
By Donna Schaper It isn’t easy to be virtuous in Gotham today. Maybe it never was. You can be an organization as lofty as Habitat for Humanity and be accused of selling out, destroying gardens and siding with developers. So-called “Haven Green” has given the devil a lot of opportunities to repeat history. In a
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West Village Images by Joel Gordon
Street Gas Pipe Repair Crew I live on 12th Street and Seventh Avenue. Four blocks west, on Waverly Place and Seventh Avenue, street repair crews were replacing gas pipes. Excavating tractors would start at 8 pm, lifting and moving steel road covering plates. It was like living in a war zone, as jackhammers were digging
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Hoylman/Epstein Work to Save Hospital
By Penny Mintz Members of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel (CCSBI), including one of our founding members, State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, met with State Senator Brad Hoylman in early August. This is the fourth in a series of meetings CCSBI has held with elected officials. Since April the coalition has met with City
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Charles Street Makes History
On Wednesday, September 26, at 7 pm, the Charles Street Block Association is going to reveal and talk about the HISTORY KIOSK, a multi-sided street display case that will give tourists historic information, including names and biographies of historic and noted persons that have lived in the immediate area. The prototype is being offered by
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DOT Lies to the Feds About 14th Street Plan
By Arthur Z. Schwartz I reported last month that the 14th Street Coalition, a group of 15 Block Associations, condo associations and co-ops, had won a major victory in their fight to keep the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) from shutting down 14th Street to vehicle traffic, other than buses, as part of the efforts
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West Village for Kids
By Yalini Anne Sampathkumar, 9 The West Village has lots of fun things to offer for kids all ages. Here are a few good places to visit with kids. Jefferson Market Library: Jefferson Market is a wonderful library. It has lots of activities like book signings, learning about animals, crafts, and games every Friday. On
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IN AND OUT
July is usually a slow month, but this year there was lots of activity. In particular, the Village has become more of an Asian food hub with the opening of three Chinese restaurants and one Japanese ramen bar; and another Japanese restaurant is in the works. Open TOP OPENINGS Junzi Kitchen (170 Bleecker Street at
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Class War in Greenwich Village: Mini Versailles or Senior Housing with a Garden?
By Jim Fouratt Recently, when I called attention to the possibility of “class war” over a city-owned lot on Elizabeth Street, I was half joking. In 2012, when Councilwoman Chin was being pressured by both Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn to approve the massive NYU expansion in her district, Chin finally relented, after
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The Impracticable Life of NYC’s Street Vendors
By Milad Momeni New Yorkers. We love the hustler. We venerate the feisty businessperson who lays it all down for their dream. Nevertheless, as the city becomes more gentrified and the police omnipresent, the amount of available space for poor people who work for themselves is slowly diminishing. This tendency is even more visible if
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West Village Images by Joel Gordon – Jefferson Market Garden Flowers
Tucked away in the shadow of the Jefferson Market Library, from April to October, this beautiful, well-kept garden oasis is open to the public. Situated on a triangular city block, this 0.4-acre garden has been under the care of community volunteers since its inception in 1974. From 1931 to 1973 the Women’s House of Detention
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Comment: You Can’t Stop a Problem Unless You Admit to It
On July 14th, I received a two-page letter via the US mail. The following was just one small part: “The reason I am writing this is as follows: I have a friend who has an acquaintance on the Greenwich House Advisory Board of Directors. According to her, Greenwich House plans to close its 50 year
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Saving Humberto
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Humberto Gonzalez Bernal has lived at 88 Horatio Street, in a 250 square foot studio, since 1957, shortly after, at the age of 26, he arrived in the US from Cuba, a country then living under the brutal US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. He always harbored a dream of returning to Cuba,
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Battle on Barrow Street—A Victory for Organized Villagers
By Jane Heil Usyk Well! It has been quite a week; several meetings, two demonstrations, petition signing, and who knows what next week. Here is how it played out: on Monday, July 9th, I went to the senior center, Greenwich House, at 27 Barrow Street to see “The Big Knife,” one of the many excellent
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If You Can’t Fix It, Lie – NYCHA gives a course in lying and even has a textbook
By George Capsis I clicked on the TV to find Mayor de Blasio, in front of a gaggle of terribly young City Council members, competently running down the council’s achievements as the session apparently came to an end. With only the slightest change in tone he slid into what was happening to the New York
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Two Village Institutions Show There’s More That Unites Us Than Divides Us
By Joe Salas A pen-pal program between members at Greenwich House’s Center on the Square Senior Center and the kindergarten and first graders at Village Community School (VCS) has shown that despite decades of differences, life in the Village can still be a uniting factor. Joan Silinsh was born in Mexico City and briefly lived
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Have You Seen My New Perambulator?
