By Arthur Z. Schwartz It has been two days since I was wheeled in here (Beth Israel), thinking that I was about to die. However, I didn’t die. Instead, I found myself in a wonderful place, with awakened memories of my last stay here 29 years ago, when my son Jacob was born. The doctors
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Another Sad Store Closing: Leo Design to Shutter After 22 Years in the Village
By Caroline Benveniste Every month, we report openings and closings in the neighborhood, and recently, I have received letters from readers alerting me to some that I’ve missed. This month, we were inundated with emails about the closing of Leo Design at 543 Hudson Street. Everyone who wrote was quite upset, with one reader suggesting
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Rent Hike Closes Da Silvano, Let’s Save Caffe Vivaldi
On December 20th, the West Village lost another institution to the greed of area building owners. Da Silvano, one of the best Italian restaurants in the City, which sat just below 6th Avenue and Bleecker Street for 41 years, closed. Da Silvano was one of the first restaurants in New York to popularize Northern Italian
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Killer Construction Firm Says “No” to Sentence Following Death
On April 6, 2015, Carlos Moncayo, an undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant, was buried alive when a 14-foot trench collapsed at the construction site on 9th Avenue, where the restaurant Pastis once stood. His employer, Harco Construction, was found guilty of manslaughter and reckless endangerment by Manhattan Judge Kirke Bartley this past July. The Judge based his
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Waste Transfer Station Coming to West 13th St. Soon?
On December 24th, the New York Times Metro section featured an article about neighborhood outrage at an NYC Department of Sanitation Waste Transfer Station located on the water in East Williamsburg. Complaints about a never-ending rumble of trucks, smells, and rats have led to a campaign to close the Transfer Station. Hidden in the article
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Audience Stampedes at Union Square Theatre
Fear of terrorism has us all quite skittish but, on December 18th, this fear became more palpable at the Regal Union Square Cinema. During a showing of La La Land, a man started talking loudly on his cell phone. After the audience shushed him, the man said “Yeah, yeah, yeah, fucking shut up,” stood up
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Collective Rage Seeks a Voice
By Erik Bottcher The November 8th election results have spurred New Yorkers to action like no event in recent memory. On Sunday, November 20th, hundreds of angry, but energized, New Yorkers packed into The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (The Center) on West 13th Street for a community meeting about resisting Donald J.
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Mrs. Green’s Has Closed
By Andrew Buemi Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Recent supply shortages and limited “winter hours” at Mrs. Green’s, located on the corner of Hudson and Bank Streets, have had local customers and store employees alike wondering if the store would be closing. Those worries were confirmed in mid-November when Mrs. Green’s announced that it would
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D’Agostino Rescued by Catsimatidis
Opens Line of Credit and Reserves an Option to Merge In a last minute save, John Catsimatidis opens a line of credit to the failing D’Agostino chain, down from 25 stores to 9, and holds an option to merge with Gristedes By Caroline Benveniste We interviewed Nick D’Agostino in April and wrote an article on
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Scam Alert
One of our ardent readers sent this notice to help other readers avoid fraudulent appeals. This kind of scam looks as legitimate as possible, but our readers should never reply to these appeals; cash the check and you end up paying bad check fees. And if you send a check, you will lose that money.
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Offending a Cog in the Political Machine
By Jim Fouratt, Candidate for New York District 66 State Assembly I had worked as an elections poll clerk for a number of years at the Westbeth site. I remember a stocky, redheaded woman came to my table to qualify to vote. Her name was Emily Giske. I had heard of her. I knew that
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Schwartz Hands Off Glick Fight to Fouratt
Campaign Intensity Medically Forces Schwartz to Support Activist Jim Fouratt By Jim Fouratt When Arthur Z. Schwartz had to withdraw from the New York District 66 State Assembly election for health reasons, I agreed to step up and continue his campaign. For the last three years, Arthur, with my support, has campaigned to unseat 25-year
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YOU CAN’T VOTE FOR ARTHUR SCHWARTZ
The needs of my children have prevented me from doing what I have increasingly felt needs doing and that is giving our community a new, clear, strong, and uncompromising voice in the State Assembly. Fortunately, Jim Fouratt has offered to become that voice. He has been an activist all of his adult life but with
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Report from the Democratic Convention
A Week of Principle, Passion and Fear—Bernie and Obama Say Goodbye, Hillary Takes the Stage By Arthur Z. Schwartz Politics doesn’t often move me to tears. Three times, as a delegate to the Democratic Convention, I have been moved to tears. The first was on the first night, when Bernie Sanders walked on stage to
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Has D’Agostino Taken Too Long To Turn Around?
