By Gordon Hughes It’s about time. On August 18, 2021 I was back in Gotham for the first time in almost a year and a half. What better way to make reentry than attend the reopening of the venerable Joe Allen’s. The place was packed with actors, directors, dancers, singers, and, of course, producers. Laughs
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She Paints While Dancing
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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The Digital Age or the End of the World as We Knew It
By Roger Paradiso Some say the digital age had its beginning with the transistor, which belonged to the analog age. Remember transistor radios? I remember walking around the neighborhood listening to WABC disc jockeys who played the top forty hits. Whether it was the Beach Boys or the Four Seasons, it was a special time.
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Local Finds. Local Love.
Support some of our favorite West Village shops and designers. Curated by Karilyn Prisco Fireplace 409 409 Bleecker St Keith Kelly “Hand Pants” Unisex, double knee work pant fireplace409.com IG @fireplace409 mûre+grand 277 Bleecker St “New York Colorful Canvas Tote” Machine washable, leather handle mureandgrand.com IG @mureandgrand Ramati “Raffia Moccasin” Hand knotted
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Style on the Street: Fashion Fun +1
Follow us on Instagram @styleonthestreet_WestViewNews Submit your favorite neighborhood fashion looks for a chance to be featured. Photos by Dusty Berke and Karilyn Prisco.
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Ramati, the Local Shoe Brand that is Changing Fashion’s Carbon Footprint One Step at a Time
By Karilyn Prisco As a fashion stylist I am constantly being introduced to new brands, trends and products. My love for fashion and my consumer responsibilities have always held a tense relationship. The devastating statistics speak for themselves. A 2021 report from the World Economic Forum identified fashion, and its supply chain, as the planet’s
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LGBTQ+ Monthly Q&A
By Research Foundation to Cure AIDS President Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. Follow us on Instagram @OpinionatedQ, @westviewnews & @RFTcureaids OpinionatedQ: “How should NYC welcome LGBTQ+ refugees from Afghanistan?” Gay Nathanael Holley Creative he/him I’m going to be very serious in this response because human life is at stake. America should do whatever it takes to
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Joan’s Shanghai
By Joan Klyhn Joan’s Shanghai is a memoir of a childhood in Shanghai in the ‘30’s and ’40s of the 20th century. I am primarily writing it for myself, extending it to my friends, and now to the many people who have shown themselves fascinated with this period in the past. The Imperial Seal: Joan’s
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DOT Fails Enforcement of Open Restaurants
By Brian J. Pape, AIA,LEED-AP In a damning report issued by Council Speaker Cory Johnson’s office in August, the long-standing safety rules for street rights-of-way are routinely violated with no apparent enforcement. At a time when the mayor’s office and its Department of City Planning (DCP) are pushing to adopt new zoning laws that shift
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Lifetalk with Roberta Russell: Trump No Trump?
By Roberta Russell I recently asked my former Greenwich Village tenant-friend and Trump-authority, Michael Wolff, why there are so many Trump supporters and zealots. Amazingly, even after the year in the White House he spent writing the groundbreaking Fire and Fury (2018), followed by Siege (2019) and most recently, Landslide (2021), the third in a
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Maggie B’s Quick Clicks
SIDEWALK DINING…As most people in the neighborhood are already aware, in recent weeks an unfortunate community conflict has been brewing—between the locals who want the sidewalk restaurant scene to become a permanent social neighborhood fixture, and the rest who want it totally closed down … too noisy, etc. Frankly would hope they can all sit
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IN AND OUT
When Village residents received the August issue of WestView News, the first article screamed out at them “Open Restaurants: Assault on Quality of Life”. The Open Restaurants program, which was launched early in the pandemic on an emergency basis is currently undergoing reviews to determine whether it will become a permanent program, and if so,
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Brass Bands: Sounds and Smiles on a Summer Night
By Ede Rothaus Wafting through the hot, still, and damp air of an August summer night in Manhattan: the unmistakable melody of La Vie en Rose. I followed the music, towards the river, seeing glints of gold shining in the fading light. The glittering came from two of the instruments being played by a small
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Notes From Away: Hedge Trimming
By Tom Lamia In one of my early columns for WestView News, I critiqued the practice of using talking points as crib notes in political speech. The essence of the critique was that distilling communications to their supposed essence was an injustice to both communication and truth in messaging. I now have a new bone
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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 VILLAGE LEGENDS: Lorraine Hansberry
Lesbian African American Playwright and Civil Rights Activist Who Died Too Young By Bruce Poli 337 Bleecker St. feels like the epicenter of the West Village…and fittingly; it is the building in which the great playwright Lorraine Hansberry had her first apartment (above what is now a hat shop), from 1953-1960. She then bought the
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PALM’s Focus: Housing and Health Insurance
By Penny Mintz Now that the primary elections are over, Progressive Action of Lower Manhattan (PALM), a chapter of the statewide New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN), is once again focused on effecting grassroots change that matters to the residents of Lower Manhattan. On August 17th, PALM held a meeting in Jackson Square—the first live
