By Martica Sawin Two years have gone by and the Whitney Biennial is here again on Gansevoort Street and will be with us until September 22. This is fortunate because, although it is not overwhelming in size or clamorous in appearance, it is a sobering, thought-provoking show that requires time to listen to and absorb
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Beth Israel News
By Penny Mintz It is hard to pry information from Mt. Sinai. On Wednesday, May 15, 2019, members of the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel met, for the second consecutive month, in front of the main entrance to Beth Israel Hospital. The CCSBI wants to see the restoration of the hospital services, that were
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A School for Creative Innovators
Our encounter with The New School began with an invitation to a reception at the residence of the University President, David Van Zandt. A bronchial illness prevented me from attending so I wrote out my questions which he graciously responded too. —George Capsis Q: What was President Van Zandt’s image of The New School when he first
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Open Letter to Corey Johnson to Save the 14A Bus Line Route
Dear Corey, Sort of ironic that my earlier Open Letter to you from WestView News was to plead for more bus shelters for riders waiting for the 14A—and now we’ve learned there’s a plan to do away with our vital little spur altogether—to replace it, apparently, with one that runs way out on the fringe of
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Charles Street Association Annual Planting
Dear neighbors and members of the Charles Street Association, Thank you for coming out this past Saturday. You made our annual planting a great success. This year all our tree-beds were planted and all are looking fantastic. However, in order to keep them alive, they will need lots of water throughout the hot summer months.
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Teddy Crosses The Goal Line
Theodore (Teddy ) Capsis completed his four year football scholarship at Holy Cross with graduation and a hug from his sister Sophia. Photo courtesy of Doric Capsis.
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Parsons School of Design Runway Show Ornamented Fifth Avenue
By Karen Rempel | Fashion Editor As part of the New School’s graduation festivities at the end of May, the Parsons School of Design held the first-ever street runway show in Parsons history. The event on 5th Avenue and 13th Street featured more than 250 unique looks by Parsons fashion grads. It was a spell-binding
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Lenox Hill Hospital Plan Includes Park Avenue Condo
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Superstorm Sandy hit Manhattan hard in 2012, two days before Halloween. East River hospitals were crippled, transferring patients to other facilities. But transportation was hit too, so commuters mostly stayed home from their hospital jobs. My West Village home was at the edge of the flooding and without power,
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Gansevoort Peninsula Conundrum
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP The Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) has completed 72% of the entire park construction which started over 20 years ago, and is now designing the 5.5-acre Gansevoort Peninsula directly across from the Whitney Museum of American Art on Gansevoort Street. The design process will include several more workshops this
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It’s My Park Weekend in the West Village
It didn’t rain. For the first time in five weekends the skies were clear. All across New York City, on May 18th and 19th, volunteers were found who were eager to finally be able to work outside in the sunshine and get their hands into the earth in their local park, garden, and green space.
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Food Scrap Collection
Dear Editor: The food scrap collection article in the April issue of WestView had an immediate impact on local recycling efforts. Literally upon the day of publication, both online and in print, Saturday Union Square and Abingdon Square Greenmarket workers reported people coming to their sites to mention and/or leave a copy of WestView’s April
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Pier 40 Public Forum
I’m speaking for Friends of the Earth, an environmental group with a 45 year history of work to stop over-development in the Hudson River from Battery Park City North to West 59th Street, New York water and land now controlled by Hudson River Park Trust authority (HRPT). The authority controls 60 acres of NY land
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Litigation Over 14th Street Changes and SBS Bus Changes Coming Soon
As WestView goes to press, two lawsuits are about to be filed by my office addressed to the efforts of DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg to needlessly reshape our community. At first, she used the proposed L Train shutdown as an excuse. Now she wants to champion “fast bus service on the M14D and the M14A.”
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Save the Bus Stop!
Hi George: I’ve just sent off the following letter to elected officials and others regarding the M14A service: What is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s purpose with regard to Bus Transportation? Is it to get the riding public from one convenient location to another or is it to move the buses from one location to another
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Stop Privatization of Pier 40, Says CB2
By Bruce Trigg, MD A new generation of Robert Moses-style power brokers plan to privatize the last major public space in Lower Manhattan—if we let them. That’s right, they will push for last minute legislation in Albany to amend the Hudson River Park Act to permit the building of 700,000 square feet of commercial office
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Cornelia Street Café Alive in Exile
By Karen Rempel Those who have been mourning the loss of the Cornelia Street Café might be heartened to know that the café lives on. The currently homeless Cornelia Street Café recently crossed the East River to host a series of evenings at the Brooklyn Commons. The trio of evenings included performances by many Cornelia
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100 Years of Non-Solitude and Creativity
by J. Taylor Basker Friends, family and fellow creatives celebrated Edith Stephen’s 100th year birthday in Westbeth Artists Housing in Greenwich Village with two parties: one private, for family and close friends in her studio; and the other for the public in the Westbeth Community Room, for fans and neighbors, that included a puppet show
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Style on the Street: Men in Suits
As the thermostat inches up, the coats come off and men display their sartorial elegance in suits both retro and up-to-the-minute. Text and photos by Karen Rempel.
