BY LINCOLN ANDERSON The head of a volunteer anti-

crime group is demanding a strict 10 p.m. curfew on the Christopher St. Pier and a complete lockdown of the Christopher St. PATH station on week-ends. Meanwhile, a leading transgender activist is saying all of the Christopher St. area’s quality-of-life issues stem from one thing, drugs — and that she’s ready and willing to assist in solving the problem any way she can.

As for the Sixth Precinct’s Deputy Inspector Raymond Caroli, he said police are going to continue the plan they unveiled last month; plus, they’ve recently begun locking Christopher Park, a source of bad behavior and crime, earlier on Friday and Saturday evenings.

More than 100 people fi lled the

basement of Our Lady of Pompei Church at Bleecker and Carmine Sts. last Wednesday evening at the Sixth Precinct Community Council’s monthly meeting.

After a spate of assaults a month ago, including two stabbings and a gay-bashing incident, Caroli put into place a series of new measures. These included light towers at two key inter-sections, a mobile command post at Greenwich and Christopher Sts. and a unit of mounted police on weekends to provide “omnipresence.” The precinct also recently received 18 new offi cers.

Although neighborhood residents said they’re seeing — and hearing — a difference, some think even stronger measures are needed to control crime, noise and crowding.

David Poster, president of the

Christopher St. Patrol, said that while much talk is made of providing a “safe space” for gay and lesbian youth, local merchants and residents need a safe space, too.

“Close the Christopher St. Pier at 10 p.m.,” Poster declared, as most of the audience applauded. “Close the PATH station on the weekends — you eliminate 50 percent of the problem.”

The pier and the Hudson River Park currently have a 1 a.m. curfew.

As of now, police are starting with closing something signifi cantly smaller, but which is said to have a big impact on neighborhood conditions, namely Christopher Park in Sheridan Square. Caroli said police recently obtained the key to the little triangular park and are

BY ALBERT AMATEAUAND JULIE SHAPIRO

The city Department of Education last week offered Village parents anoth-er possible venue for the Greenwich Village Middle School.

The site, however, is at 26 Broadway in the Financial District where the Sports Museum of America closed earlier this year. Parents are eager to fi nd space for

A middle schoolat Sports Museumis not a big hit

Gay bars and neighbors say,‘Anything goes’ has got to go

Villager photo by Q. Sakamaki

Christopher Park in Sheridan Square around 10 p.m. on a recent Saturday night.

BY ALBERT AMATEAUThe Bowery Alliance of

Neighbors (BAN) last week presented a plan to limit the size of new buildings and preserve traditional commercial uses on the east side of the Bowery between Canal and E. Ninth Sts.

The alliance, which includes artists, loft dwell-ers and local merchants, has been calling for preserva-tion of the east side of the thoroughfare for the past three years as new high-rise residential and hotel tow-ers have been threatening to overwhelm the low-rise character of Bowery.

“This is the fi rst step in gathering support for the plan,” said Anna Sawaryn, president of BAN, who led the group’s June 16 forum.

“We intend to present it eventually to Community Board 3 and ultimately to City Planning.”

The preservation plan developed for BAN by Doris Diether, a neighbor-hood zoning consultant and Community Board 2 mem-ber, calls for an 85-foot height limit on new build-ings in a 100-foot-wide cor-ridor on the east side of Bowery. The plan includes lot-coverage rules for resi-dential and commercial development and a ban on demolition of specifi c build-ings of special signifi cance. To protect commercial uses, there would be restrictions on residential conversion of commercial space.

BAN plans to keep the building boomon Bowery at bay

Continued on page 6

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Continued on page 42

EDITORIAL, LETTERS

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HEY LESLIE, LET’S TALK! Did Leslie Crocker Snyder really turn down an interview with Don MacPherson, owner of Soho Journal magazine and, as of three months ago, a defendant in a bizarre $50 million Hamptons S&M mortgage-scam ring? That’s what Azi Paybarah recently reported about the district attorney candidate in his Politicker column. “A campaign source confi rmed that her advisers did not want Crocker Snyder to do the interview, citing legal troubles of the monthly magazine’s owner, Donald MacPherson,” Paybarah wrote. Paybarah, of course, was recently in the news after Mayor Bloomberg called him “a disgrace” for questioning the mayor’s justi-fi cation for extending term limits now that the economy is rebounding. MacPherson, for his part, said he “never made a direct request to them [Snyder’s campaign], so I think that came about from someone inquiring if she would be interested.” He said he hadn’t seen the Politicker item, and asked us to read it to him over the phone. Since it only cites a “campaign source,” MacPherson said, he doesn’t hold anything against Snyder, and would be happy to interview her if she’s willing. He did say that for any D.A. candidate, “I would hope that the standard would be innocent until proven guilty.” MacPherson has already interviewed Cy Vance, another Manhattan D.A. contend-er. Eric Pugatch, a Snyder spokesperson, said it’s untrue the candidate refused to sit down with MacPherson. “The Snyder campaign denies the alleged unsourced report — Leslie never said this,” Pugatch said. “Leslie would be happy to conduct an interview with the Soho Journal in the future.” Getting back to the kinky mortgage-scam case, we asked MacPherson if his Arena Studios really was a dominatrix den and if, as the Suffolk County D.A. charg-es, its clients were used as “straw buyers” in the elaborate real-estate ruse. MacPherson said he already answered that question for us before and didn’t want to “rehash it.” “It was a fetish photography studio — it had nothing to do with sex,” he reiterated. He said he didn’t read The Villager’s article on his case, either, but did hear from others that it was “balanced.” As for all the unfl attering newspaper articles about him, he noted that his landlord, who he said holds a grudge against him, plastered all the hallways and apartment doors in his 80 Varick St. apart-ment building with them. The landlord “obviously has

psychiatric problems,” MacPherson said. His apartment is one of about 10 rent-regulated ones left in the building, while the landlord has succeeded in converting the other 60 to market-rate rentals. MacPherson said he’s been in litigation with the landlord for 10 years.

WHERE THERE’S A WILL...? Legendary Cooper Square housing activist and literary agent Frances Goldin, 85, has had a really rough time lately. First, she suffered a heart attack at her East Village home — on May Day, ironically. “I should have been marching,” she said. Always “strong as a horse” her entire life, she said, it was a shock to be stricken. She received two stents at Beth Israel, and is now on the mend back at her place. Making matters worse, though, a lawyer she asked to draft her will in September who said it would take just a month, still hasn’t produced anything, won’t return her materials and refuses even to take her phone calls. Goldin said she saw the attorney, Daniel Millstone, at a couple of Coalition for a District Alternative meetings and thought he was “a really hot leftist,” as in he talked a good progressive game. Plus, he came highly rec-ommended by her yoga teacher. But Millstone has turned out to be a total bust, despite having cashed her $250 fi rst payment, she said. “I’m 85 years old. I had a heart attack. I need a will,” Goldin fumed. “I have threatened him with going to The Villager. The guy is a menace, and I don’t want anyone else to get rooked.” We called Millstone and he wouldn’t answer whether he planned to write the will or return Goldin’s paperwork. In fact, citing “confi dentiality,” he wouldn’t even say if Goldin is his client. Did he even know who Frances Goldin was? “I can’t tell you a thing,” he replied. Losing our patience, we said forcefully that, in our view, he should either do the darn will already or give back Goldin’s stuff A.S.A.P., considering her age and health condition. Millstone went silent and was unable to speak for a minute or two; we heard him breathing heavily into the phone. Asked if he was O.K., he responded, “I’m fi ne. ... I’m sure there are answers to this, but they haven’t come right to me. ...” Millstone said he would only talk to us if we had Goldin’s written authorization in an e-mail. Goldin did so, and we called Millstone again, twice, but he didn’t call back.

TREE FOR TOM: Warren Allen Smith of Jane St., who has a Stonewall exposé in our Gay Pride section this week, said the planting of a tree down by the courts on June 8 to mark the 200th anniversary of Thomas Paine’s death received no media coverage. Smith, a writer and outspoken atheist, wielded a shovel at the planting for Paine, who practiced deism — the belief in human reason over the concept of God. Known as the “Father of the American Revolution” for his pro-independence pamphlet “Common Sense,” Paine died in Greenwich Village at 59 Grove St. Because of his unpopular religious views, only six people attended his funeral. After they planted the sapling Downtown earlier this month, the commemorators sang “Tom Paine’s Bones.”

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BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL A group of 75 people marched through the West Village

Friday night to protest a regulation requiring groups of 50 or more people to obtain a permit before gathering.

The “Parade Without A Permit” was organized by the Radical Homosexual Agenda, which organized a similar protest in 2007.

“Nothing’s changed, that’s part of the problem,” said Jessica Rechtschaffer, an R.H.A. member since the group’s founding in 2006. “It’s really a failure on the part of the city’s leadership to protect basic civil rights.”

Benjamin Shepard held the lead banner as the march proceeded through West Village streets fi lled with Friday night revelers.

“Forty years after Stonewall, we’re still out here,” he said. “If we don’t have freedom of assembly, we don’t have democracy.”

Toward the end of the hour-long protest, which saw the march proceed down the middle of several streets, a small number of police appeared. They walked alongside the march until it ended at the Christopher St. Pier. There were no arrests.

The regulation, fi rst issued in 2006 with a cap of 30 participants, was modifi ed to 50 after an outcry from activists and several city councilmembers. Many in the march criticized Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the fi rst openly gay City Council speaker, for agreeing to the regulation.

As a result of the rule, originally intended to control the monthly Critical Mass bike ride, the 5 Boro Bike Club and several other parties fi led a lawsuit challenging the regulation in Federal Court. There were four days of hear-ings last month. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has not yet ruled on the suit.

“I want to build a District Attorney’s offi ce that’s defi ned not by how we handle the big, high profi le cases, but by how we handle the tens of thousands of cases each month that won’t ever get written about—cases that don’t involve infamous acts or famous people, but whose outcomes mat-ter every bit as much.

“I’ll never forget that as your next DA.”

— Cy Vance

A passion for justice.The experience to deliver it.

‘Spirit of Stonewall’ lives on in protest over permits

Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel

The protesters circled the Washington Square fountain Friday night before marching out of the park and through the streets of the West Village.

4 June 24 - 30, 2009

G.V.M.S., which currently shares the over-crowded school building at 490 Hudson St. with P.S. 3, but they are reluctant to send their sixth graders out of the neighborhood.

Will Havermann, a D.O.E. spokesperson, confi rmed on Wed., June 17, that the city was close to an agreement on the former Sports Museum space near Bowling Green and that the location would have room for the 220 Greenwich Village Middle School students.

Indeed, the Sports Museum has room for 1,000 school seats, according to Paul Goldstein, director of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Lower Manhattan District Offi ce.

Rebecca Daniels, president of the District 2 Community Education Council, which cov-ers the Village as well as Lower Manhattan, Chelsea and the Upper East Side, said that while the Downtown location is far from the West Village, G.V.M.S. parents would have to consider it as a possibility. Daniels said the District 2 C.E.C. would meet with G.V.M.S. and Clinton School parents this week about 26 Broadway.

“The ideal place would be 75 Morton St., which is not completely off the table,” Daniels said, referring to the state-owned building three blocks from the Village mid-dle school’s present location. Village parents

and elected offi cials identifi ed the Morton St. building nearly two years ago as a poten-tial middle school space, but the facility has possible code problems and would require extensive renovation. The transfer of part of the building from state to city ownership was also uncertain, and the space might not be available for two years.

Daniels said that John White, the D.O.E. offi cial who has been dealing with over-crowding in District 2, suggested last week that 26 Broadway could accommodate the Greenwich Village Middle School and the Clinton School for Writers and Artists, the latter being a middle school that shares space with P.S. 11 in an overcrowded school building on W. 21st St. between Eighth and Ninth Aves. in Chelsea.

Daniels noted that there are already four middle schools in Lower Manhattan and only one in Greenwich Village. She suggested that alternate space for G.V.M.S. could be found in Legacy High School at 34 W. 14th St., where a middle school on the state’s Schools Under Registration Review, or SURR, list of failing schools is also located and scheduled to close.

“It would make more sense, because it’s in the Village,” Daniels observed of the Legacy High School space.

Ann Kjellberg, a Village parent and mem-ber of the Public School Parents Advocacy Committee (P.S.P.A.C), said, “It’s great for there to be a middle school down there [at

26 Broadway], but we need a middle school in our neighborhood and G.V.M.S. was founded as a middle school for the Village. Having schools in your neighborhood is a reasonable expectation.”

Kjellberg said P.S.P.A.C. was disappointed last week when Mayor Bloomberg won half a victory in his campaign for mayoral control of the city’s schools when the state Assembly voted to extend the 2002 measure.

P.S.P.A.C. and other parent organization have been demanding more parent input in the school system, and lobbied against the mayoral control extension, which is stalled in the dysfunctional state Senate.

The Assembly, however, voted 121 to 18 on June 17 in favor of the bill sponsored by Speaker Silver. But all 18 dissenting votes came from city legislators.

“Assemblymember Deborah Glick did us proud by voting against the bill that contin-ues mayoral control without the addition of meaningful checks and balances,” Kjellberg said of Glick, who represents Greenwich Village.

Mayoral control expires at the end of this month if it is not renewed, and State Senator Daniel Squadron became the fi rst Democratic sponsor this week of the Senate bill, which is one of the issues that prompted Governor Paterson on June 23 to call the Senate into special session.

State Senator Tom Duane told The Villager that he thought mayoral control was

“a fait accompli.” However, he said he tried to get a shorter renewal period than the six years in the Assembly bill.

“We also have to fi nd a better way to get parents more infl uence on the Panel for Education Policy [the governing body of the Department of Education] and empower parents citywide,” Duane said.

P.S.P.A.C. also vainly urged the City Council last week to defeat the fi ve-year school capital plan, saying that it was based on a grossly underestimated school enroll-ment and would result in overcrowded class-rooms.

But Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a letter to school advocates that a “no” vote would leave no time to come up with a new plan by the June 30 deadline for renewal of mayoral control. She also said the City Council had to vote “yes” or “no” and could not approve parts of the plan and disapprove others.

The capital plan was approved last week with only 9 dissenting votes, including Alan Gerson, who represents the First Council District covering Lower Manhattan and the South Village, and Robert Jackson of Northern Manhattan, who is chairperson of the Council’s Education Committee.

“We applaud their courage and integrity for standing up for New York City children so that they can eventually receive their con-stitutional right to an adequate education,” Kjellberg said.

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Parents challenge D.O.E.’s Sports Museum school playContinued from page 1

June 24 - 30, 2009 5

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON“Not happy” at all that an appointee of

his on the Hudson River Park Trust led the state-city authority’s surprise move to seek a longer lease for Pier 40, Borough President Scott Stringer responded strongly during the past week — both with words and action.

“That’s on my watch. I’m not happy about it,” Stringer said, addressing Community Board 2’s full-board meeting last week. “That’s on my watch — It will not happen again. It was unacceptable.”

On Tuesday, Stringer went even fur-ther, taking disciplinary action, stripping the appointee, former state Senator Franz Leichter, of his voting privileges on the Trust’s board of directors. The borough pres-ident appoints three of the board’s 13 mem-bers, and the governor and mayor appoint the rest. Under the Hudson River Park Act, only two of the B.P.’s appointees are allowed to vote on a rotating, annual basis. Lawrence Goldberg will retain his voting privileges and Pam Frederick, not Leichter, will now be allowed to vote during this current rotation, Stringer said in a brief e-mail letter yesterday to Diana Taylor, the Trust’s chairperson.

Critics accused Leichter of trying to get an amendment slipped into the park’s governing law during the busy period right before the end of the legislative session. But the whole issue became moot earlier

this month when a coup disrupted the state Senate, bringing business to a halt. There is currently no bill to extend Pier 40’s lease, much less any sponsors of the bill in either the Assembly or state Senate. And yet, the Trust’s resolution to seek a longer Pier 40 lease remains active.

Leichter, for his part, says he doesn’t understand what all the upset is about and that a longer lease is needed, or the deterio-rating pier — a third of whose metal sup-port piles are badly corroded — may be lost entirely. In an interview on Sunday, he told The Villager he’d support adding restrictions in an amendment to the Hudson River Park Act pertaining to Pier 40’s lease, such as

that the pier couldn’t be an entertainment-based complex or “a South Street Seaport” or have big-box stores. But Leichter said he didn’t think it would be appropriate to add language to the act stipulating that the pier’s sprawling, heavily used courtyard sports

fi eld must be retained exactly where it is, since that would be “legislating design.”

Leichter is considered a veritable “Father of Hudson River Park” for having co-authored the park’s founding legislation in 1998 along with Assemblymember Richard Gottfried; in fact, it was originally called the Leichter-Gottfried Act. But the Trust’s recent Pier 40 lease resolution — and, more than anything else, the behind-the-scenes way in which it was approved — has sparked a furor among park activists.

At the Trust’s May 28 board meeting, Leichter brought up a piece of “new busi-ness” that had not been listed on the meet-ing’s agenda: He urged the Trust to ask the state Legislature to lengthen Pier 40’s lease from 30 years to 49 years, saying it’s the only way to attract a developer to repair the crumbling 14-acre pier. Two requests for proposals, or R.F.P.’s, issued in the past fi ve years by the Trust to fi nd a developer for the pier both collapsed.