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Beth Israel Hospital Has Been Saved
By Siggy Raible It’s mid-August and we Manhattanites with no summer retreat are living in the city during the dog days of summer…you know, “those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” With time on my hands, I’ve decided to respond to the article by Arthur Schwartz, “Beth Israel Hospital Staying Open—What Should It Look Like,”
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Why I Have Great Expectations for Eric Adams
By Arthur Schwartz For the last seven years New York City has suffered through one of the most ineffectual Mayors in its history. That even includes Abraham Beame (remember him?) the Mayor who reigned over the collapse of New York City in the 1970s, and the takeover of New York City’s finances by a State
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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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The Children’s Free Opera
By Michael Feldman Recently, Terry Stoller, writing for the Westbeth, “Profiles in Art” series, interviewed me about my life’s work, which naturally centered on St Luke’s, China, the New York Collegium and the more recent St Veronica project and my admitted responsibilities in its demise. Somewhat forgotten were my early years in IS 70, an
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Salvador Peter Tomas Sang His Farewell Aria at 101
By J. Taylor Basker Operas often have tragic endings. Some of their greatest music has been written for characters who are dying. Death is seen as a dramatic opportunity, a moment of truth about our human condition. It is not feared or denied, but celebrated with powerful heartbreaking music. Gospel music also celebrates death—as a
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Barry, Barry Sad
By Keith Michael The beginning of August was a bad time for rare birds in New York City. Early Friday morning August 6th, Barry, the charismatic Central Park Barred Owl, fatefully collided with a park maintenance vehicle, and a few days later, on Tuesday, August 10th, a visiting young Wood Stork, which had been inspiring
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The Best Secret About Property Insurance Claims That You Need to Know
By Brian Evans, CEO Eastern Public, LLC, http://www.EasternPublic.com When the little newspaper that could suffered water damage, first from a suddenly leaky sink drain, and then from an abrupt roof failure, they did what millions of New Yorkers have done before them—they turned to their property insurance carrier for help. And just like the millions
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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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Why Exposing the Truth About 9/11 is Still So Important
By Craig McKee It’s hard to believe it has already been 20 years since the world was stunned by what we were told was a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists. We remember the images, the feelings, the disorientation we experienced on that clear Tuesday morning as we watched something unfold that we would never have
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The Tallest Buildings in the World
By Eric Uhlfelder Twenty years ago he was in Hong Kong working on the AIG tower. He was having dinner with colleagues when he had first heard the news. It wasn’t the first time Leslie Robertson’s towers were attacked. When he surveyed the damage the day after the 1993 bombing, he found the Towers had
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9/11 on 9/12/21 at Westbeth
By J. Taylor Basker To commemorate 9/11, there will be an event on 9/12 at Westbeth Artists Housing. A poem written by Griselda Steiner will open the event. After that there will be a digital presentation of photos from 9/11 by Westbeth photographers (David Plakke, David Seccombe, Judy Lawne, and others) who spent months documenting
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Refugees in Our Own City
By Jeff Hodges On the night of September 10, 2001, I was shooting the Marc Jacobs Spring Collection at Pier 54. Actually, I was shooting the celebrity arrivals, and when that was finished, I walked to the end of the pier to shoot some video of the Twin Towers. Although the client only needed a
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LETTERS
Open Restaurants I’m reading the August Issue of WestView and am really upset by the headlines: Open Restaurants: An Assault on Quality of Life, and Paris or Shanty Town? If either of these articles present a thoughtful view of a complex issue, it would be irrelevant. The headlines are so loaded with purpose. That purpose
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Mia Says
Mia Says: One step does more to complete a journey than the most detailed map. Photo by Dusty Berke.
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Generation Z’s View of a Post 9/11 America
By Anastasia Kaliabakos When I was sixteen years old, I traveled on my first international flight on a trip to Italy. I had been to airports a few times in my life, but could never shake the awe of how secure New York airports like Laguardia or JFK were. There were endless lines, bag checks,
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9/11 Twenty Years
By George Capsis Everybody has a 9/11 story; here is mine… I was working as a consultant for the United States Council for International Business, and there was a going to be a conference way up on one of the higher floors of Building One of the World Trade Center. I toyed with the idea
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Catch and Release: Chapter 8 | 8th Street Wine Cellar
Photo and story by Karen Rempel Dear readers, if you missed Chapter 7, you can read it here. I’m taking you back to a dating story from 2015, when I was in my first flush of being madly in love with New York City. Thanks to everyone who wrote to George and asked him to