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Edon Manor Brings Joy Through Shoes
By Karen Rempel Edon Manor is the new refined and ultra-hip babe on the block, with luxury shoes for the most artrageous among us, offered up with a cool vibe. Pink suede couches rim the room and pink hydrangeas adorn the ceiling, with fresh flowers and art books accenting shoes that are truly works of
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Karen’s Quirky Style
By Karen Rempel For me, having fun with fashion is about finding pieces I love at the most unexpected moments, and then combining them with old favorites to come up with an entirely new, unique look. I call this “Karen’s Quirky Style” because you won’t find these ensembles in Vogue, they don’t cost a mint,
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9/11 Tiles for America
By Dusty Berke The 9/11 Tiles for America is the only grass-roots tribute to the tragic events of 9/11 that remains in the West Village on the corner where it first began. It was created by Lorrie Veassey, the owner of Our Name is Mud, a local paint-your-own pottery shop, as a way to brighten
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White-Soled Shoes
By Gordon Hughes Now that it’s warming up I’ve been able to sit outdoors on one of the benches at Cafe Panino Mucho Gusto. While sipping a cup of joe the other morning, I was overwhelmed by the number of sneakers with white soles passing by. What is up with this ubiquitous trend? It is
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Save the Date for Renegade Dreamers
By John Gilman 58 years ago Bob Dylan wandered into the precincts of Greenwich Village and almost immediately sparked a major resurgence in folk music in coffeehouses and musical hotspots like Gerde’s Folk City and the Cafe Wha on MacDougal Street. A new film by Karen Kramer entitled Renegade Dreamers chronicles the activities of young
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Burn This Returns to Broadway
By Robert Heide The new Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson’s play Burn This, which was originally produced in 1987 also on the Great White Way, opened April 16 at the Hudson Theatre at 141 West 44th Street for a 17 week run. Back then it was Wilson’s first play to open on Broadway and it
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Artists at Westbeth Show Exhibit a Variety of Concerns
By Jane Heil Usyk There was an event at the end of March at the Westbeth Gallery on Bethune and West streets. It was the opening of a five-woman art show called “Worlds Seen and Unseen,” which spanned all four rooms of the large gallery. There were five distinct and very different styles of painting.
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George Meets Stanley Kubrick in the Village
By Roger Paradiso On a cool spring day we were sitting around the round table in George’s house on Charles Street. George was sick with a very bad cold. He heard our voices and made his way out of his bedroom sniffling, coughing, and looking a little green. But once I began talking about movies
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The Future of Our Fields
By Lara S. Mullarkey The sun broke through on the morning of Saturday, April 6 just in time to shine on Greenwich Village Little League’s Opening Day. Hundreds of families flooded Pier 40, along with a roster of local politicians including Deborah Glick, Brad Hoylman, Corey Johnson, Brian Kavanagh, Scott Stringer, and Madelyn Wils (president
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Maggie B’s Quick Clicks: ‘Tis the Season for Comings and Goings
—And all the signs that “Summer Is Icumen In”!
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IN AND OUT
This month we noticed a higher number of openings than during the colder months. A long-time Village bookstore returned, while another closed. Openings outnumbered closings on Bleecker Street, something that did not go unnoticed in a March 2019 article in The Commercial Observer which stated: “Bleecker Street retail has gone through several rapid changes in
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My Favorite Restaurant
We’re asking readers of WestView to submit a description of their favorite neighborhood restaurant. The review we select for publication receives a FREE one year subscription to WestView News. Please submit your local favorite to: westviewarticles@gmail.com GRAND PRIZE WINNER Roberta Curley Recommends: TAVERN ON JANE Jane and Leroy Streets When I crave unique, inventively prepared fresh
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Pier 40: What to Do, Again
By Brian J. Pape To quote a beloved Yogi-ism: “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” At a heated Community Board 2 public hearing on April 18th, the CB2 response to elected officials’ request to change the Hudson River Park (HRP) Act of 1998 was discussed, specifically regarding possible legislation to allow development of commercial
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Pharma to Farm: Pharmacy to Farm Prescriptions Program
By Ede Rothaus A “Win, Win, Win.” How many times do we hear of—well—anything that actually matches that description? (Anything that meets that criteria?) Good news! A new program created by New York City’s Department of Health does. And people taking medication for high blood pressure, farmers at Greenmarkets in all five boroughs, and local
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The Shed at Hudson Yards
By Donna Schaper The Shed has opened its doors at Hudson Yards—and it will benefit from the best tax write-off yet for a structure that probably wins the prize for the most public money ever given to a development in New York City. That takes some doing. Calling itself “a new ritual space,” bothers me
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De Blasio to Village and Chelsea: Drop Dead!
By Arthur Schwartz Just before WestView went to press, Mayor Bill de Blasio dropped a bombshell on us: 14th Street is going to be closed to cars starting in June and they will be directed to go across town on 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Streets. Without a single community leader or elected
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They Came for the Rally and Stayed for the Wake
By Cynthia Chaffee and Mary Ann Miller On a rainy, chilly, first full day of spring, a surprising number of people showed up at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson and 11th Streets—the reason? The sale of the building to the notorious landlord Steve Croman. The White Horse Tavern opened in 1880 and has been
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A Historic Renovation for Jefferson Market Library
By Frank Collerius For 50 years, the Jefferson Market Library has been a staple of the Greenwich Village community, offering traditional library services and innovative programs such as Jefferson Market University, popular storytime programs, and exhibitions that celebrate the history of our neighborhood. The building—originally a courthouse well known for its role in notable criminal
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Five Cosmopolitan Artists at Westbeth Gallery in April
By Jane Heil Usyk “Worlds Seen and Unseen” is the name of this show featuring five well-traveled women who have been practicing their art for many years. It opens Friday, March 29th, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and will run from March 29th through April 20th, 2019. The hours of operation are 12:00 p.m. to 6:00