The board passed the resolution unani-mously — but community members were outraged, fearing a longer lease would reopen the door for The Related Companies to put a glitzy “Las Vegas on the Hudson”-style entertainment complex on the W. Houston St. pier. The resolution, at the very least, should have been discussed fi rst with the Hudson River Park Advisory Council, park activists say.

Speaking at C.B. 2 last Thursday night, Stringer expressed concern, if not outright anger, at the process by which the resolution was approved. The issue isn’t the length of the lease, but the lack of community review, Stringer said.

“That may be good, or that may not be good,” he said of a 49-year lease at Pier 40. “That may be acceptable on Pier 57 [at W. 16th St.].” But the lack of public review of the proposal was “unacceptable,” he said.

The day before the community board meeting, Stringer had made his feelings known to the Trust in a lengthy and sharply worded letter to Taylor, which he concluded by urging the Trust to “rescind” the resolu-tion.

“The long history of R.F.P. processes for Pier 40 shows that a careful re-evaluation of

how best to develop the pier is warranted,” Stringer wrote. “While a longer lease term is likely to increase interest in future R.F.P.’s, the Trust board should only move forward after the community has been notifi ed and given an opportunity to provide input. … The Advisory Council was established by the Hudson River Park Act to provide advice and recommendations to the Trust board on all matters regarding the plan-ning, design, construction and operation of Hudson River Park. … Consequently, the lack of open dialogue with the Advisory Council is contrary to the spirit and the intent of the Hudson River Park Act. Furthermore, the discussion of the resolu-tion at the Trust board meeting in May — a public meeting — should have been on the meeting agenda to inform the public that the Trust board would be discussing a resolution on the lease extension. I urge the Trust board to rescind its resolution and work with the Advisory Council, local community board and community groups to better understand and seek to address community concerns before it engages the state Legislature in changing or amending the Hudson River Park Act.”

Leichter told The Villager he disagrees

that the Trust’s voting on the resolution without the advisory council’s prior review violated the park act. Plus, he said, he talked about his idea with many individuals, inter-ested parties and the affected politicians.

“I discussed it with all the elected offi -cials — including Stringer,” he said. “It was in the air. This didn’t come out of left fi eld.” Leichter noted he had discussed the idea in a meeting with Stringer and his two other appointees to the board, Frederick and Goldberg.

“I would say there was generally a sense that this wasn’t a big deal and it needed to be done,” Leichter said. “Nobody said, ‘I’m totally against it.’ I spoke to all the legisla-tors. No one said it was a terrible idea, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

He said he sent Taylor an e-mail a few weeks before the meeting, saying he thought the lease should be modifi ed.

Yet, Leichter — and some of those he spoke with — said that in their talks togeth-er, he never indicated if he would actually ask the board to pass the resolution. Hence, why the Trust’s vote caught so many off guard. As for why the resolution wasn’t listed on the meeting agenda, Leichter said that was the Trust staff’s decision, and that they would have to explain that.

“It should have been [on the agenda],” he said. “The staff didn’t want to put it on the agenda. They thought it was more appropri-ate to do it this way.”

Phone calls to the Trust seeking com-ment were not returned by press time.

Leichter also said the park adviso-ry council would be able to lobby the Legislature, too. Asked if he thought the Legislature would weigh the advisory council’s views as heavily as those of the Trust board, Leichter said yes, and then some.

“You think [Assemblymember] Deborah Glick and the Legislature will take the opinion of the Trust board more seriously than the advisory council and their constit-uents? I don’t think so. We weren’t trying to sneak anything in,” he said.

“I don’t know what the big fuss is about,” Leichter continued. “We have

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Leichter loses vote, defends Pier 40 lease maneuver

Former state Senator Franz Leichter

Continued on page 32

‘I spoke to all the legislators. No one said it was a terrible idea, “Don’t do it.”’

Franz Leichter

‘I urge the Trust board to rescind its resolution and work with the Advisory Council, local commu-nity board and community groups…before it engages the state Legislature in changing or amending the Hudson River Park Act.’

Borough President Scott Stringer

6 June 24 - 30, 2009

closing it “around nine-ish,” a half-hour after dusk on Friday and Saturday nights. That comes as good news to owners and operators of two gay bars fronting on the park.

“This is a park that no one can sit in and enjoy because of these bums that sit there and menace everyone and defecate,” said Charles Rice, owner of The Monster bar. “Finally, someone is closing the park by 9 p.m. — it was staying open till 1 a.m. Panhandlers come [from the park] and ask for cigarettes, and if they don’t give them, they threaten to throw a brick through the window. Please don’t stop — a lot of us are afraid,” Rice told the police.

“You’re going to continue to see that park closed more regularly,” Caroli assured.

Complaints continued about dangerous streets at night.

Matthew Fletcher, a bartender at The Duplex, said a month ago he was assaulted by three young men as he was walking home to his residence on Jones St.

“They didn’t steal anything from me. They just wanted to hit me,” he said.

He pointed a fi nger at Christopher Park as a key trouble spot.

“I don’t understand what’s going on with this park,” he said. “They come into my busi-ness. They bring in their violence and their drug use — and it’s getting worse and it’s got to stop.

I’m really upset. I’m just sick of the violence.”One woman said she lives on the 15th

fl oor but can still hear noise from the park, sometimes at 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Darleen Rubin, a longtime Christopher St. resident, said the new police tactics are working and have decreased “the noise and the violence that we have endured...for 30 years. The screamers, however, are still very much around when you’re not around,” she told the police. “The attitude used to be — worldwide — anything goes on Christopher St., you can do anything you want. Not anymore, because of your presence. I’m very grateful for all the deployment.”

However, Maureen Remacle, head of the community council, said it’s not just Christopher St. but the entire Village that has a freewheeling reputation.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘We can do any-thing — it’s Greenwich Village,’” said Remacle, who lives on another busy night-life corridor, Bleecker St. “You have crime basically due to the fact that we are a tourist destination.”

Caroli noted that the previous week, police had handed out leafl ets regarding public disorderliness and quality of life. While he said the precinct has traditionally been a place for gay youth to congregate, police intend to enforce quality of life, such as, for example, telling crowds not to block street corners.

“It’s not harassment — it’s just enforce-

ment,” he said.Mariah Lopez, a transgender woman who

was a founder of FIERCE, a group that advo-cates for gay and lesbian youth, said police should focus on targeting drugs, which will solve the other problems.

“There is one quick solution,” Lopez said, “get the drug dealers — instead of stigmatizing my community. We are not all criminals.”

“Cruising on the stoops” will be around long after everyone in the meeting is gone, she said, but the drugs should and can be eliminated. She said a certain gay bar on Christopher St. is the main source of the drugs. Lopez said she can help police and residents attack the drug dealing since she

knows the street’s culture so well, and is will-ing to do whatever it takes to lend a hand. Caroli noted arrests in the precinct by the narcotics unit are up 12.5 percent compared to last year.

John Blasco, a current FIERCE member, told the meeting that understanding and cooperation are needed.

“I went down to the Christopher St. Pier when I was 16 years old because that was the only place where I felt safe,” he said. “You have to understand that all the L.G.B.T.Q. youth that are down there, they’re part of the community, too. I think we have to stick together — not separate, but stick together.”

One woman who gave her name as Maria, a resident of West Fourth St. between Barrow and Jones Sts., said she has to leave her home for work at 4:15 a.m. When she was younger, she said, she wouldn’t even have noticed all the noise and nocturnal activity, but her feelings have changed.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “and there are times I stay in my apartment, and I listen to the noise and I listen to the screams. I hear grunts and groans — and I don’t know what it is. When I come out, they’re on the corner counting their money — our entrepreneurs taking care of their business.”

After the meeting, Lopez the transgender activist, said she felt many in the audience were “old — and scared,” though quickly adding, “And they should be scared.”

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Cops have key, will close small park on weekend eves

‘I’ve heard people say, “We can do anything — it’s Greenwich Village.”’

Maureen Remacle,

Sixth Precinct Community

Council president

Continued from page 1

Villager photo by Lincoln Anderson

Maureen Remacle, left, and transgender activist Mariah Lopez posed for a photo together after last Wednesday’s lively community council meeting, which mainly focused on conditions on Christopher St.

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June 24 - 30, 2009 7

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Knife in elevator

A young woman on her way home to her Village View residence in the East Village entered the elevator in her building at 6:30 p.m. Thurs., June 18, when a stranger armed with a knife followed her and demanded money, according to a Village View neighbor. The robber told the victim not to look at him or he would kill her, took her possessions and fled.

Cop impostors

Police are still looking for two men wanted in an April 26 robbery on E. 14th St. in which they told a victim they were police offi cers and then robbed him. The suspects approached the victim, 22, near E. 14th St. and Avenue B, said they were police and began to search him, police said. They then forced the victim to an A.T.M. and made him withdraw $400, which they took before fl eeing, police said.

Wicked acts

Police arrested Mario Espinoza, 21, and charged him with stealing $386 and a credit card from a fellow patron in Wicked Willy’s, 149 Bleecker St., at 3:32 a.m. on Sat., June 20. The victim, 30, reported the theft shortly before 7 a.m.

On the night of June 9 a man described as 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 190 pounds walked up to a 22-year-old patron of Wicked Willy’s, reminded him that they had previ-ous argument in another bar, and then punched the victim in the face and fl ed.

Burglar leaves early

A burglar removed the deadbolt from the front door of Market Table diner at 54 Carmine St. sometime between midnight Sun., June 14, and 5:43 a.m. Monday and tried to force open the cash register, but fl ed without taking anything, police said. An employee discovered damage on Monday morning and called police.

Armored-car guard faker

Police arrested Jesus Bailey, 21, on Sat., June 13, and charged him with posing as an armored-car security guard in the 2007 theft of more than $120,000 from two stores, one on East Broadway in Chinatown and the other on St. Nicholas Ave., in Washington Heights.

Bailey, dressed in a Rapid Armor Corp. uniform and carrying a gun, made a pickup with an unidentified accomplice of about $30,000 from a store at 88 East Broadway under the Manhattan Bridge on Aug. 31, 2007. The store discovered the ruse 15 minutes later when the real Rapid Armor guard turned up.

The following day, Sept. 1, 2007, Bailey again dressed as a Rapid Armor armed guard, picked up about $90,000 from a business at 1395 St. Nicholas Ave. at 180th St., according to the charges filed by the Manhattan district attorney.

Bailey is being held pending a July 15 court date on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of a weapon.

‘What are you looking at?’

A doctor who just moved to Manhattan was beaten and robbed while walking on E. 13th St. near Third Ave. Sunday night, June 21. The victim, 27, said he noticed a group of men on the other side of the street when one of them crossed to his side and said, “What are you looking at, white boy?” The suspect then punched him, took his money and continued to hit him. The victim sustained a broken nose and a broken jaw, according to a New York Post item. There was no arrest and police are investigating.

Burglar beats it

A burglar made his way into Negril Village restaurant, 70 W. Third St. at Thompson St., shortly after 5 a.m. Sat., June 20, when a member of the cleaning crew taking out the garbage saw him and told him to leave. The burglar, described as a man in his 20s, punched and kicked the worker and fl ed.

Bakery bandit

A man wielding a handgun walked into a bakery on First Ave. between 13th and 14th Sts., around 8 p.m. Mon., June 15, threatened a woman employee with the gun and demanded money, police said. He fl ed with about $1,000 from the cash register.

Cell-phone snatch

A New Jersey woman, 23, was talking on her cell phone while walking south on LaGuardia Place around 5:40 p.m. Mon., June 22, when a teenager ran up from behind, grabbed the phone and kept on running, police said. A wit-ness gave chase, caught up with suspect at Bleecker St. and held him for police, who charged Jamin Yaport, 16, with grand larceny.

Arrested for robbery

A visitor from Brookline, Mass., was walking on the northeast corner of Gay St. and Waverly Place at 2:50 a.m. Sun., June 21, when a man armed with a box cutter forced him to give up his wallet and digital camera, police said. The suspect fl ed as a police offi cer arrived and gave chase. The offi cer apprehended Rinaldo Colon, 37, and charged him with robbery. The victim’s wallet and camera were recovered from the suspect, police said.

Meat Market ‘valet’

A man set up traffi c cones in a Gansevoort District drive-way in front of 26 Little West 12th St. at 6:42 p.m. Fri., June 19, and stood in the traffi c lane waving oncoming cars into his “parking space” and demanding a fee. Police arrested Raymond Kilgore, 44, and charged him with fraudulent accosting.

High Line bike theft

A man chained his bicycle to a pole near the W. 16th St. stairway to the High Line at 1:30 p.m. Sun., June 14. He went up for a walk in the new elevated park and returned a half-hour later to fi nd the chain cut and the Cannondale bike valued at $1,000 was gone, police said.

Taggers arrested

Nicholas Greer, 28, of 500 E. 12th St. at Avenue A, was arrested along with Glenford Bowman, 31, of Brooklyn, at 3:30 a.m. Sun., June 7, in front of the gas station at 70 10th Ave. near 15th St., tagging the station with spray paint,

POLICE BLOTTER

Continued on page 9

June 24 - 30, 2009 9

police said. They were found with more than eight ounces of marijuana and charged with its possession as well as the graffi ti offense.

Laptop burglar

The resident of a fourth-fl oor apartment at 207 W. 14th St. near Seventh Ave. went out on Friday morning June 12 and returned at 3:12 a.m. Saturday to fi nd the front door open and fi ve laptop computers stolen, police said.

Stolen car

Police stopped a speeding car on West St. at W. 15th St., weaving from lane to lane at 2:45 a.m. Sun., June 7, and arrested

four men. Jarvis Mitchell, 35, of the Bronx, was charged with possession of stolen property after police discovered the car he was driving had been stolen. The three passengers, Tamir Tanner, 23; Derrick Moses, 31; and Craig Henderson, 41, were given desk-appearance summonses.

Gang of Four

A group of four men in the mezzanine of the subway station at Eighth Ave. and 14th St. started arguments with two victims in the station at 2:45 a.m. Sun., June 14, police said. The gang punched and kicked a Brooklyn man, 21, and a Manhattan man, 20, police said.

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POLICE BLOTTERContinued from page 8

Find it in the archiveswww.THEVILLAGER.com

10 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY JEFFERSON SIEGELThe Village Alliance’s 16th annual meet-

ing last Thursday saw the presentation of the fi rst annual Norman Buchbinder Preservation Award and Janette Sadik-Khan, the Department of Transportation commis-sioner, give an update on the “greening” of the city.

The preservation award is named after the late Norman Buchbinder, a principal of Buchbinder & Warren real estate company. Buchbinder, who died two years ago, was a founder of the Village Alliance as well as a co-founder of the Union Square Partnership, the city’s fi rst business improvement district, or BID.

The fi rst annual award recognized New York University for its restoration of fi ve historic buildings on the north side of Eighth St. between University Place and Fifth Ave. The buildings, originally constructed as townhouses in the 1830s, were remodeled into apartment buildings in 1916.

Accepting the award was Lori Mazor, N.Y.U.’s associate vice president for plan-ning and design. In thanking the alliance, Mazor recalled how she often admired the buildings before she started working for N.Y.U.

“We are really proud that you hold us to a high standard,” Mazor told the alliance members. Presenting the award was author Tony Hiss, the resident member of the alli-ance’s board of directors. He is also the son

of Alger Hiss, who in 1950 was convicted of spying for the Soviets but always maintained his innocence.

Before the award presentation, D.O.T. Commissioner Sadik-Khan, a Village resi-dent, gave a detailed overview of the agency’s

Sustainable Streets program. The program’s goals are to ease city traffi c with a “green” approach to transportation while simultane-ously improving the city’s quality of life.

Sadik-Khan, who was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg in 2007, opened her pre-sentation by outlining D.O.T.’s focus, which has shifted from treating the streets as “utili-tarian corridors” to public spaces and places for social and economic exchanges.

Sadik-Khan said Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, a sustainability program for the city’s future, emphasized both expanding mass transit as well as alternative “mobility strategies,” including bicycling and conges-tion pricing.

“New Yorkers actually have one-third of the carbon footprint of the average American,” she said. “If you’re really serious about saving the planet, you should really move to New York City.”

One success of the intitative, Sadik-Khan said, was the experimental “select” bus service in the Bronx. Riders pay in advance and can use both doors to enter, while traffi c lights recognize a bus approaching. The ini-tiative has resulted in a 30 percent ridership increase, a 20 percent reduction in travel time and a 98 percent approval from riders.

“That’s unheard of in New York City,” she said of the approval rating.

Sadik-Khan hopes to build a dedicated network of bus lanes throughout the city, “creating much more of a surface sub-way system for buses.” Those plans include upcoming tests along the congested traffi c corridors on First and Second Aves.

Sadik-Khan said peak-hour parking pric-ing is currently being tested in the West Village and Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Her discussion of cycling, another impor-tant facet of the “Sustainable Streets” pro-gram, was well-received by the gathering. Sadik-Khan said most bicycle trips are under 3 miles. Combine that with the fact that

most of the city is fl at, and she said the city is in a position “to become the biking capital of the nation.”

Cycling, she told the audience, adds both a new visual dimension as well as a human presence. The number of people bicycling to work has doubled since 2000. When Sadik-Khan announced a ribbon cutting in a few weeks to mark the 200th mile of new bike lanes, the room erupted in applause.