Will using limited cash to buy fast turnover items reverse negative cash flow? By George Capsis Not once, but three times, did I receive photos of the empty D’Agostino shelves from readers and staff with the question, “Are they going out of business?” And in my repeated e-mails to Bob James the D’Ag president and
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Thomas Peter Martinelli
By Katherine Martinelli Thomas Peter Martinelli (Tom), a native New Yorker and long-time Village resident, died of a heart attack on May 28, 2016 in his home. He was 73 years old. Tom was born and raised in Queens but fell in love with Greenwich Village as a high school student. When he was 18,
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You Are Only Homeless if You Want a Home: Of New York’s 60,000 Homeless, Some Prefer the Streets
By George Capsis On June 5th, the Swiss voted down a proposal to give everybody $2,555 a month as basic income—a law espoused and pushed by the “leftist” factions in one of the most politically conservative countries in the world. The reasoning was and is that, in this small very rich economy, there ought to
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The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s Annual 2016 Awards
Text and photo © Jill Lynne 2016. On a lovely summer eve, hundreds of supporters still chose to pack The New School auditorium for the celebratory annual meeting and presentation of the 2016 Village Awards by the important Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. These awards are given in recognition of those people, places, and
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Union Calls for Skills Testing
As you are lifted into an ambulance you hope that the emergency medical worker who puts an oxygen mask over your nose knows what he or she is doing and did not get a promotion because he or she was somebody’s friend. That question is being asked in a law suit by the EMS union
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MARCHERS WITH A MESSAGE
To show their solidarity and strength after the massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando, the Gay Pride paraders were determined to make this year’s event bigger and better than ever. And it was. And full of the usual festivities, too. But very noticeable also was a more serious, poignant note, reflected in the telling
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COCHRANE HONORED
On June 17, Council Member Corey Johnson presided over the co-naming of Washington Street and Sixth Avenue in honor of Sergeant Charles H. Cochrane. Sergeant Cochrane broke a major barrier by coming out as a gay veteran of the NYPD in 1981, and he went on to found the Gay Officer’s Action League (GOAL) the
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A NEW FIRST FOR THE STONEWALL
On June 27th, as a fitting end to this year’s Gay Pride weekend, it was officially declared the Stonewall National Monument—and the country’s very first honoring the LGBT community and their fight for gay rights. After an introduction by John Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, there followed a poignant little reminiscence by
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Restaurants Taxing Tips
Watch your wallets and purses! Previously tax was computed and added to the meal total before the tip was computed. Restaurants are now adding the tips to each course—upping the total tab to include tax on tips as well as on courses and drinks. It is confusing because the actual tip percentage requires extensive math.
