Brownstone Makeover on Charles Street
Winter is coming! Fuel prices are up! My place is cold and drafty! Help! For over a century, one of the most popular types of […]
Rent Control Terror
Inher90th year, my mother became an activist. She had been a singer, and with my dad had owned the Waverly Lounge in the Earle Hotel […]
Skydiving
Early December. A birder’s doldrums. There aren’t actually many birds around Hudson River Park this morning, but the anticipation of a late migrant snuffling in […]
The Ink Pot
Until the early 1920s, the buildings around Sheridan Square were a lot shorter than they are today. With the exception of the eight-story building at […]
POONING HI-HATS
When I was a boy of ten or twelve, we used to take pleasure in throwing stones. Sometimes we threw stones at trees; sometimes we […]
Jim Fouratt’s REEL DEAL: Movies that Matter
Quite frankly there are many major films of merit released in the last six weeks of the year to qualify for consideration in the upcoming […]
Remembering Richard Barr in the Village and on Broadway
A new book has arrived entitled Richard Barr – the Playwrights Producer written by David Crespy, a Professor of Theater at the University of Missouri […]
American Jazz and Blues Get Persian
What happens when one blends exquisite Persian verses from masters like Rumi, Hafez, or Omar Khayyam to the rhythm and sultry sounds of American jazz, […]
The City
Poems by Sherri Felt Dratfield West Village resident Sherri Dratfield published her first book of poetry in June. Her second book, Water Vigils, is scheduled […]
The Sweet Stink
SnackBar I bought a pound of shiny brown chestnuts, all ready to inaugurate the seasonal spirit of gluttony by making a batch of marronsglacés. I […]
Where My iPhone Took me for Dinner Recently!
Being ambitious about where to eat used to be determined by reading the paper or a magazine, talking to people or noticing a new restaurant […]
Wines from Portugal
Portugal has been on my wine radar from the very start. Having roots in two of Portugal’s former African colonies, I consider it to be […]
WestView Letter December 2013: Melissa Mark-Viverito
Melissa Mark-Viverito Dear Editor, A new political day is dawning …and not a minute too late. With progressive Democrats elected to office as Mayor, Public […]
An Existential Christmas Carol
The author, Patrick Barlow, who adapted the Tony Award winning hit The 39 Steps for the stage has now done the same for Dickens’ A […]
Not an Entirely Ill Wind?
After Sandy blew through on the night of October 29th last year, leaving the neighborhood minus electricity for the next four days, one of the […]
One Year Later:
When Left Bank, 117 Perry Street, decided to commemorate last year’s Sandy blackout with a repeat performance, October 30th through November 2nd,,of four evenings of […]
Theater: This Town Needs More Than One Voice
Thank you to Robert Heide for restoring me to sanity. I’m a frequent contributor to the WestView News, and, after reading his recent review, more […]
WestView Letter December 2013: “Officer: ‘Old man beat, defamed me’”
“Officer: ‘Old man beat, defamed me’” Dear Editor, The publisher of this paper, George Capsis, didn’t make the front page of the Daily News. In […]