The key to increasing ridership in the bike lanes will be building more protected lanes, another comment met by applause. In the past two years, protected bike lanes have appeared along Ninth Ave. in Chelsea and, most recently, along Eighth Ave. from the West Village to Chelsea.

Another benefi t of protected bike lanes is a 50 percent reduction of pedestrian injuries from traffi c, she noted. Sadik-Khan said a two-way bike lane will be tested later this summer on Kent Ave. in Brooklyn.

The room again broke into applause when Sadik-Khan looked ahead to the next phase of green transport, a public bike-sharing program. As she spoke, a slide of bikes with a yellow checker-cab design appeared on a screen. She compared the plan to a similar project in Paris that resulted in a seven-fold increase in biking there after the fi rst year.

Sadik-Khan said she’d be traveling to Montreal this week to examine their “Bixi” bike-sharing program. Bixi includes 3,000 bikes available at 300 locations throughout Montreal. Fees range from a $5 daily rate to an annual $78 subscription. “Bixi” is derived from the words “bicycle” and “taxi.”

Another D.O.T. initiative is a proposal before the City Council requiring all new offi ce buildings to include indoor bike park-ing.

Sadik-Khan discussed the successful rec-lamation of outdoor spaces for public use, including building public plazas in Times, Herald and Madison squares, and on lower Ninth Ave. in the Meatpacking District.

“So far, so good,” she said of the Times Square experiment, which will be reviewed at year’s end. Other recent on-street innova-tions have included stylish bike racks, bus shelter kiosks and pay toilets. Another well-received project was the “Summer Streets” program last August, where an avenue-wide corridor from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd St. was closed to motor vehicles for three Saturdays in a row. “Summer Streets” will be repeated this year.

Sitting in the back of the room listening intently was Jane McCarthy, a Village resident and member of Community Board 2’s Traffi c and Transportation Committee. McCarthy is Sadik-Khan’s mother and looked every bit the proud parent.

The Village Alliance is a business improve-ment district covering Eighth Street from Second Ave. to Sixth Ave. and along Sixth Ave. down to W. Fourth St. The alliance is sponsoring several upcoming events, includ-ing this week’s Gay Pride Week, a summer series of free walking tours and September’s Taste of the Village, a food-sampling fund-raiser for Washington Square Park.

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Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel

Janette Sadik-Khan, the Department of Transportation commissioner, right, with her mother, Jane McCarthy, after the Village Alliance’s annual meeting on June 18. Both are Village residents.

June 24 - 30, 2009 11

BY PATRICK HEDLUND

SMALL BUSINESS ‘EXTORTION’

Small business owners across the city are being forced by landlords to pay money under the table or face losing their stores, a group of mom-and-pop store advocates charged at a rally on the steps of City Hall last week.

Led by Queens Councilmember Tony Avella, a candidate for mayor, the group condemned the practice of landlords demanding additional payments on top of rent to secure leases for tenants.

“These businesses who contribute to the economy in the city — who are the backbone of every neighborhood in this city — must be protected,” said Avella, who has requested a federal investigation into the practice. “The real estate industry in this city and the unscrupulous landlords must be regulated.”

According to a recent survey of 1,200 Hispanic small business owners, conducted by the U.S.A. Latin Chamber of Commerce and the Bodega Association of the United States, nearly a third responded that their landlords demanded additional money as a

condition to continue or begin lease nego-tiations.

“We believe this number is higher, because many small business owners did not understand the confi dentiality of the survey and were afraid to get in trouble,” said Miguel Peribanez, president of the chamber of commerce.

“We’re not going to recommend any immigrant make business here in New York because it’s so risky right now,” added Ramon Murphy, president of the Bodega Association.

The survey also found that 87 percent of Latino-owned small businesses felt they had no rights during the lease renewal process and 92 percent believed that the process favored landlords so much that they abused their power.

In response, Avella wrote a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Offi ce in both the Eastern and Southern New York Districts asking for an investigation into this “illegal activity.”

“This is clearly a case of extortion, since the small business owners have no alterna-tive but to pay this money or lose their entire business, which many have worked years to build,” Avella stated in the letter.

Councilmember Robert Jackson of Upper Manhattan introduced a bill last year that would force tenants and landlords into bind-ing arbitration to negotiate a fair lease agree-ment if they can’t come to terms. Beyond that, the measure proposes setting rent increases that can’t exceed a certain percent-age to ensure small business stability.

While the problem has affected immi-grant-heavy communities more acutely, neighborhoods like Greenwich Village have also suffered, explained former Community Board 2 Chairperson Maria Passannante Derr, who participated in the rally.

“It’s pandemic at this point citywide,” she said. “There are up to 12 stores on Hudson St. alone that are empty, and the Village is starting to look like a ghost town.”

Derr, who is also running for City Council in the Third District, supports Jackson’s bill and criticized some elected offi cials’ recent efforts on behalf of small business as not going far enough.

“I don’t think it’s an extreme remedy,” she said of Jackson’s proposed legislation, which is viewed as a form of commercial rent control. “I think it’s a good step for-ward.”

BANKRUPT IN SOHO

The fate of a Soho residential project is in question after developers of the planned seven-story building declared bankruptcy last week.

The proposed 58-unit project, slated for a parking lot at the corner of Canal and Grand Sts. in the Soho Cast-Iron Historic District, sought to emulate the character of the neighborhood through its aluminum-panel facade.

Brooklyn-based developer Judo Associates received approval for the project, dubbed 1

Greene St., nearly two years ago. The devel-oper fi led for bankruptcy protection last week, Crain’s reported.

Designed by architect Gene Kaufman, the building would contain a total of 80,000 square feet and has been valued at $25 million. The site currently houses a parking lot.

HUDSON SQUARE CHIC

Celebrated fashion designer Brian Reyes has moved his eponymous label to Hudson Square as part of a fi ve-year lease agree-ment.

The deal gives Reyes 4,553 square feet at 304 Hudson St., between Spring and Vandam Sts., nearly quadrupling the size of his former Flatiron offi ces.

The designer, who spent the last few years on lower Fifth Ave., had previously stated his desire to work out of space closer to his Tribeca home. Reyes now joins fashion tenants Y’s America (Yohji Yamamoto) and Atelier Fashion at the address.

“Hudson Square has established itself as a center for creative businesses from broadcasting and advertising to fashion,” said Jason Pizer, a senior vice president of leasing for building owner Trinity Real Estate, in a statement. “Mr. Reyes has an exceptional reputation and a growing brand, and we are delighted to welcome him to our neighborhood.”

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EDITORIAL

Continued on page 12

Thompson is counting on the “Star Trek” vote.

IRA BLUTREICH

LETTERS TO THE EDITORBreak W.T.C. stalemate

Relying on a judge or an arbiter to resolve the World Trade Center impasse is a worst-case scenario. It would likely mean more delays and may not lead to a real resolution at all. The physical and fi nancial com-ponents of the W.T.C. are so complicated that each side would undoubtedly continue to argue about who was fulfi lling the terms of such a judicial decision.

An amicable, fair compromise is the only way out of this mess. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, started the negotiations with a reasonable position, but that reason is run-ning into the real-world complications of rebuilding the W.T.C., and needs to be readjusted. The Port Authority’s refusal to take on risk to fi nance a specula-tive offi ce building in order to help a private developer is justifi able. But the problem is there does not appear to be a feasible Plan B other than to look at holes in the ground for a few more decades, build a memorial to the thousands of 9/11 victims adjacent to a construc-tion disaster area, and maintain indefi nitely the open wound that we Lower Manhattan residents and work-ers have lived with for the last eight years.

Since the construction of Tower 2 can’t happen with-out the Port Authority’s assistance, W.T.C. developer Larry Silverstein has to put up more money on the front end and has to be willing to transfer a signifi cant amount of the upside to the agency at the back end. It’s clear that Silverstein has upped his offer some, but since many of the negotiation details have stayed behind closed doors, it is impossible to know how far he has gone.

Silverstein has already recouped most of his investment in the W.T.C., so he has many millions to gain and little to lose when his Towers 2, 3 and 4 are built. The Port Authority has already agreed to help him build No. 4, and both sides have agreed to put off No. 3. The author-ity should get large ownership stakes or the equivalent in Towers 2, 4 and possibly 3 if it takes on the debt obliga-tions needed to keep construction going at the W.T.C.

The public authority, which often seems more power-ful than the governors to which it reports, should use this additional revenue on things connected to its core mis-sion, such as transportation improvements Downtown; but it should also support an important project it has helped delay, the W.T.C. Performing Arts Center.

The Port Authority’s temporary retail “podium” idea for two of the tower sites does not seem feasible. How do you get an investment of hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on supposedly interim struc-tures, and attract desirable tenants? Can you redesign the plan for the podiums — low, three- or four-story structures — without setting the other projects like the train station and the memorial back years? Would the podiums become obstacles to building towers even when the economy rebounds?

Mayor Bloomberg, who sided with the Port Authority three years ago in the last big dispute with Silverstein, is nevertheless completely skeptical of the podium idea — and so is virtually everyone else, save for the authority and its associates.

The mayor and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver deserve enormous credit for fi ghting for a fair com-promise. The Port Authority should give up on the podiums and make a new counteroffer to get Tower 2 and the site built. And Silverstein needs to absorb more of the risk of this deal, and reward the authority for the risks it runs in guaranteeing the fi nancing.

No one wants to see the terrorists’ destruction lin-ger for generations.

Takes swat at Soho ‘gadfl y’

To The Editor:Re “Trump ‘Traitors’” (Mixed Use, June 10):Over the past few years, I’ve written regularly for

The Villager, enjoying every moment of it. It is crucial to have a newspaper that is focused on the issues of the neighborhood that we all love. Now, however, I work full time at the Soho Partnership and I am writing to respond to the recent attack from “neighborhood gadfly” Sean Sweeney.

I was the member of the development team that spoke with Trump Soho and encouraged them to become mem-bers of the Soho Partnership. And, regardless of what my personal political feelings toward Trump may be, I was happy to do so.

The money — money that Trump would be spending elsewhere otherwise — was going to a good cause. You see, the Soho Partnership is not merely a “quasi-business improvement district.” It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit orga-nization that has been in existence for more than 17 years, dedicated to fighting homelessness in New York City. The men and women who sweep the streets in Soho come to the Partnership from homeless shelters and drug-treatment centers all around the city and the incredibly hard work they put into cleaning is only one part of a comprehensive vocational rehabilitation pro-gram aimed at helping them transition into a full-time job and a new life.

It is unfair to put such a burden of responsibility on a small nonprofit organization, especially in this financial climate. We need money to continue our services — ser-vices that have helped more than 800 recovering home-less men and women facing harsh realities that make the average Soho neighborhood complaint seem fairly trivial. The responsibility of the Soho Partnership is to the well-being of recovering homeless men and women in New York City. That is the bottom line. We do not have the luxury of sitting back, wringing our hands and criticizing anyone who presents us with an opportunity for support.

The Soho Partnership did not build the Trump Soho building. We took no part in advocating its concep-tion over the past few years. Yes, we sent out an e-mail publicizing their contribution to us. Their motivations for helping us are irrelevant, as are our opinions about Trump.

If you have a problem with the presence of Trump Soho, by all means keep voicing it. And if you want to question the system we have in place rendering small

nonprofits at the beck and call of their donors, go ahead. But it seems to be a waste of time and just a case of good old-fashioned ire to direct your resentment at an organi-zation that helps hundreds of individuals every year and wants to ensure that those crucial efforts don’t fall victim to the recession.

I am all for protecting the character of Soho, but don’t vilify one of New York City’s most valuable human-services organizations in the process.

Lucas Mann Mann is membership manager, Soho Partnership

On the wrong track

To The EditorRe “Off and rolling” (editorial, June 17):At fi rst glance, the High Line appears as innovative and

green as anyone could hope for. But did you know that all the benches, decking, chaise lounges and bleacher seating throughout the park are composed of ipê, a rainforest wood ripped out of the Amazon?

The ipê tree grows throughout the Amazon at an average of one to two trees per acre. Criminal cartels, which control most logging operations there, build an extensive network of illegal roads to extract these scattered, high-demand trees; for every ipê tree that is logged, an estimated 28 other trees are destroyed.

Friends of the High Line have ordered tens of thousands of board feet of ipê for their project. Even worse, they’ve turned one of today’s most-watched public works projects into a global advertisement for tropical deforestation. Friends of the High Line have become enemies of the rainforest.

It’s not too late for them to act responsibly. If they use alternative materials — like recycled plastic lumber or sus-tainable domestic hardwood — for the two sections of the High Line still awaiting construction, they can send a power-ful message about the need to protect rainforests and battle climate change.

The United Nations Environment Program states that an area of rainforest the size of a football fi eld is destroyed every second — that’s an area the size of Manhattan every three hours. It’s incumbent upon those of us from the neighbor-hood to act responsibly — to speak out, to spread the word, to withhold funds from Friends of the High Line until they face up to the biggest challenges of our time.

Continued on page 31

June 24 - 30, 2009 13

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PUBLISHER & EDITORJohn W. SutterASSOCIATE EDITORLincoln Anderson

ARTS EDITORScott Stiffl er

REPORTERS

Albert AmateauJosh Rogers

Julie ShapiroPatrick HedlundOFFICE MANAGER

David Jaffe

PUBLISHER EMERITUS

Elizabeth Butson

SR. V.P. OF SALES AND MARKETING

Francesco ReginiSR. MARKETING CONSULTANT

Jason Sherwood

ADVERTISING SALES

Allison GreakerJeremy MarksJason Sparks

RETAIL AD MANAGER

Colin Gregory

ART / PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Troy Masters

ART DIRECTOR

Mark Hassleberger

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Jamie Paakkonen

CIRCULATION SALES MNGR.Marvin Rock

DISTRIBUTION & CIRCULATION

Cheryl Williamson

CONTRIBUTORS

Ira BlutreichDoris Diether

Patricia FieldsteelEd Gold

Bonnie RosenstockJefferson SiegelJerry Tallmer

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Elisabeth RobertJefferson Siegel

Clayton Patterson

BY JENNY KLIONIt’s well past midnight, and I fi nd myself cramming for

an exam in a course I didn’t realize I’d registered for. Earlier this evening, I attended a last-minute review session at my daughter’s middle school. The special guest was J.W., a well-mannered company spokesperson from the Department of Education who was addressing the community’s concerns about the required (re)move(al) of the school from its cur-rent location atop P.S. 3 on Hudson St. Let’s review the top-ics for the coming year:

Q: What is the name of the only public middle school in Greenwich Village?

A: Greenwich Village Middle School.

Q: Which school is being forced out of its current space because the overfl ow of incoming P.S. 3 and P.S. 41 kin-dergartners is creating an immediate and pressing problem for local taxpaying West Village families who can no longer afford to send their children to private elementary school?

A: Greenwich Village Middle School.

Q: Will any of these incoming kindergartners be going to middle school someday, and if so, will any of them still be liv-ing in Greenwich Village, and if so, might any of their families expect to have an available middle school in their historic neighborhood that is one of the landmarks of not only New York City, but New York City education (e.g., N.Y.U.)?

A: Yes. Absolutely.

Q: Give an example of one location in Greenwich Village proper that D.O.E. is suggesting would be a suitable space for a Greenwich Village Middle School future site.

A: N/A

Pencils down. Five-minute break.

Q: What are the locations of D.O.E.-suggested space options for G.V.M.S.? Give at least one example this time, and feel free to add comments to your answer.

A: 26 Broadway, a privately owned and D.O.E.-pre-empted, leased building in a high-rise industrial complex. No comment, see below.

Q: How many Hollywood studio executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Q: Does it have to be a light bulb?A: Yes! Greenwich Village Middle School has to remain

in Greenwich Village.

Q: Are there any other possible locations besides the very tip of Manhattan, where security is extremely high, construc-tion rules the streets and big-time money is being made but won’t be spent on the 11-year-olds who will now have to

travel alone down there because of it?A: Yes, 75 Morton St., directly around the corner from

G.V.M.S.

No talking, please.

Q: In your own words, describe the D.O.E. guy’s take on the long-running community desire to move G.V.M.S. to 75 Morton St., particularly at this point in time, when the trans-fer of space is now being securely mandated by the city?

A: The space needs work, and it’s too much of a hassle.

Settle down, now, folks. Please. Last question, to the woman in the jeans and sweatshirt, stewing in the corner.

Q: Who owns the property on 75 Morton St., and/or use the word “irony” in the following sentence:

A: New York State, but the building has been taken off the market, and is not available for purchase because they would not be able to get a good price for it now.

Q: Again, in your own words, what are the three biggest variables in the following equation? Available school space + a state-owned building = a new home for G.V.M.S.

A: Money. Politics. Middle school children left behind.

Testing begins this September, for the following school year.

A pop quiz on the Greenwich Village Middle School

Villager photo by Tequila Minsky

A little rain didn’t deter the Feast of St. Anthony procession on Sullivan St. ear-lier this month.SCENE

TALKING POINT

14 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY SHEILA MCCLEAR The front door to 150-152 W. 14th St.

has been hastily boarded up. Someone has parked a shopping cart full of empty cans in front of the building while paying trib-ute at the adjacent adult video store.

Across the street there’s a new cube-shaped structure with fl oor-to-ceiling windows advertising “Full Floor Lofts Immediate Occupancy.”

Welcome to the past and future of W. 14th St.

