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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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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Drink Your Tea
By Keith Michael Millie’s bounding “corgi kibble dance” inspired by a small handful of kibble tossed onto the floor is just the distraction needed for her while I sneak out the door. I’m on my way to the Hudson River Park Trust offices at Pier 40 for a meeting planning another summer of Sunday morning
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New Intergenerational Housing Ideas
By Brian J. Pape George Capsis asked me to please find the nonprofit company he saw in a TV presentation about “shared” apartments designed for unrelated individuals who are living collectively on either side of a shared kitchen and bath because this was like senior share apartments he wrote about in an earlier edition. A
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THEN AND NOW: The New School for Social Research Celebrates 100 Years!
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP For the first decade of its existence, beginning in 1919, the New School for Social Research and Alvin Saunders Johnson (1874-1971), a co-founder and leader of the institution from 1922 through 1945, operated out of six renovated brownstones on West 23rd Street. Johnson and others had been on the
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Lamenting the Loss of Our Lady
By Barry Benepe We have traveled to Paris every year for a month in the early autumn, staying on the west end of the Ile St. Louis adjacent to the Pont St. Louis leading to the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. We could look over at the eastern apse of Notre Dame with
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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
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Gary Sherball’s “Two Suspects” an Unexpected Joy
By Joel Gordon Judge Gary Sherball came to 69 Charles and sat and talked about the upcoming reading of his play with music at the Bitter End. He implored several times “come, come, and bring people.” I failed to put it in my calender and only recalled it when our photographer Joel Gordon called from
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The Vessel Arrives
West Village Images by Joel Gordon The $200 million centerpiece of Hudson Yards, The Vessel comes from British designer Thomas Heatherwick and is an inverted honeycomb-like structure of platforms and stairways. There are 75 pieces in total, each piece weighing about 93,000 pounds. It has 2,500 stairs and is 150 feet tall. Other examples can be
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Karen’s Quirky Style
The National Arts Club celebrated Jo Weldon’s new book, Fierce: The History of Leopard Print, in March, with a leopard-spotted event that had stylish New Yorkers turning out in truck-loads of faux pelts adorning every imaginable garment from boots to hats. Touted as a “neutral,” leopard prints might have been invented as nature’s camo, but
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Maggie B’s Quick Clicks
The Signs are All Around—At Last! All photos by Maggie Berkvist.
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Two by Two
By Keith Michael Honking and braying, a Canada Goose family flies across the promenade in front of us onto the lawn. Millie seems nonplussed as the geese immediately get industrious at their grass maintenance routine. Corgis are herding dogs, but maybe the geese are already orderly enough that Millie doesn’t feel the need to intervene,
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Constantinople Meets Rome
John Catsimatidis, owner of the Gristede’s supermarket chain, with his wife Margo, greet Cardinal Dolan in their Park Avenue apartment to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Catsimatides has been invited to do a monthly column in WestView News based on his weekly radio series. When asked if he leaned right or left Catsimatidis responded—“in the middle, the truth.” WestView’s
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Drug Dealing—A Washington Square Park Industry
Oh wow, we did a short piece on large population of drug dealers in Washington Square Park last month and received some daring photos of their congregating every afternoon for what we guess is the pay off. Seems one guy is the boss and gives out the cash. It is disturbing to see how well
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Hey Jude, Lucio’s in the Village with Style
By Karen Rempel Bill Cunningham once said, “It’s not style unless it’s on the street.” The West Village is a glorious neighborhood for people-watching, as many of our neighbors and visitors are likely to be dressed in the unique style that makes New York such a fun place to live. On a recent sunny day,
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Ethnic Pride Portraits
Portraits of people around the world proud of their heritage, showing ethnic and religious pride wearing traditional folk regalia and costumes. Below: Greek, Korean, Native American, Hindu, Chinese and American African Muslim. Other examples can be found on my website www.joelgordon.com. Photo credit © Joel Gordon 2019—All rights reserved.
