By Caroline Benveniste All too often, we report sad real estate stories—buildings being torn down and replaced with condos or offices, local shops closing because of steep rent increases, and other changes that make the Village less unique. Finally, we have a story that starts like all the others but ends happily. The Church of
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The Village Apothecary, a Treasured Neighborhood Institution
By Anastasia Kaliabakos In 1983, Mr. Michael Konnon, a pharmacist, businessman, activist, and community leader, decided that his neighborhood desperately needed a dedicated, independent community pharmacy. He founded the Village Apothecary at 346 Bleecker Street (at West 10th Street). At that time, the West Village had become the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, affecting New
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The Rent is Due – $127.61 Please
By W. Russell Neuman $127.61. Yep, for a nifty 1,000-square-foot apartment in an award-winning Federal townhouse on Morton Street. Yes, indeed. That is the current rent, per month, in 2018. West Village heaven. How is this possible, you ask? The answer, of course, is rent control. Other similar but uncontrolled apartments in the same building
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Honoring Catryna Ten Eyck Seymour
By The Family of Catryna Ten Eyck Seymour Catryna Ten Eyck Seymour was born in New York City on June 30, 1931. She passed away on December 2, 2017 in Torrington, Connecticut and is survived by her husband of 66 years, Whitney North Seymour, Jr., and daughters Tryntje and Gabriel. Mrs. Seymour attended the Brearley
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When Landlords Commit Sexual Harassment
By Joseph Turco, Esq. “If I had a hammer, I’d SMASH the Patriarchy.” This message was seen on a sign at the Women’s March on January 21, 2017. It should come as no surprise that several Village big wigs (all white, all male) have been exposed as cads and worse as a result of the
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A.G. Schneiderman Announces Unprecedented Consent Decree With NYC Landlord Steven Croman
The New York State Office of the Attorney General (OAG) published the following press release on December 20, 2017. It has been edited by WestView News. Today, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced an unprecedented settlement with Steven Croman, a major New York City landlord, for engaging in illegal conduct, including harassment, coercion,
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My Uncle the Atheist (In Memory of Oscar Riddle, 1877-1968)
By Barbara Riddle Is there a gene for skepticism, for extreme independence of thought, or intellectual bravery? I ask because of an incident in my life, not too long ago, when I suddenly felt genetically connected to an ancestor across space and time. In the depths of despair about the state of my country, I
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A Transcontinental Legacy
Dear Editors: John Capsis’ obituary, which was published in the December 2017 issue of WestView, provided a reminder of a life well lived, the way John served his community and country. Joy and I happened to travel to Greece just after John Capsis’ passing, so as we met people there, we mentioned Mr. Capsis’ relation
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West Village Original: Robert Heide
By Michael D. Minichiello This month’s West Village Original is playwright and author Robert Heide, who was born and raised in Irvington, New Jersey. The author of numerous plays, Heide has also co-authored, with his lifetime partner John Gilman, many books about collecting memorabilia, including three titles for Disney. A West Village resident since 1958,
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Journey to Forgiveness
By Gayle Kirschenbaum Did you ever feel like you were born into the wrong family? I did. From head to toe, there wasn’t anything right about me. My nose was too big, my butt too fat, and my hair too frizzy. According to my mother, I couldn’t do anything right and my brothers couldn’t do
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My Brief Encounter with Jeanne Moreau
By Allyn Freeman It was the day after Thanksgiving in 1963. I waited in the Cannes airport to board a late afternoon flight to Paris where I worked for an American company. At the newsstand, I bought Le Figaro. Rather than circle around the woman standing between me and the International Herald Tribune, I reached
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The Fight of Her Life
By Reverend Michel Faulkner Growing up in the Bronx as the fourth youngest of 11 children wasn’t easy. When Vicky was three, she and her brothers and sisters almost died due to neglect and were removed from their mother. They were placed in foster care until she was 10. “The hardest thing about this was
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An Historic Moment
By Cynthia Chaffee & Mary Ann Miller On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 60 Centre Street, an historic consent decree was reached between the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the lawyers for Steve Croman. This decree included an unprecedented monetary restitution ($8 million), which the disgraced landlord must pay to his injured
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Corey Johnson Could Be Chuck Schumer!
Oh wow! The Times keeps calling Corey Johnson, the new Speaker of the City Council, the second-most powerful man in City government. I asked Erik Bottcher, Corey’s Chief of Staff, “How come?” and this is what I got… Like the federal government, city government is divided between the ‘executive’ (the Mayor) and the ‘legislative’ (the
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Memory As a Bureaucratic Tool
When Corey Johnson was first running for City Council, he came to 69 Charles Street and asked if WestView would support him. I explained that we did not support candidates but that he could write an article expressing his views. He did just that and then, to our surprise, his mother and aunt showed up.
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What Do You Want Corey to Do?