The single-room-occupancy, or S.R.O., apartments at 150 and 152 W. 14th St. near Seventh Ave. sit empty. Inside the run-down fi ve-story building lies the detri-tus of dozens of lives disrupted midday after tenants were forced to evacuate on May 7 due to a crack in the facade deemed immediately dangerous. Given until 8 p.m. to collect their things, some were just returning from work when they were told to gather what they could and leave, or be removed by police.

Now, nearly seven weeks after being forced to vacate their $400-a-month rooms, the evacuees are still homeless. They’re couch-hopping, living in a resi-dential motel or staying in one of the other buildings owned by their landlord, Stanley Wasserman of SW Management LLC. Finding another place to rent would require them to give up their rent-stabi-lized status.

Tenants charge that the building has been neglected for years. A September 2007 Department of Buildings viola-tion cited a “failure to maintain exterior defects” after inspectors “observed buck-ling and bowing of facade and broken sills,” according to the department’s Web site. Another violation this February found a “failure to maintain bldg wall(s) or appurtenances” and exterior bulging, as well as loose mortar joints.

Residents have brought a lawsuit in Housing Court to order Wasserman to make the necessary repairs for them to move back in, but the process is slow. The real story, tenants claim, is that Wasserman is trying to empty the S.R.O. of its residents by allowing the structure to deteriorate. If a building is vacant, the landlord needs no permission to tear it down — and W. 14th St. is prime real estate that could turn a better profi t with market-rate units.

The building’s rooms are modest: They don’t contain kitchens (some residents used hot plates), and there’s a shared bathroom and shower down each hall. But the apartments were safe enough, and provided residents a place, albeit small, to call their own in the middle of an expen-sive island closed to many working-class renters.

“Some of my friends would come over and ask how I could live in a place so small,” said Dan Turchek, a 37-year-old

bookstore clerk who has lived there for 10 years. “But it’s my own space, and it’s in Manhattan.” Turchek is currently living in the Yale Hotel on the Upper West Side, where the city is paying for his shelter.

The Yale isn’t for everyone. Notorious for its ramshackle conditions, roaches and late-night fi ghts, some of the displaced residents instead chose to sleep on friends’ couches. The Yale is particularly intimidat-ing for women staying alone.

Claire McGibney, 61, lived in the 14th St. S.R.O. for 14 years. She works at the Bed Bath & Beyond at 18th St. and Sixth Ave., and said she invested about $5,000 in her room over the years.

“I put in a ceramic tile fl oor, white cabinets, a stainless-steel bar sink… . It looked like another world, my place,” she explained. “When the head of the Department of Buildings saw my room [during the evacuation], he looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing here?’

“I said, ‘Sir, this is what affordable housing is in this city.’ ”

McGibney has been staying with friends and co-workers rather than at the Yale, and she’s slept in at least four places since the May evacuation.

“I’m not living — I’m existing,” she said. “Wasserman was derelict in all respects. Warehousing in the city should be stopped.”

Susanna Blankley, a tenant organizer for the West Side S.R.O. Law Project, who is working with Wasserman’s tenants, said this situation follows a trend with S.R.O. landlords.

“They do different things to get tenants out, like warehousing the buildings,” she said. “When the building is empty, the landlord doesn’t have to get permission to demolish it.”

Five years ago, Victor Luna, a 27-year-old freelance clothing designer, was one of the last tenants to move into the building before Wasserman stopped renting out

empty rooms. He’s been staying in another Wasserman building since the evacuation, at 148 W. 14th. He described his new residence as equally run-down and full of violations.

“Two tenants have no electricity,” he said. “They run a wire from the hall into their rooms.”

Wasserman has about 70 buildings in Manhattan and the Bronx, but his only S.R.O.’s are the addresses on W. 14th St., plus another in Midtown. He did not return several calls for comment, and residents say both he and the building manager regularly hang up on them. His attorney, Martin Meltzer, said Wasserman does not discuss cases under litigation.

“[Wasserman] wants to throw up his hands and say they can’t [repair the build-ing],” Blankely said. “I’m told that facades can be put up in three or four days. We have engineers that would do it pro bono, but we can’t even get access to the buildings.”

According to D.O.B., the building appears structurally sound, although the facade must be immediately fi xed and more inspections are needed.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has taken a hard line on Wasserman, whose building is in her district. She co-wrote a letter with other elected offi cials to a number of government agencies, as well as going to the source.

“We’ve also reached out to Wasserman directly to tell him to do the right thing and live up to his legal obligations,” Quinn said. She hasn’t yet received a response.

“He absolutely appears to be attempt-ing to warehouse [the buildings],” Quinn added. “We have to be vigilant in our efforts not to lose any existing affordable housing, particularly S.R.O.’s, which are among the most affordable. … The reality is there are landlords out there who are bad people.”

Fearing the plight of No. 152 could be in their future, too, the residents of 215 W. 14th St. recently met at the Hudson Guild Community Center in Chelsea. They also live in an S.R.O. owned by Wasserman, and don’t want to fi nd themselves in the same situation in a couple years.

“We have similar structural problems as 152, just not as severe — yet,” said one resident. “The building has been neglected for 20 years… . I believe in my heart that they do want us out.” The tenants also pointed out the building’s proximity to dormitories of New York University and The New School.

So far, the residents have written a let-ter listing the violations that have not been dealt with.

“We’re not asking for anything huge,” another tenant said. “We’re aware of the kind of building we live in.”

For now, 150-152 W. 14th St. remains a mausoleum of lives interrupted. The build-ing’s facade has been completely removed, with only a white tarp protecting the front rooms from the elements. For now, the future of the building, and its residents, remains in limbo.

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The facade is ripped off an S.R.O. landlord’s neglect

Villager photo by Patrick Hedlund

The building at 150-152 W. 14th St. sports a white tarp after its facade was removed last month.

June 24 - 30, 2009 15

GAY PRIDEA special Villager supplementA special Villager supplement

Pages 15 to 30

Out on the boardwalk, Page 22

Activist is in tune, Page 17 The Door is open, Page 24

16 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY TIM GAY I remember when Judy Garland died but

I don’t recall Stonewall. After all, I was not quite 14 back in June 1969.

But a year and a couple of months later, in the fall of 1970, I was voraciously read-ing about homosexuality, the Stonewall Inn Riots, the Gay Liberation Organization, the Mattachine Society and Judy Garland — all thanks to a high school librarian who quietly stocked the shelves with “liberal” books and magazines.

And less than 10 years later, I was 24, living with a boyfriend in New York City, and suddenly enjoying the excitement of what I now know was the end of the early gay liberation era.

“It’s a bagel place!” I said when my boy-friend showed me where the Stonewall Inn had been on Christopher St.

“That’s New York real estate,” Michael explained. “At least it hasn’t been torn down and replaced by a condo — yet.”

We were on our way to a public hearing at St. Vincent’s on the proposed gay and les-bian sculptures for Sheridan Square. I wasn’t expecting the heterosexuals’ repulsive and vituperative effl uence.

There was bedlam and screaming, hands waving and homemade placards smacking people. And that was just the heterosexuals.

A woman in a green polyester dress pointed her fi nger at me and screamed, “Your lifestyle is unnatural!” So I replied,

“My lifestyle’s more natural than your hair color.”

Could this be the birthplace for les-bian and gay freedom? This isn’t Texas or Missoula, for goodness sakes.

I had read a lot and experienced a lot about my sexuality by the time I came to New York. It was either read and learn, or die a slow death, I later understood.

The fi rst article I read about gays was in Harper’s Magazine in the fall of 1970. The cover photo was the torso of a man with a beefy, pumped-up arm who was wearing a gingham dress. I remember the article as being dark and menacing, full of fear about homosexuals. The author said he would rath-er his children commit suicide than be gay.

(As an adult, I learned that this article, “Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity,” by Joseph Epstein, is one of the linchpins in galvanizing the movement against what would become known as homophobia. As I understand it, Joseph Epstein is, to this day, an unrepentant homophobe.)

But that article gave me a sense of power. I was a 15-year-old boy who could possibly become one of these men who cause fear and pandemonium. It explained why I was above and beyond the simple minds of the other boys. As a homosexual, I was supernatural and gifted, like the Greeks and the Romans, writers and poets, artists and thinkers.

I read more — letters blasting the edi-tor of Harper’s for that very article, stories

in The Atlantic, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, articles and books on sexuality and ado-lescents (“Summerhill School” by Alexander Neill was extremely helpful).

Even back then, homophobia (a new word in 1971) came to the lesbian and gay movements. I read that the women’s movement rejected the lesbians, and that the lesbians rejected the gay men, and that everyone rejected the drag queens.

So, Rolling Stone magazine covered the fourth Gay and Lesbian Pride March in

1974. After marching down Fifth Avenue, lesbians and gay men blocked the drag queens and transgender people from the stage at Washington Square. But to save the day, down Fifth Avenue came Bette Midler in feather boas, riding on the back of a red Cadillac Eldorado convertible. She came up on stage and sang “You Got to Have Friends.”

Or at least that’s how I remember the article. I’d like to fi nd it someday, but my search engine just won’t dig it up.

I came out in 1979, when Susan and I got a divorce (she came out, too, and ran off with Mitzi). That was the “Donna Summer summer” of “Bad Girls,” my fi rst non-farm pair of Levi 501s, and my fi rst crew cut since the third grade.

And, I was working at the National Catholic Reporter, sort of the Village Voice of Catholic journalism back then. We cov-ered the shooting of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone in November 1978 and the “White Night Riots” in May 1979, when Dan White was all but forgiven for the murders. I would later have a companion who was there that night. He ignited a San Francisco police car as an offi cer pounded a billy club into his ear.

None of that would have been possible for me or about 50 million other lesbians and gays and transgenders if there hadn’t been the Stonewall Riots.

But at times I do wish we had a nice bagel place on Sheridan Square.

Lower Manhattan’s Next City Councilmember

PETE GLEASON

&

www.Pete2009.com

Representing:

I wasn’t quite at Stonewall, but it changed my life

Tim Gay

CONGRESSWOMANCAROLYN MALONEY

* Proud to Support Marriage Equality

* Proud Author of the Family & Medical Leave Inclusion Act for LGBT Families

* Proud Co-Sponsor of the City’s Landmark 1986 Civil Rights Bill

* Proud Author of the City’s First-Ever Domestic Partnership Legislation

* Proud to Stand with New York City’s LGBT Community!

HAPPYPRIDE!

June 24 - 30, 2009 17

BY JOHN BAYLESIt’s impossible to pigeonhole Charles King, executive

director of Housing Works. He’s a pioneer, a radical, a respected voice in the L.G.B.T. community and a veteran of both the local and national effort to provide housing and resources for people living with H.I.V. and AIDS.

He’s one of the only openly gay men living with H.I.V. who is in charge of an AIDS service organization. He’s also the son of a Southern Baptist preacher from Texas and is a Yale graduate. And when he begins speaking about the gay community and AIDS, you feel as if you’re being preached to, perhaps because King is an ordained minister himself who still teaches a Sunday Bible-study class to his clients and speaks with a slow, committed, thoughtful cadence.

“What I fi nd very frustrating about the organized gay community,” said King, “is all too often it’s about what ‘I’m not getting.’ ”

King believes the gay rights movement is self-centered of late, focusing on results without paying attention to the systemic problems that have necessitated the fi ght. What’s frustrating to King is the inability, in his eyes, of the majority of the gay community to connect their struggles to the struggles of others.

“It’s not being able to translate,” said King. “The rea-son you’re not getting ‘it’ is because there are people out there who fundamentally think you’re different and you don’t deserve it.”

He said it’s the same mindset that leads to black people not getting it and to poor people not getting it. For King, the fi ght for gay rights, and the fi ght to provide services for people living with H.I.V./AIDS, cannot be separated from the bigger fi ght to end racism and sexism and class warfare. It was a combination of all of those individual struggles that ultimately put King in the position he’s in today.

“It’s more than connected,” King said of Housing Works and his own experiences. “To me, my experience of marginalization and stigmatization, and all that comes with that, made me very much appreciate other people in the world who are marginalized and stigmatized.”

King didn’t come out of the closet until he saw a fellow preacher, at a Baptist Church in Connecticut, die of AIDS. King went to visit the man in the hospital and offered to pray with him, but the man said it wouldn’t do any good, because God was punishing him for being a homosexual.

King told him that was impossible, because if it were true then King would be lying in the hospital bed next to him. In quick order King went to his church and told his minister he wanted to resign and he didn’t want to put the congregation through the controversy that would come along with his coming out. He was convinced to stay at the church for six months, however, to lay the foundation for an AIDS ministry before he left.

Prior to that, when he was working at a church in San Antonio, King went out of his way to begin busing poor Chicano children from the barrio to Sunday school, children who previously had been systematically ignored by the ministry.

“Whether it’s poor black and Chicano kids living in the barrio who aren’t welcome in the First Baptist Church in a town in east Texas, or abused children at a children’s home in Round Rock,” he said, “my identifi cation with those folks started fi rst with my own experience.”

When he was a young man in divinity school at Yale, King’s father wrote him a letter “disowning” him, some-thing King said happened numerous times for various reasons not much different from being a typical, rebel-lious teenager. But when he received this letter, he felt compelled to give his father a better reason and decided to write his own letter, resulting in the severing of all familial ties.

King is an activist at heart; it just so happens he’s a gay man living with H.I.V. It is not that being a gay man made

him an activist. For King, being gay is not reason enough, and neither is AIDS. As a New Yorker in the ’80s, King saw the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic take shape within segments of the gay community that had previously been silent and mostly invisible.

“In many ways, AIDS was kind of an indictment of a lot of the more-well-to-do gay New Yorkers,” said King. “At the time, they weren’t activists. They were working on Wall St., with their share houses on Fire Island and f---ing at night in the bathhouses. Otherwise they were in the closet. They only became activists when AIDS forced them into it.

“So many people said, ‘Now we got the drugs and we can go back to the way we were,’ without learning the les-son that our society is fundamentality fl awed.”

During the ’80s King found a home with ACT UP, an AIDS activist group that became infamous for their protests. He saw in ACT UP a community similar to the church, but that actually practiced what it preached when it came to acceptance.

“Yes, it was full of rage and anger and all of that, but there was a tremendous amount of healing as well,” said King. “The camaraderie, the brotherhood, the bond that took place in that space — that’s something that I’ve very forcefully brought to the vision Housing Works. We are

a healing community — sometimes a secular version of what I honestly believe the church should be.”

In 1990 King and three other ACT UP members estab-lished Housing Works as a reaction to the treatment of homeless people living with AIDS, particularly in the city’s housing program.

“The system was stratifi ed by class, race and percep-tions around mental illness and substance use,” said King.

At the time, the only existing housing programs required people to be sober for 120 days and excluded “active users,” a phrase King said was “code” for heroin users and crack addicts.

“A white gay man partying on the weekend doing 10 lines of coke — you still fi t in,” said King.

The problem was that at the time, when the average diagnosis after contracting AIDS was six months to live, the system required spending four of those months look-ing for housing and trying to stay clean.

Today Housing Works is the largest AIDS service orga-nization in the country and perhaps the most recognized voice in the fi ght to provide housing for people living with H.I.V./AIDS, including still-active drug users. Since its inception, the organization’s health clinics, job-training program and housing programs have assisted more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with H.I.V./AIDS.

Housing Works will have a fl oat in Sunday’s Gay Pride March, and if King had his way, the banner would be a call to action and might read, “Look at the bigger pic-ture.” During a time when the most visible fi ght within the national gay community is revolving around equal rights relating to marriage, King believes it’s bigger than that.

“If you think it’s about gay marriage,” King said, “if you’re part of the gay community, and that’s what you think it’s about, then you don’t get it. Because as much as it is important to achieve gay marriage, what it’s really about is human dignity.”

AIDS activist says fi ght’s ‘bigger than marriage’

‘In a way, AIDS was an indictment of a lot of more-

well-to-do gay New Yorkers.’

Charles King

At the recent graduation ceremony for Housing Works’ job-training program, Housing Works Executive Director Charles King was fl anked by Grammy nominee Maiysha, left, who performed, and singer Nona Hendryx of Labelle, who spoke at the graduation.

18 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY JOHN BAYLES To hang out at the offi ce of FIERCE on

W. 24th St. is to witness a convergence of worlds: The world of L.G.B.T.Q. youth, the world of political activism and the world of ideas, among others, all collide on a daily basis in between the offi ce’s bright-pink brick walls.

Last Thursday FIERCE (Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment) held a Campaign Steering Committee meeting at their offi ce and 20 members and staff between the ages of 15 and 25 broke into groups to discuss their strategy for an upcoming Community Board 2 meeting. One member suggested using a megaphone during the public comment session and every-one talked about it and it seemed like a good idea. Then a voice from a distant cubicle yelled, “In New York you need a permit for that.”

They discussed doing phone banking one day next week to get West Village residents to come to the meeting or to write letters on their behalf. One member said he couldn’t because he had to go Six Flags.

This is the world of FIERCE, where a tight-knit staff of young adults oversee a nonprofi t group that is ultimately run by its members, the average age of which is roughly 18. At 8 p.m. in the evening when the typical young adult or teenager might have been at home on Facebook or in a bar or club or doing just about anything other than discussing strat-egy for how to best utilize a public comment period, the FIERCE offi ce was buzzing.

The group was founded in 2000 and its mission is to foster the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer

(L.G.B.T.Q.) youth of color in New York City. While its mission has remained constant, its strategy is always evolving.