By Gordon T Hughes Jr. The other morning, I was sipping a cup of coffee at my favorite haunt, Panino Mucho Gusto Cafe, when a young mother in yoga pants opened the door and pushed her baby into the petite cafe, in a gigantic, what I would call, baby carriage. Now, the cafe is not
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Then & Now: Milkwagon and Old Houses, 8-10 Grove Street
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Abbott’s streetscapes often included horse-drawn wagons, relics of an earlier age. In this Grove Street photograph, taken the same day as several others near her Commerce Street studio, a horse-drawn wagon is her central subject. Milk distribution in New York City, dominated by two giant companies—Sheffield Farms and Borden
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Village Hard-won School to Open
By Lucy Stone As the New York City public school academic year winds down and students eagerly await summer vacation, there is one middle school that will spend the next few months gearing up for its long-awaited opening. Co-located in a former state-owned building at 75 Morton Street, the new special-education middle school, P751 and
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Spill the Tea: (Verb) to Engage in Gossip
By Stanley Wlodyka Within a minute or two of sitting down on the bench in front of Tea & Sympathy, Nicky Perry sweet-talks a miniature Chihuapoo Tzu puppy into coming her way. The precious pup drags his human, a rather serious looking fellow, along for the ride. Nicky bends down and scoops up the bundle
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Advocates Stop Mitchell Donian’s Eviction
Mitchell Donian, 87 years old, called George Capsis on May 30, extremely upset. After living at 204-210 West 10th Street for 60 years, his landlord, Village Rose LLC, an absentee landlord, was threatening him with eviction because his apartment was cluttered. George said: “call Arthur, he will help you.” So Mitch, who I have known
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A Positive View of West Village Houses
I’m kind of sick of the bad press afforded to West Village Houses. That is why I want to set some basic things straight, both as a long time resident at WV Houses, and as a residential real estate broker. The 40, five-story walk-up buildings are located on six sites: Bank Street to its North
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In and Out
June was a busy month; with so many shops opening and closing, it was hard to keep up. The cuisines of the new restaurants spanned the globe: French; Italian; Moroccan; Mediterranean; Spanish; Chinese; American. The arrival (finally) of warmer weather made it a good time to grab an ice cream sandwich at Sherry B Dessert
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Maison Kayser Closes
They are picking them off higher on the vine by George Capsis Oh, wow. I got a call from Peruvian born, Nelly Godfrey, who lost her restaurant on the corner of Christopher and Bedford in a years’ long struggle with our very own king of evil landlords, Steve Croman. By the way, Croman has just
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14th Street Fight Moves Forward
By Arthur Z. Schwartz Elevators coming to 14th Street and 6th Avenue On June 18, the 14th Street Coalition and Disabled in Action announced a big win in their joint lawsuit versus the MTA, NYC Transit, and the NYC Department of Transportation: Within the next four years, four elevators will be installed on the corners
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Radical Changes from New Developments in West Village
By Brian J. Pape If you haven’t taken a walk around the West Village lately, then you are in for a shock. Block by block, foot by foot, the West Village is going through a transformation that is both rapid and radical. Hudson Yards, that city within a city just a little north of us
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Have You Heard!
June 2018 Nice to be back at WestView after the nightmare of Housing Court. After almost three years of fighting my new landlord’s attempt to evict me from my six-floor walkup in the heart of Greenwich Village, the Judge ruled against the landlord. The Court ruling said I was credible — the landlord’s witnesses were
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Giving is Ancient — The Need is New
By Graeme Napier The Open Door was a characteristic West Village response to HIV/AIDS. It was located where the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute is—in the courtyard of Saint John’s in the Village (West 11th Street at Waverly Place). At a time when men and women with AIDS (especially those who were young) were ostracized by
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So, You’ve Been Away
By Gordon Hughes The other morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee at Cafe Panino Mucho Gusto, when of all things, I ran into a pal and neighbor—not from the Village, but from Chester County (where I have a horse farm). I was so surprised to see him in this foreign location, but what
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14th Street Closure: MTA Talks, DOT Balks
By Arthur Z. Schwartz It was apparent to anyone attending the “Town Hall” meeting held at the New School on May 9 that the L Train shutdown, that we’re dealing with two very different approaches to the notion of public input. On the one hand, the MTA/NYC Transit Authority, and its new President, Andy Byford,
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In and Out
At the end of April, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that Brookfield Properties was purchasing seven storefronts on Bleecker Street, all located on the three blocks between West 10th and West 11th Streets. The properties are 350, 367-369, 382-384, and 387 Bleecker Street. Some of the storefronts had shops that recently
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Is Class War in the Village About to Begin over Senior Housing?
The fierce battle between the squatting Moms of Soho vs. seniors seeking affordable housing in CB2 has moved to the next step. The Mayor seems to be the only politician who supported the seniors in the battle over one of the only available pieces of land in CB2. Council-member Chin had the land designated for