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A Smiling New British NYU President Invites the Community to Be Nice
By George Capsis “Can I speak to George?” came a phone voice on a bright Thursday April 17th morning. When I confessed that “George was speaking,” I received an invitation to a reception at 37 Washington Square West in the penthouse apartment of the very new British-born president of New York University, Andrew Hamilton. But,
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Bill Cornwall’s Will Must Be Respected
By Arthur Z. Schwartz For 55 years Bill Cornwall and Tom Doyle lived together, as a married couple, at 69 Horatio Street. In 1971, Bill, a graphic art-ist who worked in advertising, bought the building from his landlord. Bill and Tom became active members of the Horatio Street Association (both served as Presi-dent), supporters of
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Supermarket for the Gentrified Poor
By George Capsis On March 8th, I received an e-mail from local resident Kay Frost, which triggered an extraordinary series of events that is still unfolding as you read this. Kay’s letter mentioned some “very distressing news”—that the Associated Market at 14th Street and 8th Avenue was scheduled to close at the end of April
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The Social Cost of Public Housing
By George Capsis In the 1980’s one of the familiar New York news photos was of swaths of gutted tenements in the Bronx and Brooklyn abandoned by landlords who would not or could not pay for heat, maintenance and taxes that exceeded the income from rent controlled apartments—they just walked away. The city did something
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A Time to Listen
D’Agostino Head Answers Senior Income Crisis By Bob James These are trying times. No, more than ever before, they are frightening times. They are times when fear emanates from shadows we only dreamt existed before. It is a global, local, and personal fear that is amplified by political rhetoric and charged with singular agendas. And
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Freelancers Unite!
Wage Theft a Growing Problem in the New Economy By Stephanie Phelan “We want to be paid, and paid on time!” This outcry comes from millions of freelancers and independent workers throughout the country. Our economy has changed a lot in the past several years, and because of that, the United States now has nearly
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Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
By Council Member Corey Johnson The fight to save the Associated Supermarket on West 14th Street has spurred conversations about food access and the difficulty that many West Siders face in obtaining affordable groceries. We must fight to keep stores like Associated in our neighborhood. But it is important to note that even with access
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WestView Editor Caucuses For Bernie in Nevada
By Christy Ross In a cheery kindergarten classroom at Mountain View Elementary School, I joined 20 of my Elko neighbors to caucus in the Nevada Democratic primary on February 20. Fourteen of us (including myself) stood among the low tables and tiny chairs on the right side of the room to indicate our support for
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Bill on the Phone
By George Capsis I get almost as many robo calls as I get real calls, so when a voice came on to say that I was about to listen to a real live phone conference with Bill de Blasio, my natural New York cynicism said “fake”—but this caller was different. He was hesitant and impromptu.
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Stop Building Poverty Prisons
By George Capsis A depressed, crime-ridden, vermin-infested, and dilapidated city the size of Atlanta, with more than 600,000 inhabitants (45% Black, 45.8% Hispanic) with family incomes around $24,000 a year in nearly 200,000 apartments, traces its way through the City’s five boroughs in 328 enclaves. It is called the New York City Housing Authority, or
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Health Inspector “Rats” on City Scofflaws
By George Capsis “The Board of Health is at the door,” announced Polly. With anxiety, I quickly shuffled to discover a nice young Chinese American man who asked to visit my garden for a rat inspection! When he returned, I asked whether he was responding to the West Village infestation. He said “yes” and mentioned
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When to Consider Collecting Social Security
By Max Leifer, Esq. Determining when to collect social security benefits depends on many individual factors. The correct answer is your individual circumstances. If you were born between 1943 and 1954, your normal retirement age is 66. If you start receiving benefits at age 66, you are entitled to a full benefit as reflected on
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Fighting for the Minds of Children
By George Capsis I was idly watching channel 13 when I became aware of a video of children in Middle Eastern dress, single filing into a shed-like classroom in Syria. I watched with growing revulsion as a young, bearded ISIS teacher calmly—as if he were teaching the alphabet—taught the children to hate. What riveted me
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Who Really Writes the Editorials for The New York Times?
By George Capsis I asked this question when, on December 14, I read a Times editorial actually endorsing a plan by two investment real estate developers to build a massive three-block long towering river complex of 1586 apartments that will shadow the historic West Village for a century or more. Our Times editorialist buys the
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Gail Brewer Says “Yes—But” to Emerald City
By George Capsis Gail Brewer, our Manhattan Borough President, answered The Times editorial endorsing the selling of Pier 40 air rights for $100 million to save Pier 40 from collapsing into the Hudson by encasing some, if not all, of the pier’s corroding 3600 steel piles, replacing crumbling concrete slabs that form the roof, and