“We change our strategy based on what’s happening,” said Desiree Marshall, FIERCE’s lead organizer. Executive Director Rickke Mananzala said the strategy all along has been to “redefi ne the notion of community” not only for L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color but for all people.

“The new thing we’ve added to the mix is working to propose policy around public-space development,” he explained.

“What’s happening” now for FIERCE is a coordinated effort to have the West Village community’s voice more than just considered when it comes to redeveloping Hudson River Park.

FIERCE’s baby is the Christopher St. Pier, Pier 45, or simply “The Pier” as it’s known in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Since the ’60s the pier has been a gathering place for gay and lesbian youth who feel uncomfortable elsewhere.

In addition to working to improve con-ditions on the Christopher St. Pier — par-ticularly in the evenings, from increasing bathroom access to getting better-quality food-vending carts — FIERCE also has been focusing on the nearby, far larger Pier 40’s redevelopment.

When the Hudson River Park Trust fi rst began talking about redeveloping the 14-acre Pier 40 at W. Houston St. back in 2002, FIERCE began lobbying for a 24-hour L.G.B.T.Q. drop-in center, where young kids could access resources and services, such as counseling, or just hang out with friends in a safe, comfortable place. Drop-in center or not, however, FIERCE’s main concern is maintaining public access to the Village piers and Hudson River Park in the face of private

development. Two requests for proposals, or R.F.P.’s, for

Pier 40 have been issued and closed by the park Trust over the past six years and FIERCE has been in lockstep with the community as they opposed various plans submitted by pri-vate developers. FIERCE doesn’t want to see the waterfront drastically transformed and the one place where many queer youth go to

feel at home just disappear. But more than that, they don’t want to see the park gobbled up by a developer that doesn’t have the com-munity’s best interests at heart.

In the beginning, FIERCE showed up at public hearings and community board meet-ings en masse, with signs and banners and T-shirts. They were angry and they were loud

We Proudly Salute The Gay Community

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FIERCE switches from protest signs to PowerPoint

Villager photos by John Bayles

FIERCE members strategize at their headquarters before a Community Board 2 Waterfront Committee meeting.

Continued on page 19

‘We’ll certainly protest when we need to, but we’ll be doing it in a

way that shows we’re viable stakeholders in

the community.’

Rickke Mananzala, FIERCE executive

director

June 24 - 30, 2009 19

and they let people know exactly what they wanted, whether it was to protest a curfew on the pier or to demand more police account-ability in the face of harassment. But as things evolve in the park, so does FIERCE. Recently they joined with the Urban Justice Center, a group that lends legal expertise to nonprofi ts. Earlier this year, along with U.J.C., FIERCE issued its fi rst “white paper,” detailing exactly what they believe the park Trust should pay attention to moving forward.

Marshall said it was a deliberate move to put down the protest signs and pick up the PowerPoint presentations. But she was quick to make clear that the “R” in FIERCE stands for “radical” and they will always be a radical group regardless of how much they cater to the system, such as using legal language to make a point instead of activist rhetoric to make demands. Marshall said simply the fact that they are young and they are demanding to be heard makes them radical.

Azrael Morales is 22 and has been a FIERCE member for a little more than a year.

“Even though I’m 22, and a lot of [the members] are much younger, we have a cause, we have something to fi ght for and we want to be heard,” he said. “I’ve learned that I can be taken seriously.”

At the heart of FIERCE is the belief that everyone has a voice and everyone should be counted. When he joined, Morales said he didn’t know much about the issues with the waterfront.

“Desiree said they’re proper protocols, that we don’t want to just come out like angry people,” said Morales. “We want to do it in the proper way and show we’re also part of the community.”

Mananzala also spoke to the idea of becoming more organized.

“That shift has helped us clarify what our goals are,” said Mananzala. “We’ll certainly protest when we need to, but we’ll be doing it in a way that shows we’re viable stakeholders in the community.”

Currently, the redevelopment of Pier 40 lies in limbo. So without an R.F.P. open at the moment, FIERCE fi nds itself left looking at the bigger picture. Mananzala said the long-range goal was to get the youth drop-in center on Pier 40. If that doesn’t happen, he said whatever goes on the pier, FIERCE wants to ensure that the community has a say.

“The bigger picture, of course, is making sure the West Village is a safe place for our community,” he said. “Are we offering solu-tions that are just benefi ting us or ones that will benefi t everyone in the community? That has shown the community that we’re serious about saving it,” said Mananzala.

On Thursday it was decided they would try to bring at least 35 members to the meet-ing the following Monday; power in numbers. Someone made the suggestion to lower the number because having too many “kids” could be a bad thing and would look too “immature.”

Marshall reminded everyone that FIERCE owed its existence explicitly due to that train of thought.

“Our members are so used to being dis-missed so quickly, or not even asked,” said Marshall. “It’s like we’re not even acknowl-edged. As youth, that’s what were taught: We should be seen and not heard. And when we’re heard too loudly, we’re doing some-thing wrong.”

The Christopher St. Pier is also a recruit-ing ground of sorts for FIERCE. Because so many L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color hang out there, it’s a natural means of increasing the group’s membership base. John Blasco, 20, runs the base-building component at FIERCE. He was at the pier two years ago when a member of the organization’s outreach team approached him, and he just recently made the transition to staff. Because FIERCE is a membership-led organization, his peers had to vote on his promotion.

“For me and for my friends, before we came into the organization we didn’t know much about what was going on,” Blasco said. “We didn’t know about the redevelopment at Pier 40. Besides the amazing energy and just feeling safe, we’ve learned so much.”

Together we will fight for and achieve marriage equality. Together we will achieve needed health care and funding for LGBT services. HAPPY PRIDE !

Maria Passannante-DerrCandidate For New York City Council, 3rd District

917-838-5723 / www.MariaForCouncil09.com

When the road to equality looks long,remember how much ground we’ve covered in 40 years.

As we now inch closer to equality, let’s celebrate our victories and renew our fight!

Happy Pride,

Assemblymember Deborah J. GlickProud to be a leader in our march toward equality.

853 Broadway, Suite 1518, New York, NY 10003

Tel: 212-674-5153 / Fax: 212-674-5530glickd@assembly.state.ny.us

Desiree Marshall, lead organizer of FIERCE.

Continued from page 18

20 June 24 - 30, 2009

I’M WOOD, I’M GOOD... GET USED TO IT.

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BY WARREN ALLEN SMITHI “outed” a straight. Not a gay. A straight!

Listen up.After what some of us considered “just a

happening” in June 1969 at the Stonewall, not what one day would be credited with being a turning point of the contemporary gay rights movement, several of us participants formed Veterans of Stonewall (V.O.S.) in the mid-1990s.

Stephen van Cline volunteered to head the group, Sylvia Rivera volunteered to help raise funds and threw a party complete with enter-tainment, and I volunteered to be treasurer, after fi nding that money from Sylvia’s party was spent without any record of where it went.

With the less than $50 profi ts from the party that I was given, I started a Veterans of Stonewall checking account at Amalgamated Bank, insisting that both the president and the treasurer had to sign all checks. Except for meeting annually and marching at the front of at least fi ve of the annual gay parades, however, V.O.S. transacted no further business.

Meanwhile, the bank charged monthly fees for such a small account, and when the fees rep-resented more than the interest received, I sug-gested to van Cline that we close the account.

As treasurer I started by interviewing all prospective members, separating them into (a) were defi nitely there that week; (b) were not there but had been to the bar a little or a lot; and (c) were simply friends of our group.

Van Cline’s written statement to me indi-cated that he clearly was in the fi rst group:

“The fi rst night was probably the most dra-matic and the most meaningful to me, because that was the night I was directly involved. My lover and I were stunned and thrilled to see our own kind talking back, berating the cops, and throwing pennies. After seeing the gratuitous bloody beatings in front of us and being called names, we began throwing bricks and cobble-stones at the bar, which suddenly became the symbol of our oppression. The second night,

Saturday, which we observed from the relative safety of the Rivera Cafe, was more violent and chaotic with more people, including outsider agitators. The third night was reported to be less violent. I got up early Monday morning (June 30th) in my apartment, a few blocks away on 15th Street, to the sound of heavy rain. I returned to my other art gallery in the country and the rain continued through Tuesday (July 1st). Many say the rain kept people from return-ing to riot. It is my opinion that we were going about getting the week rolling and involved in endless discussions of the meaning of what had happened. We did not get angry again until word got around, and the newspaper reports about the riots had widely circulated. Quite a few people returned on Wednesday (July 2nd). My only direct experience with activities that night was seeing bloodied people lying on the 7th Ave. sidewalk and against the buildings around the corner from the bar. There was action on Thursday night (July 3rd).”

Van Cline, however, was nowhere to be found. I could not get through to him by telephone or e-mail to sign the check. When I snail-mailed him to the addresses of van Cline & Davenport, Ltd., 1581 Route 202, Suite 179, Pomona, NY 10970; and to 3257, Route 10, Ashland, NY 12407 (518) 734-4357, asking him to phone or write, the letter to Ashland was returned, “Not Known.”

Thus ended V.O.S.My 1969 Stonewall friend Danny Garvin

had always been skeptical — he is one of the few who really were there on the fi rst night, although hundreds claim they were. So was another veteran, Jim Fouratt, who believes that not even Sylvia Rivera was there the fi rst night.

Part of the mystery was solved on April 15, 2006, when van Cline called me from (201) 337-4446 and said, “Yes, I am a big fake. I was trying to write a novel. I am

Figuring out the real riotsveterans has been a battle

Photo by Warren Allen Smith

Sylvia Rivera, left, and Stephen van Cline

Continued on page 21

June 24 - 30, 2009 21

not gay, but in order to obtain information about what it was like to have been gay in the 1960s, I joined the veterans groups. Only Sylvia Rivera saw through me, and I don’t know why she didn’t expose me to the others of you. Not only am I not gay, I have two children who now are in their 30s. My name is not Stephen van Cline but, no, I will not tell you what it really is. My business, van Cline & Davenport, Ltd., is called that, but Davenport also does not exist. I did have an art gallery fairly near the Stonewall, so technically I was near the riots when they occurred. But I was not involved and the information I wrote for you and which you put up onto the Web should be removed, for it is not true. William[son] Henderson, I think, is an even bigger fake. He could have been a character in my novel. … Yes, you have every reason to be angry with me, and I regret that the Amalgamated Bank account was depleted because you could not fi nd me and checks required both our signatures. At least we meant well to make sure that funds would be honestly accounted for. Yes, I have a terminal liver illness and the prognosis is that I will live only a few more years — that is why I wrote you, in order to clear my conscience. Am I religious? Well, I’m a Christian Scientist. No, I gave up on writing the novel. I did learn how diffi cult life was for homosexuals, but I am truly sorry to have posed as one and deceived all of you.”

If you Google van Cline and his appraisal

company, you’ll fi nd that he’s apparently still in business. Was he threatened with death by someone who, like Sylvia, doubted he was involved except for the prospect of making money? Does he really have two children, and was he really a novelist? Journalists in the Pomona and Ashland areas might well do an investigative column about all this.

So what are my thoughts on the 40th anniversary? First, although I’m a gay jour-nalist who has outed a few gays in my British column starting back in 1996, I never imag-ined I’d ever out a straight, if indeed that’s what van Cline is.

Second, I am honored at being called a veteran of the event that transformed the gay civil rights movement into one that caught the world’s attention. It’s as important as my also having been a veteran who led his company in 1944 onto Omaha Beach in Normandy.

Third, the building that houses the present Stonewall had two sections, and the original bar with the two jukeboxes was in the build-ing just to the east of where the present bar is. It was here that many of us called home — a place where you could slow dance with old or new friends, where we couldn’t care less that it was grimy and Mafi a-connected, for it was home base. Before the building’s two sec-tions are sold to a Starbucks or other chain, it is imperative that the site be purchased and remade into a historical museum, one that is redesigned into a replica of what the Stonewall originally looked like, a place worthy of repre-senting the gay civil rights movement, not only now, but for decades to come.

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On the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, I congratulate Robert Pinter for being a voice in

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Continued from page 20

22 June 24 - 30, 2009

INTERVIEWS AND PHOTOS BY RITA WU

TIFFENAY BLACK27, lives in East New York, works at Fresh Direct

Why do you like coming to the pier?

It’s the people. It’s the life. Doesn’t even matter if it’s lesbians, gays. It’s good vibes, basically.

How does your neighborhood treat you?

I just go to work and go home. I don’t chill outside, because it’s dangerous the neighborhood I’m in.

Does it have to do with your sexuality?

No, I don’t even think my sexuality has anything to do with it because from what I’ve learned a lot of people appreciate it. It’s 2009, like c’mon, you don’t have cable? You don’t watch “The L Word”? You know what it is already. That’s just how it is. I’m not afraid. My neighbor-hood is good besides the crime.

How long have you been coming here?

Wow. I’ve been coming to the pier since my junior high school years. That’s what? Since ’96.

How often do you come here?

When I’m off of work. When I get the time. When the weather’s nice, like now. Close to summer.

Do you notice a difference from before and coming here now?

I believe it’s the same way. You can’t really say the pier is actually for gay people. It’s for everyone. It’s more casual now. Less violence. It’s real nice.

What do you do while you’re here?

I converse with my peers. If I’m single, I try to min-gle.

Is it easy to meet people here?

I mean, basically, if you could converse. If you could start a good conversation, then of course you can meet anyone. This is the reading level I’m on. [Takes out “A - Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers” from her bag.] He [Jeffrey Dahmer] wanted someone to be around for companion-ship. That’s why I’m not judgmental, because you can’t judge someone. Basically, a lot of people have a lot of problems, a lot of issues from their childhood. Especially minorities; they can’t go to psychologists and different stuff like that to be evaluated at a young age. So, there-fore, I understand what he went through. He was a can-nibal. He was just looking for companionship.

Are there other neighborhoods you like to hang out in?

I mean I don’t really hang out because of my age. I don’t hang out on the block. I’m a minority and the way that I dress I will be stopped by the D’s — detectives, decoys. Plus I blow marijuana. I don’t care if it’s on tape. We need to legalize it, Obama. But, anyway, this is what I do. If I come to the Village I’m going to Henrietta Hudson’s. It’s a bar, different races. You have to be 23 or older. It’s a good crowd. It’s the type of crowd I like to hang around.

Do you see regulars out here?

With the heterosexuals, no. On the weekdays, a lot of the high school kids be out here like after school.

What about residents complaining about the noise the gay youth make when they leave the pier after the park’s 1 a.m. curfew?

Oh yeah, you pay thousands of dollars in rent, you don’t want all that noise. It’s like living next to a train sta-tion. Why would you want that? I’d curse their ass out.

What was your best experience here?

Finding a job at Crazy Nanny’s; now it’s Luke and Leroy’s. This was around 2003. That was the best, to be just working in the limelight. I met a lot of stars. I met Queen Latifah. I met an artist by the name of Monifah. I saw a lot of NBA, WNBA stars. Different things like that.

The worst experience?

The worst experience I can say, maybe Pride, fi ghts breaking out.

Do you think this will always be a gay meeting spot?

A lot of gay kids I have talked to say that they come here because they feel they aren’t accepted in their neigh-borhoods. And that’s true. I have one little girl here who’s younger than me who told me she looks up to me, and I told her don’t say that. But in all reality, I think for me, bringing her out here opened her to a whole new concept

just to see so many of us in this light and how we can come down here and be just free about it and don’t have to worry about anybody with gestures and making comments and frowning, you know. I believe that this is a good place for us. And I hope it stays here.

Is there anything about the pier you would change?

The rodents. There are big rats that come out of that grass over there. And more stores that are convenient, instead of us walking all the way up there to the store.

DARIUS BROWN 30, lives in Harlem, works as a production associate at a TV network

CORNELIUS JONES 31, lives in Harlem, works as an actor

JOAN HENRY and MARSHA MILLSBoth live in Brooklyn

Why do you like coming to the Village?

D.B.: I like it ’cause it’s calming. It’s not like New York. I like to bring the dog, usually. I just think it’s peaceful. I like to come and feel comforta ble and see other gay people. And it’s just feels free sometimes to be myself and the pier, too. I just like to come and catch the rays of the sun and walk with the breeze. Makes me feel like I’m in California or something, gives me the best of both worlds. You have the water and you have the people and you walk back to the Village and its congested and, you know, it’s fun.

The neighborhood has been changing in recent years, with all the new high-priced condos along the waterfront, espe-cially. How is that changing things in your view?

D.B.: I would hope that the people that do come down

Out on the boardwalk, they’ll be having some fun

Tiffenay Black

Darius Brown

June 24 - 30, 2009 23

here, the people that move here, ’cause I know that this is like a jewel to be right here on the water, that they respect the community and they understand that this is a haven for a lot of people, you know, especially implants coming from different parts of the city, different cities and states that aren’t comfortable being who they are, can come down here and be comfortable and, you know, just be free.

A few years ago, the Hudson River Park Trust consid-ered putting up gates to keep all the gay youth leaving the park at 1 a.m. from exiting onto Christopher St. What do you think of that?

D.B.: I think the beauty of New York is that everybody, even the rich and the poor, everybody lives amongst one another. Everybody is able to thrive in the city whether they’re gay or straight, black or white, Asian. That’s the beauty of the city, it’s a tossed salad. ... Go get a mansion and put gates around that. Don’t come to the city and try to put up gates.