By George Capsis What does it mean for the readers of WestView that 35-year-old Corey Johnson will, on January 4th, become the Speaker of the New York City Council, letting slide through his guiding fingers a City budget of $86 billion? He will be the second-most powerful man in City government. What do we really need
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Holy Cross’ Teddy Capsis Honored by All-Patriot League
Holy Cross’ Teddy Capsis Honored by All-Patriot LeagueOn November 21, 2017, the College of the Holy Cross and the Patriot League reported that junior defensive lineman Teddy Capsis and six other members of the Holy Cross football team earned 2017 All-Patriot League honors. Capsis, a former Chaminade High School Flyer, received second team honors. The
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Getting Ahead of Workplace Harassment
By David Hassell According to workplace culture expert David Hassell of 15Five—a performance management solution company that simplifies employee feedback—sexual harassment isn’t just a case of ‘bad eggs.’ It’s often symptomatic of a toxic workplace culture that shuts down open communication, allowing sexual harassment to not only exist, but to flourish. However, there’s a highly
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Senior in Urgent Need of Representation to Prevent Unjust Eviction
By Eileen Hickey I am a 71-year-old citizen/comedian/artist in an eight-year divorce facing possible eviction from my home of 43 years, which is maintained by my neighbors and myself, not the landlord. I am arguing pro se—that is, without an attorney—due to having no money and being on food stamps. My “Leave to Appeal and
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Corrections
Within the November 2017 issue of WestView, Gordon Hughes incorrectly spelled the name of an ad executive in the article entitled “A Short, Comical History of the Chumley Society” (page 20). The correct name is George Fertitta not George Frittata. The following photo credit was omitted from the Store Flyer for St. Veronica’s Inaugural Concert:
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A Season for Miracles: A Village Landmark Brings Together Hundreds
By Stanley Wlodyka St. Veronica’s claim to sainthood was simply this: She saw a need and did what she could to fill it. A man lumbered through the streets of Jerusalem, back bent under the weight of a wooden cross he was forced to carry, blood and sweat dripping from his face. He gratefully accepted
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Only 15 Minutes of Your Time
By Catherine Revland His name is fairly common, so I’ll just call him Gene P. He was on the list of go-see’s from the booker at my first modeling agency. I was in my twenties then, a fledgling model/actress from the Midwest, new to the Big City and incredibly naive. The booker, an aging Twiggy
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In Memory of Joan Simons Constantikes-Agnew
Summarized by Anne Olshansky When I started in corporate communications at IBM, they gave me a secretary to share, Joan, who announced that she was dating a Greek lawyer, whom she later married. Joan discovered my brother, John Capsis, in the Westport Phone Book, and the two families became fast, number-one friends. –George Capsis Joan
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Move Over, Jane Jacobs, Jeremiah Moss Has Come to Town
By W. Russell Neuman Jeremiah Moss came to town in 1993 at age 22 and fell in love. He fell in love with the gritty, noisy diversity of the East Village. He saw himself as a poet although, over time, his career morphed into that of a social worker, therapist, and very active blogger at
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Nothing’s Changed!
By Mary Ann Miller and Cynthia Chaffee You can ask any Croman tenant, “Has anything changed since Steve Croman went to jail?” and you’ll get a resounding, “NO.” And why should anything have? Steve Croman is still in charge and, rumor has it, he’s running the business by cell phone from his cell—giving new meaning
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West Village Original: Karen Kramer
By Michael D. Minichiello This month’s West Village Original is documentary filmmaker Karen Kramer, whose works include The Jolo Serpent Handlers, Rice and Peas, Coney Island Mermaid, Children of Shadows, and The Ballad of Greenwich Village. Westchester-raised Kramer received her B.F.A. in film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to her film
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My First Bird Book?
By Keith Michael Millie is drowsing at my feet, her smiling corgi face propped upon the helter-skelter sprawl of birding field guides, dog-eared and cracked open to my latest sleuthing of the finer points of avian identification for the West Village. How idyllic. Too idyllic. I made that up. Millie is, indeed, sleeping, but with
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Your Humble Foreign Correspondent: Goodbye to All That
By Paul Dalnoky My ties to Downtown date back to 1972 as a sophomore at a prestigious high school at 1st Avenue and 15th Street. After college, I moved into this neighborhood (the West Village), which an attorney for a former landlord of mine called one of the trendiest in the City. Back then, it
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John Capsis, Greek Journalist and Politician, Dies
By Pantelis Kapsis John Capsis, who passed away on Monday, November 13th, was a notable journalist and politician. He was born in 1929, into a family of journalists. During the 1967 military junta in Greece, Capsis was sent to prison for his “controversial” ideas and writings. After the fall of the junta, he became the
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Mr. Capsis Knows Why He Was Detained
(A Tribute to Cousin John)By George Capsis In 1949, when I was 21, I asked my father for money to visit Paris. He said that he would only give it to me if I went to Greece; I reluctantly agreed. With a German mother and a Greek father, my exposure to Greeks had been limited to events like Greek
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A Word from George Capsis of Australia
Dear Mr. Capsis: Would WestView News please inform its writers and associated people that private emails concerning your newspaper are finding their way into my inbox in Australia? My name is also George Capsis and I reside and work in Australia. I am in no way associated with George Capsis from the U.S. newspaper. I
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Corrections
We need to correct two image credits in the October 2017 issue of WestView: In “Diller Island is Dead” (page 1), the composite rendering is by © Joel Gordon 2017. In “Your Own Concert Hall” (page 1), the photo triptych is by © Joel Gordon 2017. In the October 2017 issue of WestView, the photo
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Where is Steve Croman?
By Mary Ann Miller and Cynthia Chaffee When Judge Jill Konviser sentenced Steve Croman to one year in Rikers, she said, “Rikers ain’t the Ritz.” Well, we know he’s not at the Ritz, but it seems that he ain’t at Rikers either. We found him. A bit of snooping revealed that Steve Croman is actually
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An Update on Steve Croman
By Joseph Turco, Esq. In my September 2017 WestView article, “Landlord of the Flies: Steve Croman’s Social Diary is Empty,” I wrote that ‘The Madoff of Landlords,’ Steve Croman, had lost his famed lawyer Ben Brafman over a fee dispute. A few days after publication, I received a call from the Stop Croman Coalition advising