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Maggie B’s Quick Clicks
LAST CALL When the show opened last November, New York Times Art Critic Holland Cotter urged “MEET WARHOL, AGAIN, IN THIS BRILLIANT WHITNEY SHOW,” adding “the sweeping retrospective shows a personal side of the Pop master … and reasserts his power for a new generation.” And in the February 15th Times Weekend section, in a
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Right Wing Graffiti in The Village
The graffiti noted in Action Not “Art” in the September issue of WestView has sparked a backlash. There has been isolated “Deport Cuomo” and “InfoWar.com” graffiti around the West Village lately. The most recent addition is on the northwest corner of Hudson and Charles Streets. A neatly-lettered sidewalk chalk marking for the right wing InfoWars
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The Motivation for Political Paintings
By Phil Levine When I turned 40 years old (34 years ago) and living in Denver, I had this conversation with myself. “Philip, you think you’ve been given the gifts of music and art but you haven’t yet opened those gifts.” From that day on I committed myself to doing just that and began taking
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West Village Images by Joel Gordon: Art Illusions and Fantasies
Photographic series of digital computer art, illusions or fantasy featuring close up details taken from architecture and design elements of buildings. Other examples can be found on my website www.joelgordon.com. Photo credit © Joel Gordon 2019—All rights reserved.
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Then&Now: The Last One Left
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Greenwich Village has been challenged on many fronts, but the car-centric culture has been one of the biggest. You may already be aware that when the early civic leaders decided Manhattan needed a simple, logical street layout for the city to grow north of Chambers Street, The Village
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Storefont Billboards
Storefront billboards are the spreading garish shrouds for dead retail shops that continually elude retail leases for months and even years. It is hoped that the City Council will enact legislation to end this new unique commercial blight; but landlords who despair of rentals are rapidly succumbing to the obvious attractive fees and Bleecker Street may
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Maggie B’s Quick Clicks
TO ALL MY FELLOW ‘CREATURES OF HABIT’: MAY YOU, AND ALL THE READERS OF WVN, HAVE A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR—maggie b All photos by Maggie Berkvist, with the exception of photo bottom right credit: Laurence Edelman.
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Celebrating Installation of New Jane Street Garden Fence
Officials joined the Jane Street Block Association (JSBA) and West Village Committee (WVC) to celebrate the installation of a new garden fence made possible by a grant from Speaker Johnson. From left: (in blue jacket) Bill Castro, Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner; Brad Hoylman; Debra Glick; Gale Brewer; Corey Johnson; Susan Sipos of the WVC; behind
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Holiday Decorations in the West Village
West Village Images by Joel Gordon Other examples can be found on my website www.joelgordon.com. Photo credit © Joel Gordon 2018—All rights reserved.
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Mia Says
As an old dog I cannot always hear your love, but I can feel it. Photo by Dusty Berke.
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Fallen heroes Remembered
SQUAD 18 SALUTES at the time the first tower fell on 9/11. The FDNY broadcasts across their intercom for all of the firehouses on duty to salute at the times the towers fell.
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Sounds of the Great Religions
The Cathedral choir of the Greek Orthodox Church recreated their outstanding concert from Carnegie Hall at St. Veronica, lead by Archbishop Demetrios standing next to WestView publisher George Capsis and Father Santiago Rubio, who has invited this concert series to the shuttered church.
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Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns
West Village Images by Joel Gordon It is believed that the custom of making jack-o-lanterns at Halloween began in Ireland, and was named after the phenomenon of a strange light flickering over peat bogs. It has also been suggested that the jack-o-lanterns originally represented Christian souls in purgatory, as Halloween is the eve of All Saints’ Day. “The Legend
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Mia Says
Mia Says: It is easier to hate than to love, making love more precious and longer lasting. Photo by Dusty Berke.
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9-11 Tiles Gains Gallery
Unique Mobile Gallery: The commemorative tiles created shortly after 9-11 and displayed at the juncture of Greenwich and 7th Avenue gained a mobile gallery with over 2000 tiles. The gallery is seeking volunteer guides and memorabilia. Please call or e-mail Dusty Berke—info@tilesforamerica.org, 917-601-7137.
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USPS Stamp
September was all Westbeth all the time! The United States Postal Service unveiled the latest commemorative stamp in their Music Icons series on September 7th. The stamp features a photograph of John Lennon taken by rock n’ roll photographer and Westbeth resident Bob Gruen. Other residents fondly recalled days gone by when it wasn’t out of