C.J.: This is a public place. Let it just be what it is. Don’t take things away from people. You got money, move Upstate somewhere, get your nice little land, get your acres, make your own little pond if that’s what you want, make life somewhere else. Don’t take what’s been established, what’s been a sort of haven for people, a safe place for the young kids to come and be themselves, don’t take that away, ’cause you know there’s nowhere else for people to go. Or if you want to find a balance, come out here and talk to people. Find an agreement. Work with the community.

D.B.: It’s like Chi Chiz bar. I think it’s been a relic in the community. I think they’ve been trying to close it for years. But initially, through ignorance, I didn’t like to come to the bar ’cause it was a hole in the wall. But then I started going and met the people there, really good people that have been coming there for years. It’s like they, you know, this is a part of their life. They like this bar, they come, the drinks are cheap, they play good music, they shoot pool in there, and it’s like a neighbor-hood hangout for these older gay guys. I feel like you said, that if these people actually came out and met some of these kids.

C.J.: Talk to people. You cannot judge a book by its cover.

D.B.: Yeah, they’re up there on their 17th-floor con-dos judging.

C.J.: I mean we all have our own little, I guess, snap judgments of people, but you never really know who people are till you actually go and talk to them. Like we just met these two women [Henry and Mills] out here today.

D.B.: If we talk to each other we’ll find out that we are a lot more similar than we are different.

M.M.: It’s like what you said with these condos. Soon it’s gonna change. Soon it’s just gonna be people with money over here.

D.B.: They are gonna try to make it private.

C.J.: Yeah, and they’re not gonna wanna be amongst us. It’s like, “We’re amongst the commoners. We don’t like that.” That’s the truth.

J.H.: If they take it over we have to find a gay town — and when we go to that town, they come and buy it out again.

M.M.: We have to create another gay town ’cause remember, they create this for us and now this is chang-ing. Look at Brooklyn, it’s changing. They’re gonna make it another mini-Manhattan. So maybe we’ll find a place in Brooklyn, and then maybe they’ll come and take that away, too.

How did you hear about the Christopher St. Pier?

J.H.: Oh man. I don’t know. One day I just passed and I saw over here and I walked and “Oh, gay people. Ooh, thank God.” I said, “Yeah, my people,” and that’s how I started to come here.

M.M.: You know what they should do? They should put a nice monument of two men or two women up here in the middle to let them know that this is gay land right here. ... Everybody comes here and they know that this is their place. All they see is the monument and they know that this is home. I feel that they should do that. I’ve always thought that. It could be done if everybody wants it. We could sign a...

D.B.: Petition.

M.M.: Also, if you’re curious too, you can come down here to see if your heart really beats for the same or the opposite. But you know, it takes one look to know if you really like someone the same, you know, that’s all it takes.

J.H.: Gay thing is not a game or a tested thing. You gay, you gay — that’s the way I see it. I was 5 years old and I knew I was gay.

M.M.: Five years old!

C.J.: I knew I was gay at that age, too.

J.H.: Excuse me, but I’m gay. I was born gay.

M.M.: I don’t even remember at 5. I don’t remember 5 years old.

J.H.: I remember. You know what? I was in love with my teacher and I was like, “Oh, my God,” you know.

Marsha Mills

Cornelius Jones

24 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY GABRIEL ZUCKER “When I fi rst came to New York, I

didn’t have a lot of sense of direction,” said Brandon Butler, a 19-year-old student at Columbia, who goes by the name Paris. “I was in need of help.”

As Butler tells it, he found that help at The Door, a comprehensive youth services center based in Soho. “The Door was a place for me to be myself, and an opportunity for me to help out other youth,” he said.

The Door, founded in 1972, provides ser-vices in several areas, including adolescent healthcare, careers and education, mental health, creative arts and legal services. But for some of The Door’s regulars, one of its biggest assets is the role it plays as a haven for gay and lesbian youth like Paris.

“Everyone accepts you here,” concluded Paris with a smile.

“Safe space is always an issue for L.G.B.T.Q. kids,” explained Karen Remy, The Door’s director of mental health and per-sonal development, who oversees much of the organization’s L.G.B.T.Q. programming. And The Door is a substantial safe space, too; the center fi lls several fl oors of a large building on Broome St., between Sixth Ave. and Varick St., open to youth from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. “I don’t know how many square feet we are,” laughed Remy.

Although it features a good deal of L.G.B.T.Q.-specifi c programming, The Door maintains an inclusive philosophy in its work.

“What’s unique is the fact that our L.G.B.T.Q. services are integrated into the youth population at large,” said Remy. Queer youth “participate in the gamut of things we do here. We’re like a little microcosm of society.”

“The Door’s L.G.B.T.Q. programming is unique because it reaches so far beyond just that population of young people,” said Dianne Morales, The Door’s executive direc-tor, in a statement. “While we have developed targeted programming for the L.G.B.T. popu-lation — like the Kiki Function and some of our workshops and peer groups — even our overall programming refl ects the L.G.B.T.Q. youth we serve, just as it refl ects our Latino, black, Asian, foster care, immigrant and court-involved members.”

Still, The Door’s specifi cally L.G.B.T.Q. programs are quite popular, bringing in 465 participants in the last 11 months. Many of the programs are forums dealing with L.G.B.T.Q.-related issues, including Love, Sweat and Tears, which discusses adolescent relationships; the Gay-Straight Alliance; and GenderWhere, which explores issues related to sexuality.

For Morales, the program that “most refl ects our philosophy in working with the L.G.B.T.Q. community” is the Kiki Function. In association with a handful of other youth service providers, The Door holds mini-balls with competitive voguing, intended for gay youth who aren’t old enough to attend balls throughout the city. But The Door’s balls are unique.

“When we started having these mini-balls,

we realized that they’re very competitive and could be intimidating for young people who don’t know how to dance or who’ve never seen this before,” Morales explained. “We found a way to fl ip the system and turn these contests into a really positive experience for everyone involved. Now Kiki Functions include work-shops on learning the basics and we’ve begun to nurture a group of young leaders in the com-munity who go out to other organizations and help them run positive competitions.”

Many of these L.G.B.T.Q. programs exist thanks to the work of youth who frequent The Door.

“It’s youth-oriented programming — pro-grams that young people at The Door ask for,” said Remy. “In many cases they help to facili-tate. We make them part of the planning.”

Paris has taken the spirit of involvement to heart; just a year and a half after fi rst coming to The Door, he is integral to much of the orga-nization’s L.G.B.T.Q. programming. He spoke with particular energy about his work on the Kiki Function.

“We teach them the basic elements of the ballroom scene, and how to have self-esteem,” he said. “We let them know that, no matter who you are, as long as you try, you can always become better.”

Paris was also an instrumental part of the planning for The Door’s L.G.B.T.Q. prom last Friday — “The theme we are going for is ‘A Night in Egypt,’” he explained — and the orga-nization’s elaborate Pride March fl oat, which has

won the Best Float prize two years in a row.“When The Door started marching in the

parade they started out just holding a banner,” laughed Remy. This year, youth at The Door have choreographed their dance to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” she said, adding that “we’re going for our third in a row.”

“This year we’ll be taking the prize again,” Paris assured.

Meanwhile, for his next plan, Paris is getting a step team together. He has been stepping for 10 years.

“I do it very well,” he said, smiling mod-estly.

The Door also does crucial outreach work on the Christopher St. Pier, tradition-ally a hotspot for L.G.B.T.Q. youth, on Friday and Saturday nights. The work began in 2006, with a grant from the City Council, after complaints from residents and busi-nesses in the area about noise from young people hanging out in the area.

The Door’s outreach specialists provide counseling and referrals to the young people on the pier. The work is especially important because many of those L.G.B.T.Q. youth are homeless or street-involved. Forty percent of New York City’s homeless youth are L.G.B.T.Q. In the last 11 months, The Door has made 1,300 outreach contacts on and around the pier.

Aside from the benefi ts to the L.G.B.T.Q. youth themselves, community members say

I stand with you for full marriage equality. Warm wishes for a terrific Pride celebration!

Alan J. Gerson51 Chambers St., Suite 429, New York, NY 10007(212) 788-7722 / FAX (212) 788-7727E-mail: agerson@council.nyc.gov

Through The Door, fi nding a place to grow and learn

Continued on page 25

June 24 - 30, 2009 25

the organization’s outreach efforts have been very effective in addressing the original complaints.

“My view is that the work they did has been fabulous. It would be 10 times worse if it weren’t for them,” said Arthur Schwartz, chairperson of Community Board 2’s Waterfront Committee. “They’ve made an impossible situation manageable.”

He noted with relief that funding for The Door’s outreach work had found its way into the 2009-2010 city budget.

The Door’s work on the pier, according to Remy, has made many in the community “look to us as advocates.” She noted that the organization had been invited to a pre-Gay Pride safety forum with the Police Department, M.T.A. and Port Authority.

Back at The Door on a recent afternoon, the building’s open, brightly painted ground fl oor was teeming with young people. Several huddled around a game of Bingo, while several more availed themselves of the organization’s Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) video-game machines, which are “very popular,” said Remy. In various corners, others pored over homework assignments.

As Remy walked through the building, she was greeted by smiles and high-fi ves from the young people who have gotten to know her during their years at The Door.

“It’s about providing a space for young people that is safe, and that has caring and trustful adults — about being a trustful adult to these people,” she said. “It’s an honor when young people let you take that role.”

For Paris — who said he spends time at The Door when-ever “it doesn’t interfere with my scheduling” — what this place and its staff provide is something he couldn’t have done without.

“I’d probably be at home sitting in front of the TV watch-ing something,” if not for The Door, he said. And if this welcoming refuge had not been there at all?

“I would probably be stranded out in the streets.”

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Young adults relax and socialize in The Door’s ground-fl oor space with a game of bingo.

Continued from page 24

26 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY KATE WALTERI can’t say I was shocked that Dick

Cheney came out in favor of gay mar-riage.

My 87-year-old traditional Irish Catholic mother has also come a long way since I came out to my parents more than 30 years ago. She too gets what it’s like to have a gay daughter.

Just last summer when I went to the Jersey Shore to spend a few days at the family beach house, my mother got more clues when we took a jaunt together. Whenever I go down the shore, I fit in a trip to my favorite thrift shop in nearby Manasquan, where I score my college teacher wardrobe. I was a frugal person way before the recession started. I discov-ered this place years ago with my fashion-plate ex, who was a collector into buying and reselling. Now I go there with my elderly mother and later I model my pur-chases for my clotheshorse 17-year-old niece. Shannon tells me if her Aunt Kate is on the right track. I smile when I get compliments from colleagues, “Nice, very chic,” about my designer pants or shirts that cost five or six dollars.

“When do you want to go to the shop?” Mom asked as soon as I got settled in.

She liked going to this resale place, too, so we made plans for the next morning.

I live in the West Village and don’t own a car, but visiting at the beach was one

of the rare occasions when I drove. My mother’s driving scared me and since she encouraged me to “keep my hands on the wheel,” I adjusted the seat and we were off. Soon we were over the bridge and into the next county. The thrift shop parking lot was packed, odd for a Monday.

Turns out it was a special donor day with extra workers. We went to the town lot.

The store is a nonprofit run by friend-ly volunteers from the Visiting Nurses Association of New Jersey; it’s a long, roomy building, like a big garage. The clothes are neatly organized by size; the place has dressing rooms, even a bath-room. The items are cheaper than the pop-ular Housing Works stores in Manhattan. While browsing here, I was not likely to find a vintage black Eddie Bauer T-shirt (like I did in the city) but this preppy, upscale town was perfect for business casual attire.

After shopping for almost an hour, I had tried on — and rejected — eight pairs of pants, but I scored a pair of mauve Gloria Vanderbilt jeans with a snug and sexy fit. I usually check out with more than one item but every visit is different. My mother was in another aisle and I walked over to see if she was finished. I was almost ready to leave but planned to take one last sweep through the pants.

When I returned to that rack, I heard

one worker say to another, “Did you see Ellen get married on TV? That gave me the creeps. Did you see it?” she repeated, goading her co-workers to resonate with her homophobia, “It was creepy.”

I looked right at her. She had dyed blonde hair and was about my age — in her late 50s.

“So Ellen DeGeneres got married. Well, good for her,” I said in a loud snappish tone. “I think that’s terrific.”

The woman was startled and looked up. I was wearing baggy surfer shorts, san-dals and a hoodie; my hair was a mess. She obviously never expected anyone to call her on her prejudiced opinion. It felt as if this volunteer was perfectly comfortable tearing apart my life and the consequences of my not being able to get married in New York or New Jersey. I would have carried on more had my mother not been on the premises, but I decided not to cause a scene. I’d gotten my point across and hopefully she’d think twice before mouth-ing off like that in public. I was stunned and couldn’t imagine anyone saying some-thing that offensive in my neighborhood. Made me glad I live in the Village.

Her use of the word “creepy” infuri-ated me. Her personal revulsion at two women being together upset me more than the tired religious or political opposition. What could be creepy about two women in love getting married? Why shouldn’t gays and lesbians have the same rights as every other American citizen? (I would be bet-ter off financially if my ex and I had been legally married. New York City’s domestic partnership was a joke.)

On the other hand, I thought it was cool that we had a lesbian with such iconic status that she was recog-nized by her first name — like Oprah,

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Continued on page 27

June 24 - 30, 2009 27

Madonna or Cher. And it was great that we had gay celebrities making their com-mitment public. Ellen and Portia had been married in August in a small ceremo-ny and Ellen waited a few weeks to release a wedding video on her show.

It was scary to wonder what the rest of the country thought if this was the opinion of a charity worker in a blue state with civil unions for queer couples. The town where this exchange took place was only a few miles from Asbury Park, whose real estate renaissance was spearheaded by artists and gays. Monmouth County was known to be gay friendly.

I barely remember paying for the jeans, and when we got back to the car, I was visibly shaken.

“What’s the matter?” said my mother. “You seem upset.”

“Some stupid woman made a nasty remark about Ellen marrying her girl-friend, and I told her off.”

“Oh,” said my mother, who was used to her volatile middle child. “Some people are not ready for that yet.”

“Are you?” I asked as I peeled out of the parking lot.

My mother never answered but I recalled how a few years ago she instantly got the ramifications of my breakup. (“It’s just like getting a divorce,” she said at the time.)

She understood my pain and was totally supportive. My widowed mother became my role model for grieving. If she could survive the death of her husband of 57 years, I could get through my trauma. Her concern changed our relationship, and we got closer. So I knew that if I ever tied the knot, my mother would be there.

“Slow down,” Mom ordered. “We’ll have an accident. You could have ignored that lady.”

“And let her get away with it?” I said as I merged into traffic. “That’s not me.”

My mother was correct — I could have ignored the remark, but I felt compelled to respond. I would have felt worse if I let it slide. This unpleasantry was not how I wanted to start my mini-vacation but I refused to let this incident spoil my beach break.

Since that encounter in the thrift shop, voters in California (who presumably shared that woman’s opinion) overturned gay and lesbian marriage at the ballot box and protests erupted around the nation. I was at City Hall screaming my head off. Last month, the California Supreme Court upheld that ban, and thousands protested at Union Square, decrying that decision and demanding marriage equality in New York State.

When I do meet the next Ms. Right, I expect to have the same options as my straight siblings. Just for the hell of it, I’d like to return to that store and browse for formal attire for my big queer wedding.

St. Mark’s Church celebratesGay Pride MonthSunday, June 28 at 11 a.m.

This Gay Pride Service will feature:Musique led by Mary Seymour, Renoly Santiago, Earl Giaquinto, Miss Velvita Louise a.k.a. James Solomon Benn, Jahneen, Larry Marshall, Nanette Natal

The Vissi Dance Theater with excerpts from “Butch Queen in Pumps”Courtney Ffrench, Artistic Director

The Rev. Winnie Varghese, Priest in ChargeJeannine Otis, Music DirectorSt. Mark’s Church in the Bowery

Join Us in Celebrating Life!

St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery131 East 10th St. at 2nd Avenue 212-674-6377 / www.stmarkschurchbowery.org

Assembly Member Dick Gottfried

wishes you a

Happy Pride!• Representing Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown, Murray Hill, and part of the Lincoln Center area

• Chair, NYS Assembly Health Committee

• Same Sex Marriage bill, co-sponsor

• GENDA (Transgender rights), sponsor

• Leads the Fight for Funding for HIV and other services for the LGBT community

Dick Gottfried’s Community Office: 242 West 27th St., ground floor

Ph: 212-807-7900 E-mail: gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us

Happy Gay Pride Month! Join us & celebrate after the parade!

Judson Memorial

Church 55 Washington Square South

(212) 477-0351

www.judson.org

Judson Church joins the LGBT community in celebrating

Gay Pride Week! Join us Sunday’s at 11:00

June 28 Guest Preacher – Paul Bradley “Pride Outside Our Comfort Zones”

Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome at Judson!

Continued from page 26

28 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY RITA WU A trailblazing facility when it was created, the Hetrick-

Martin Institute this year is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The organization is the country’s oldest and largest agency serving the needs of gay and lesbian youth.

Located on Astor Place near Broadway, the institute offers academic-enrichment and job-readiness programs, ranging from college prep classes, an on-site G.E.D program and computer training to career counseling and in-house intern-ships. Also available are a variety of art and culture courses, including dance and theater.

Supportive services include free weekday meals, coun-seling and help fi nding housing. Last year, Hetrick-Martin assisted more than 1,000 L.G.B.T.Q. (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning) youth and their families.

As part of Hetrick-Martin Institute’s 30th anniversary, a roundtable panel discussion was held two weeks ago with founding and current staff members to look at the organiza-tion’s impact on L.G.B.T.Q. youth and to examine what has and hasn’t changed in the past three decades. In 1979, two educators on gay and lesbian issues who were life partners, Dr. Emery Hetrick, a psychiatrist, and Dr. Damien Martin, a professor at New York University, created the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth. In 1988 it was renamed Hetrick-Martin Institute in honor of its founders.

In turn, Hetrick-Martin Institute became the host agency for the Harvey Milk High School, a small public school cater-ing to at-risk L.G.B.T.Q. youth. Hetrick-Martin manages the entire facility, but the Department of Education operates the school, and accepts applications for prospective students.

H.M.I. began as an advocacy program.“It started as an answer to a social vacuum,” said Thomas

Krever, H.M.I.’s executive director. “This was the ’70s. No one was thinking about L.G.B.T. young people, at least not formally. Stonewall was still at its infancy, 10 years old at the time. So gay rights as a movement was the voice of adults. There were so many needs for children, as we unfortunately know today, gay or straight.”

That year, there was a story in the news of a boy who had been kicked out of his group home after he was gang raped. The incident was blamed on his homosexuality. Outraged, Hetrick and Martin mobilized community members. They wanted to provide support and social services to underserved L.G.B.T.Q. youth. This was the start of Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth. The fi rst several years, the two men made the rounds at events and lecture circuits, giving speeches and educating professionals.

Word spread and kids started showing up at their door.“We live in a country in which roughly 30 percent of young

people, upon coming out, are evicted from their homes,”

Krever noted. “So there was a huge social need. They fi lled the vacuum. They fi lled the void. So the fi rst services were mental health, counseling, crisis management — you know, people needing a place to sleep, young people considering suicide.”

Today the Hetrick-Martin Institute is essentially a full-service program, though it does not provide overnight beds. It is equipped with a full-time staff of social workers, mental health professionals and an after-school service. H.M.I. works with youths from all around New York City and the tri-state area.

“L.G.B.T. young people are far less provincial,” Krever said. “They will travel further for the same service. And if you think about why that is, when you’re dealing with issues of sexuality or gender identity and you are not out, it’s not safe to go to Boys and Girls Clubs or your YMCA or your local after-school program for risk of being outed. They like to, they prefer to travel outside of their geographical comfort zone — and will travel further for those services to avoid the coming out when they are not ready, and to remain anonymous.

“But once they come into Hetrick-Martin Institute, there’s no such thing as anonymity, because it’s all about community building, by dissolving the unknown between people so that people can engage and really fi nd common points, and not to create homogeneity, a homogeneous population. We’re celebrating our uniqueness, you know, the tossed salad versus a melting pot, where each item retains its individuality but blends together to all make an amazing product.”

Eighty percent of the youth that attend H.M.I. self-report verbal, mental and physical harassment at school. As a result, many never fi nish high school. L.G.B.T.Q. youth are three times as likely to drop out as heterosexuals. Many come to H.M.I. to “rebuild and repair the damage that has been infl ict-ed upon them,” Krever noted. But there are many that come in “doing really well, looking for a place to grow, survive.”

Krever credits the low level of incidents at H.M.I. to “a lot of premeditated hours, a lot of work focusing on client impact, policies and procedures, environmental design, pro-fessional development of our staff — how to go far beyond just confl ict negotiations and really rebuild young people.”

Beatriz Henriquez has been coming to H.M.I. on and off since 2003. She remembers her fi rst day as being “really lively, everybody was happy and smiling and nobody was ashamed of

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June 24 - 30, 2009 29

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who they were.” She had transferred to six dif-ferent high schools because of discrimination and needed a place where she felt comfortable.

“It’s defi nitely empowering,” she said. “It reminds me every day that I don’t have to hide who I am. This place affected me in a lot of ways, basically taught me that what-ever happens in your life, to keep pushing forward.”

Henriquez won this year’s Damien Martin Award, which is presented by other youth members to someone they see fi t as a standout in the youth community. Come September, Henriquez will be attending LaGuardia Community College in Queens.

The institute has a cutoff policy that limits members to 12 to 21 years old. Henriquez, 20, already has plans to come back and work as a counselor.

“I’m going to go to school, full time for two years, get my associate’s and come and apply here to work,” she stated.

H.M.I.’s after-school program runs Monday to Friday, from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Dinner is at 6 p.m., with programs every night. The program is open to anyone between 12 and 21, whether or not they are enrolled in school. A photo ID with age is required. Membership intakes are held Monday to Friday, from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. To schedule an appointment, call 212-674-2600 ext. 271. For more information, visit www.hmi.org.

Continued from page 28

30 June 24 - 30, 2009

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Tim Doody

Shrink is a head case

To The Editor:Re “Gerson Rashomon” (Scoopy’s

Notebook, June 17):I just read Scoopy’s latest news about a

Gerson-Horowitz incident which apparently happened two weeks ago. My own experi-ence with Mr. Horowitz about a week ago at a St. Joseph’s Church concert is that he’s got a nasty temper and has very little respect for women of whatever age.

I have previously noted that Mr. Horowitz, perhaps because he is a psychologist, has an enormous need for attention. I shall there-fore assume that Mr. Horowitz gave the story to Scoopy to boost himself for throwing a cell phone.

The whole article just indicates how silly things can get, how unruly Mr. Horowitz acted toward Sophie Gerson and how in need of publicity the Gleason campaign seems to be. So here’s a huzzah for Alan Gerson for his defense of his mother! And a

Bronx cheer for the other guy.

Sylvia Rackow

Healy had sense of absurd

To The Editor:Re “Robert Healy, 67, font of local politi-

cal history” (obituary, June 10):I read Bob Healy’s obituary in The

Villager with shock and sadness. Bob knew the judicial candidates better than rotisserie players know the ball players.

But Bob had a keen sense of the absurd. He wanted it understood that he was not related to Martin Healy, the district leader who was indicted for taking a bribe from a friend of the famously vanished Joseph Force Crater.

In fi lming Bob after a McManus Club func-tion for my movie on Judge Crater’s disappear-ance, however, I told him that he was headed to the spot where Crater was last seen. Bob said that he was waiting for the same cab.

Billy Sternberg

Ay, ay, ay, WBAI!

To The Editor:Re “WBAI at the turning point after

political infi ghting” (talking point, by Paul DeRienzo, June 17):

What a mess! Hopefully, they can get their acts together and get back to providing listeners with good material. Or, they could always do a pay-per-view smackdown to raise money!

Aton Edwards

Shocking comment

To The Editor:Re “WBAI at the turning point after

political infi ghting” (talking point, by Paul DeRienzo, June 17):

What WBAI needs is an electrician to wire Bob Fass’s control panel in a manner that each time he censors me he gets a pro-gressively stronger electric shock.

A. J. Weberman

Church hierarchy fails us

To The Editor:Re “Dolan celebrates ‘200 years of love’

at Old St. Pat’s” (news article, June 10):Beginning with Cardinal Egan and then

the pope and now Archbishop Dolan, the faithful of the closed Our Lady of Vilniusw Church have appealed to a mute wall. Their only hope to save their house of worship rests in the secular court.

Forget the empty talk about the devo-

tion of spiritual shepherds to their fl ock. It is more about fl eecing the fl ock for the benefi t of hierarchy. Forget the distinction between good and evil and only meditate about the almighty dollar. It is high time for parishioners to stand up for their rights against the greed of the anointed prelates!

Saulius Simoliunas

The row over Park Row

To The Editor:Re “Chinatown traffi c project now appears

to be stalled” (news article, June 10):The good news is there is a delay, thanks

in part to Councilman Alan Gerson. I don’t know if it is true that if Mayor Mike Bloomberg gets re-elected in November this project will start the day after, as was told to Jan Lee by a city official, but this is the first time I am considering not voting for Mayor Bloomberg.

Ora Gelberg

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 145 Sixth Ave., ground floor, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The Villager does not publish anonymous letters.

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Leichter loses vote, defends Pier 40 lease maneuvera 49-year lease for Pier 57. We have a 49-year lease for Chelsea Piers. You can’t get financing for a 30-year lease. We’re going to keep the field, and the commu-nity wants to kept the parking.”

While Leichter said he felt keeping the sports field in the pier’s courtyard “tends probably to be the preferable place,” he said he didn’t feel the park act should be amended to mandate that.

“I don’t think the legislation should define the design of Pier 40,” he said. “It can lay down principles.”

He admitted if the Trust issues a third R.F.P. that Related could well come back with its Cirque du Soleil mega-entertain-ment complex plan. Last year, Related was disqualified from the running when it said it couldn’t make its financials work within the pier’s 30-year lease restriction and needed a longer lease.

However, Leichter denied there’s any ulterior motive to cater to Related by changing the lease term. And he said the idea to ask the Legislature to change the lease length was his own idea, strongly denying that he was “a stalking horse for anybody.”

“The idea that this is to pave the way for Related is totally absurd,” he said. “I don’t like the Related proposal. …

Everybody agrees an educational institu-tion would be appropriate.”

Leichter said he personally is not a big fan of the parking on the pier, but under-

stands that the community wants it. The pier, in his view, would then need “one other use” to help generate revenue for the park. Of what that other use might be, he said, “Whatever we do, we want some-thing that’s acceptable to the community.” Prodded a bit for his view, he said a waterfront or maritime museum would be “great,” adding that the best uses would have some relation to the river.

Schools on the pier are not a sure bet anymore, either, he pointed out, since

with the real estate slump, more locations are available.

Leichter offered that a longer lease, as opposed to just helping Related, would actually aid “smaller groups, more inno-vative,” who would have a better chance at landing the lease.

“It wasn’t just Related that wanted a 50-year lease,” he noted, adding that developers behind another contending plan, The People’s Pier, had also preferred a longer lease.

He revealed that the Trust is also contemplating developing its own plan for the pier. He didn’t provide details, but from the sound of it, the Trust would come up with the plan, but not build it on its own, instead enlisting an outside developer.

“I want to see this park get built — hopefully before I die,” Leichter stressed. “We’ve come a long way. It’s exceeded my expectations. Pier 40 has been a stum-bling block. The pier’s in deteriorating condition. We’re losing parking spaces.”

Tobi Bergman, president of P3, a group advocating for youth sports in Greenwich Village, took issue with Leichter’s saying the advisory council can now lobby the Legislature after the Trust has passed the resolution.

“It’s basically ridiculous to say the advisory council can weigh in later,” Bergman said. “The advisory council was

created as part of the Hudson River Park Act as an advisory body to the Trust, not a lobbying group to the Legislature.”

As for Leichter saying the park act shouldn’t dictate that the field stay as is, Bergman said, “Thousands of happy users of Pier 40 want the courtyard fields pro-tected. Protecting the courtyard fields also defends the park and the community from mega-development of the pier while leav-ing plenty of space for park-compatible, income-generating uses. It’s not about legislating design. It’s about working with the community to find a unified way to move forward. As a borough president appointee to the Trust, Senator Leichter should be listening more to park users and the community.”

Arthur Schwartz, the advisory coun-cil’s president, forwarded to The Villager an e-mail he sent to Leichter, which said, in part: “Franz, there was no more of an emergency now than at any time in the last year. This just seems like a way to get a quick end-of-session, middle-of-the-night bill from the Legislature. You know that you got the Hudson River Park Act passed by building support and consen-sus; in fact, an affirmative vote from C.B. 2 was key to getting Assembly Speaker Silver’s blessing. What everyone objects to is an open-ended 49-year lease that would allow a Related-type project, as opposed to one like The People’s Pier.”

Continued from page 5

‘As a borough president appointee to the Trust, Senator Leichter should be listening more to park users and the community.’

Tobi Bergman,

P3 president

June 24 - 30, 2009 33

BY JERRY TALLMEREric Lane writes a play like a magic

lantern.At least “Heart of the City,” his new play,

is like a magic lantern; Ingmar Bergman’s magic lantern — a scene here, a scene there; two people, one person, three peo-ple, four people, piece by piece notching together. Then, suddenly interlocking like a surprise jigsaw puzzle. Instead of beauti-ful Swedes, however, you have ordinary Americans; New Yorkers — male, female, or in between; riding the #4 train in from Brooklyn to Manhattan; or waiting inter-minably for the doctor who’s to deliver the good verdict, or the bad; or taking off your shoes to relax in a massage chair in a hi-tech store under the eyes of a pretty salesgirl; or experiencing love through a window in the gaze of a soulful boa constrictor; or going with your brother to divide up all the stuff in that house where Mom, the survivor from Eastern Europe, lived and reigned for 43 years.

To me, the moment that jolts the whole play into life, like an unforeseen synthesiz-ing burst of electricity, is the contact at the feet of Simon Bolivar between Jemma (a 14-year-old loner smarter than her years) and Elizabeth (a good-looking 40-something waiting for her date with a guy who is late).

Elizabeth fi xes her lipstick.

JEMMA: that shit’ll kill ya.ELIZABETH: Excuse me?JEMMA: Lipstick. There are studies. Lab

rats. The shit they developed, you don’t wanna know.

ELIZABETH: You’re right, I don’t.JEMMA: Government studies. Big bucks

for putting Revlon on rat lips. Some world, huh?

ELIZABETH; I suppose. Look, do you know what time t is? (Jemma extends her arm, showing her watch.)

ELIZABETH: Thank you.JEMMA: You like Bolivar?ELIZABETH(Re the watch): Yes, it’s

lovely.JEMMA: Not the watch. The General.

Simon Bolivar. Big-ass statue and nobody even bothers. El Liberator. The George Washington of South America. Won inde-pendence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru. You want a tic-tac?

ELIZABETH: No thank you. If you don’t mind…Why don’t you go away?…I’m sure there’s another plaque somewhere in the park you can memorize. Bethesda Fountain or Cleopatra’s Needle. A wealth of informa-tion for a young girl of your perspicacity.

JEMMA: Nah. I’m meeting somebody.ELIZABETH: He won’t show.

JEMMA: He’s a she.

In fact the she is this very Elizabeth, and the gentleman Elizabeth is waiting for is not only very well known to the 14-year-old but he has dispatched her there to let Elizabeth know that he, her date, won’t show.

‘I love writing teenage characters. They seem to talk to me,” says playwright Lane, who declines to give his own age but can hardly be much more than twice a teenager. During rehearsal the actors loved that scene so well, he says, that it was dug into and developed further.

The Bolivar statue is where Sixth Avenue dead-ends at 59th Street. How well does Lane know that spot?

“I’m sure I’ve walked past it many times, like any other place in New York City,” he says. “Beautiful and amazing places you never notice. Well, this once I was out on a date there. My date said: ‘Let’s meet at the statue of Bolivar.’ ” Pause, pause. “It was the best part of the date.” A guy/guy date, if anyone wants to know.

Do you still take the #4 train to Manhattan?

“Not for a while. I now live in Sunnyside, Queens”— with partner Bob Barnett, a sce-nic artist and set designer. “The #7 train.”

Real people crisscross everywhere, like beating hearts, behind the characters in “Heart of the City.”

First there is Sue, also known (and separately played) as Shoshana, her younger self in the Old World, but now raging with impatience in the new against the oncoming of that dark night.

Is Sue in any way the playwright’s mother — the Phyllis Lane to whom he dedicates this work “with love and gratitude”?

“Yeah, defi nitely,” he says. “Part my mother, part my grandmother, part my aunt. My mother wasn’t an actress, though she did appear in Edgar’s Teenage Charm School radio show. I see pieces of my family mem-bers, pieces of my friends, pieces of myself, everywhere in here.

“So Sue is part my mom, part my grand-mother Fritzi Kramer, part my great-aunt Sue Wischer. There was a time two years ago when they all passed away, my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt. A period of intense emotion and grief and joy and dis-covery and love.”

And your father?“He had already passed away. He was

Burt Lane. Who did different things at dif-ferent times. In the textile business. Or on a Mrs. Smith’s Pie route. Or running a live

poultry market in Harlem, Amsterdam and 125th Street. Yeah, sure, I worked there — as a cashier; Thanksgiving and Christmases during high school and college.”

Brooklyn-born, he grew up in Wantagh, Long Island, “ten minutes from Jones Beach.” College was a BA from Brown University. He’s written about a dozen plays, and has a whole correlative career as co-editor (with Nina Shengold) of 11 Penguin and Vintage volumes of other people’s plays.

I think somebody ought to put “Heart of the City” between book covers.

VILLAGERARTS&ENTERTAINMENTStrong, searching women at the core of ‘Heart’Characters interlock ‘like a surprise jigsaw puzzle’

Photo by Jeramy Peay

Marcia Jean Kurtz and Martin LaPlatney

HEART OF THE CITYWritten by Eric Lane

Directed by Martha Banta

An Orange Thought production

Through June 28, at the Theatre at 30th Street

259 West 30th Street

(212) 868-4444, or smarttix.com.

THEATER

34 June 24 - 30, 2009

BY ELENA MANCINIUpon meeting Tribeca sculptor Linda

Stein for the first time, one is struck by the contrast of her no-nonsense New York spunk and the genuine warmth of her personality. Stein was hosting a book party at her intimate Reade Street gallery. In a low-key, approachable style, she gave the guests a brief introduction of the original and compelling art work that hung on her walls—which consisted of life-size feminine torsos made of brass, copper, sheet metal and wood or paper. Some were minimalistic in both form and matter, made from organic materials like stone, bone and beech wood; others, richly bejeweled and mixed into a hodge-podge of objects drawn from the everyday matter of post-industrial life and spiritual, archetypal textual matter and imagery. She called the sculpture series female knights of protection.

Stein, who was born and raised in the Bronx and seems as comfortable wield-ing heavy machinery as she is handling delicate parchment paper, is hardly the image of stereotypical feminine vulner-ability. Sacha Baron Cohen was quick to find this out the hard way by inviting her to participate in a bogus panel on third world women’s rights for his film and title role, “Borat.” When Stein caught on to the travesty, she let Baron Cohen have it and stormed off the panel.

And yet, it was her sense of dire vul-nerability (experienced during the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center) that took her in a new and unexpected direction — from abstract to figurative sculptor.

Stein, whose studio-gallery is located at a stone’s throw away from Ground Zero, was already at work when the planes attacked the Twin Towers. Upon hearing the sounds of the crashes, she and a few of her assistants ran northward holding hands to escape from what Stein

mistakenly thought was a bomb attack on the towers.

At the time, she also ran a premiere calligraphy business above her gallery and had been a Tribeca resident since the late seventies — but was forced to relocate to the Upper-East side for eight months. Even though the traumatic experience prevented her from sculpting for a full year, the artist was determined to return to Tribeca.

She explained that what initially attracted her to the neighborhood three decades ago was the fact that it had many artists, lofts and wasn’t yet commercial-ized. “Tribeca now has thousands of art-ists living in its lofts and apartment spac-es,” Stein observes. “So many celebrities. There are more theaters and performance spaces, and even restaurants catering to artists.” As for the Tribeca art scene, Stein weighs in on the gender element: “With so many experimental artists here, I would guess/hope that, as a demographic group, we are more open to gender fluidity and less prone to stereotypes and sexism than in more conservative neighborhoods.”

Evaluating the relative merits of the Tribeca art scene shows how far the area has come since Stein first contemplated moving here — when a cop helped her overcome concerns about the gritty and still largely under-populated area. Stein recalls the policeman telling her, “Lady, there’s nobody here, it’s the safest place around.” Even though the neighborhood has significantly gentrified since then, Stein still loves it because of the large art scene and the liberal mindset.

When Stein returned to making art after 9/11, she soon discovered the need to confront fears with symbols of empow-erment. Describing her creative process as being in the driver’s seat (but as the chauffeur, not always as the conscious and willful driver), she noted that while her previous subjects were abstract in character and mostly horizontal in form, her new sculptures began to take on ver-tical forms and to resemble human-like

figures in armor. A passionate feminist and a member

of the respected Veterans of Feminists of America organization, Stein had strong reactions to what she terms as the post-9/11 masculinization of war by the Bush administration and expresses these in her art. She was appalled by the gender-stereotyping in portrayal of heroes and victims in the media and among those in political office.

The male images of 9/11 were predom-inately those of strong, sacrificing heroes, while the female faces of the attacks consisted almost exclusively of the 9/11 victims and widows. It was as though the service and valor of the hundreds of female first response workers who had risked their lives and rescued the lives of many received virtually no recognition, let alone the celebratory gratitude that was directed to their male counterparts, Stein explained.

Stein’s sculpted armor is conceived in part as a corrective to this. Though, it initially troubled her at first that her sculptures seemed to invoke militancy (Stein has been a life-long pacifist), she came to realize that the power expressed by her knights was not about violence or bravado, but about strength and empow-erment. The knights did not contradict peace; rather, they create a relationship of compassion between the armored and those they seek to protect. As Stein expanded on this idea of armor bestow-ing the positive qualities of safety and valor, she began to bring powerful, female non-violent icons from her childhood, such as Wonder Woman. Eventually, the

invocation of female power in Stein’s work extended beyond the popular super-heroine to include the Japanese anime character Princess Mononoke and the Japanese goddess of justice and compas-sion, Kannon.

But irrespective of whichever power-ful, peaceful icons Stein summons into her sculptural pantheon, what seems to matter most to the artist and gender activ-ist is introducing a new paradigm of pro-tection: one that is peaceful, empowering and transcends gender.

In recent years, she has been exploring direct, interactive contact between her art and the public. Fascinated by the pos-sibilities of tricking the body by optical and sensory illusions and the empowering psychological states that can be generated by them, Stein has been designing her sculptures to be both displayed and worn. She also hopes her armor will be worn and experienced as a possibility to escape the male-female binary and experience more the fluidity of gender.

Most recently, the sculptor has been inviting the public, men and women alike to don her armor, dance in it and expe-rience it as a second skin. Stein aptly calls this experience “body-swapping.” She explains: “By wearing my sculptural knights, men and women can body swap genders and personas, feeling empowered and expansive.”

At a recent body-swapping event, danc-er Josie M. Coyoc (of Pilobolus Dance Company) performed a graceful, ritual-like dance to hypnotic Oriental rhythms as she wore Stein’s sculptures and carried a scepter in both hands. Coyoc seemed at one with the armor and moved as though she deeply identified with the powers of the icons she was wearing.

Later, the women and men at the party began to try on the armor. Some moved around sheepishly at first, while others immediately abandoned themselves to the feelings and experience of standing taller, wider and harder. Others still were happy to simply enjoy the sensory experience of the armor and moved as though the armor liberated them to dance and move expressively.

Besides admiring the aesthetic beauty of Stein’s sculptures, Coyoc admitted to wanting to own one of Stein’s sculptures for practical reasons as well: “I want to own one so that I can put it on when I need to give a difficult speech or ask for a raise and have no problem asking for what I want. And I’d probably get it too.”

So, if you’re looking to experience what it’s like to have someone have your back, Stein’s got you covered.

Stein’s art and armor can be expe-rienced at her 200 Read Street gallery, year-round, by appointment. For upcom-ing showings and events, visit her website at http://lindastein.com.

Artists & Writers Residencies

www.vermontstudiocenter.org

Questioning gender, confronting fear Tribeca sculptor conceives armor as empowering corrective

Photo courtesy of Stein Studios

Linda Stein, with (K)Night Figure 470 (2004; wood, metal, leather, fi ber, stone)

ARTIST PROFILE

June 24 - 30, 2009 35

BY RANIA RICHARDSONKnown as the “Grandmother of the French

New Wave,” Agnes Varda has been a prolifi c director since the 1950s — when she belonged to an artistic circle that included Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. In her new autobiographical fi lm, “The Beaches of Agnes” (Les plages d’Agnès) 80-year-old Varda pieces together a cinematic scrapbook to recap her colorful life and career.

The Villager spoke to Varda about her fi lm, in a small conference room above the Film Forum theater — where “The Beaches of Agnes” is set to screen from July 1 through 14. Clad in purple from head-to-toe (and acces-sorized with ethnic jewelry), her famous soup bowl haircut is dyed red, with white roots growing out in the shape of a cap.

“I’m an unidentifi ed fl ying object,” the petite fi lmmaker says in accented English, “And so is this fi lm. This is not reportage. It is not a documentary. It’s not a fi ction.” As an experimental director, Varda works in both fi c-tion and nonfi ction. “The Beaches of Agnes” is a combination of both. She revisits important places from her past — mostly beaches — and also recreates images from memory or fantasy, to illustrate key periods in her life.

“I included people to represent moments in my life, not just because they are my friends,” she says, referring to the numerous celebrities and fi gures in cinema that are sprinkled throughout the fi lm (including her fellow Left Bank direc-tors — Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and her late husband, Jacques Demy). Most surprising are clips of Gerard Depardieu and Harrison Ford, who she fi lmed in their fi rst roles.

“I see big blockbusters and enjoy them, but I want to use cinema for something more complex, like life,” she says. “I see cinema as a puzzle of bringing pieces together, like a land-scape and a face. My new fi lm is my portrait; an unfi nished portrait, I’ll say.”

Born in Brussels in 1928 and named “Arlette,” Varda showed a burgeoning inde-pendent spirit at age 18 when she legally changed her name to “Agnes” after a Greek paternal aunt she never met.

Self-taught and unconventional, Varda developed her unique style from a background in still photography that followed art history studies at the Ecole du Louvre. Her great-est infl uence was the surrealist movement in painting and writing, with its emphasis on free association and unexpected juxtapositions. “I was trying to make a new language and rein-vent reality,” she says. Although her new fi lm had a solid art house run in her home country, she admits that since her work is not in the mainstream, it doesn’t make much money.

As a rare female fi lmmaker working since the 1950s, Varda has no counterpart in the United States. She says, “There were other women working in fi lm in France when I began, but I was the fi rst to fi ght for a new kind of cinema. I pushed other women to join. Now we have more. There are many directors and editors. Not only that, but mix-

ing and sound ladies. I pushed them. I said, ‘Learn! Don’t say it’s diffi cult for women!’”

From the start, Varda has concentrated on women’s stories, many inspired by her own life. In 1958, unmarried and pregnant with her fi rst child, she made “Diary of a Pregnant Woman” (L’Opéra mouffe) which featured the nude profi le of a pregnant woman, decades before Demi Moore posed for the cover of “Vanity Fair.” Her most famous work from 1962, “Cleo from 5 to 7” (Cléo de 5 à 7) is a real time countdown of the two hours before a woman is to learn from her doctor if she does indeed have cancer. In 1976, she made “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t” (L’une chante, l’autre pas) a seminal fi lm set amidst the nascent women’s movement in France.

“I am a feminist. I believe in the struggle for women’s rights and women’s body integrity,” she says, and then bemoans the current back-lash to the kind of feminism she fought for, exemplifi ed by the “invasion” of pornography on French television.

So self-determined is the feisty director, that in 28 years of marriage, Varda never collaborated with her husband, who directed “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” and is a key fi gure in the history of cinema. “Why should I work with him?” she asks. “I wouldn’t give him a screenplay until I was almost fi nished.”

Their only joint effort was “Jacquot,” a trib-ute to him, based on his memoirs, and com-pleted just after his death in 1990. In “The Beaches of Agnes” Varda discloses for the fi rst time that her husband died from AIDS. When she hears his name, her demeanor visibly changes. Her eyes well up and she looks down at her gold wedding band. “Since Jacques died, I never wear other rings,” she says.

“The Beaches of Agnes” runs July 1-14 at Film Forum (209 W. Houston Street, www.fi lmforum.org)

74A East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003Box Office: 212-475-7710www.lamama.orgetc.

74A East 4th Street, NY, NY 10003Box Office: 212-475-7710www.lamama.org

Written & Directed by Prisca OuyaAdditional text by Benjamin Marcantoni

Music by Richard Cohen, Benjamin Marcantoni, Pline & Yukio TsujiChoreography by Prisca Ouya, Gervais Tomadiatunga,

Prince Dethmer Nzaba, Lungusu Malonga and Potri Ranka Manis

June 25-28, 2009 / Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 / Sunday at 2:30CAST: Nasiba Abdul-Karim, Tommy Agarwal, Nia Austin-Edwards, Inderia

Carr, Sheila Dabney, Alexis Doster-Pennerman, Angela K. Harmon, Aïda Issaka, Lungusu Malonga, Benjamin Marcantoni, Valois Mickens, Allon

Morgan, Rachida N’Gouamba, Deadra Renne Nelson Mason, Nayel Amira Nelson-Young, Prisca Ouya, Chaney Pollard, Tiffany Rose, Fitz Sam,

Rohiatou Siby, N’tifafa Akoko Tete-Rosenthal, Jojo Tosin and Kat Yew

La MaMa La Galleria ~ 6 East First Street NYCTAINTED LOVE from Visual AIDS

Curated by Steven Lam & Virginia Solomon Featuring: Luis Camnitzer, Jose Luis Cortes, fierce pussy,

General Idea, Gran Fury, Matt Lipps, Catherine Lord, Charles Lum, Ivan Monforte, Wu Ingrid Tsang

June 25-28, 2009 / Thursday - Sunday 1-6 pm

‘Grandmother of the French New Wave’ delivers unique autobiopicCalling into question memory, fantasy, reality

Photo courtesy of Cinema Guild

Director Agnes Varda and animated feline friend

ARTIST PROFILE

www.THEVILLAGER.com

36 June 24 - 30, 2009

KIDSCUPCAKE KIDS JULY COOKING CAMP Each day will focus on a different cuisine-Italian, Mexican, Asian, Mediter-ranean, and American. The child will learn about the region, the foods and cooking techniques. Students will learn about choosing ingredients, menu planning, basic knife skills, and how to work safely in the kitchen. $550 for the 5-day session. Open for children 8-13 years old. Monday to Friday- the week of July 6th. 9:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. 275 West 12th Street. 646-789-5554 cupcakekids.com

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME Preschool-ers from 3 to 5 years old and their par-ents/caregivers can enjoy new and classic picture books, action songs, and related activities and meet other preschoolers in the neighborhood. July 1, 2 P.M. The New York Public Library- Jefferson Mar-ket Brach, 425 Avenue of the Americas (212) 243-4334 www.nypl.org

KIDS AT WORK NYC-SUN SES-SIONS Sun Sessions are fun and high-energy music and movement classes for children up to age 4. Two teachers, includ-ing a live guitarist, will greet your children a colorful 30-foot parachute under a large shady tree for 45 minutes of music. Drop-in: $25 per class, 4 - 7 classes: $20 per class, 8 or more classes: $18 per class. Regular classes run June 2-August 13. Riverside Park, Hudson River Park and Washington Square Park. 347-933-8293 kidsatworknyc.com

EXHIBITSAVEDON-A COLLECTION OF FASH-ION PHOTOGRAPHS This exhibition, shown in memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort, is a extraordinary tribute to the best in fashion photography. Through August 28. Stanley & Wise Gallery, 560 Broadway. 212-966-6223 stanleywise.com

THAT JOKE ISN’T FUNNY ANYMORE

(AMERICA AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY BY LEO FITZPATRICK) This exhibition documents the deterioration of America at the turn of the century. The art-ist traveled across the country 8 times to complete his documentation of landscapes, street corners and aging architecture. Through July 4th. Fuse Gallery, 93 2nd Ave. 212-777-7988 or fusegallerynyc.com.

SINGING HER TO SLEEP This exhibi-tion will present new art by Jack Long. June 27-July 15. Opening reception for the artist June 27, 6.30-10 P.M. Giant Robot New York, 437 E. 9th Street (between Ave A and 1st Ave) 212-674-GRNY grny.net

CLAIRE SHERMAN, MARIA E . PIÑERES AT DCKT CONTEMPO-RARY These are two solo exhibitions: new paintings by Claire Sherman and new needlepoint works by Maria E. Pineres. June 26 - August 22. Opening June 25, 6-8 P.M. DCKT Contemporary, 195 Bow-ery. 212.741.9955 dcktcontemporary.com

M I D - 1 9 T H C E N T U RY U N D E R -WEAR Take a peek at rarely seen ‘unmentionables’ of the 1850s and 60s, including a lady’s chemise, corset, draw-ers, stockings, and cage crinoline. $8 General, $5 Students & Over 65. Exhibi-tion opens July 9th. Merchant’s House Museum, 29 East Fourth Street. mer-chantshouse.com

THEATER TAMUR LENK In this play, a group of occultists attempts to channel the spirit of Tamburlaine, the great Turkish war-rior “Tamur Lenk” $12. June 25-July 12. Thursday-Saturday 8 P.M. Sunday 3 P.M. Theater For The New City, 155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Streets) 212-254-1109 theaterforthenewcity.net/tamur

THINGS OF DRY HOURS This play, set in Depression-era Alabama, tells the story of an African American out-of-work

Sunday school teacher and member of the Communist Party, who life gets turned upside down when he takes in a mysteri-ous white factory worker on the run. $65. CheapTix Sundays, $20.00 (all tickets for all Sunday evening performances at 7:00pm; tickets are available in advance and must be purchased in person.) Stu-dent tickets, $20.00. New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street www.nytw.org 212-780-9037

TOMANDO CAFE This theatrical scrap-book of a black Puerto Rican woman’s fam-ily in the 1950s is told through magical real-ism, storytelling, myth, poetry and music, with a liberal dose of strongly brewed coffee. Written, composed and performed by Subway Diva Rosateresa Castro-Vargas. General admission $12. Through June 28 Thurs.-Sat. 8 P.M Suns 3 P.M. Theater for the New City 155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Streets) 212.254.1109 theater-forthenewcity.net

WAKING UP WITH STRANGERS An American student in Berlin analyzes the death of Heinrich von Kleist and it affects his life in more ways than one. June 29-July 2. 8 P.M. $18. S12 students/seniors. The Kraine Theater. 85 E. Fourth St. horsetrade.info

COMEDY CENTRAL AT CRASH MAN-SION It’s a performance that includes standup comedy and veriety shows. $5, June 29 ( every other Monday) Crash Mansion, 199 Bowery, 212-982-0740 crashmansion.com

MUSIC SUNDAY BRUNCH AT THE BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB It’s a possibility to enjoy a jazz performance and a Sunday brunch at the same time. $24.50 includes brunch, the show and a drink. Sundays, 12.30 and 2:30P.M, The Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 E. 3rd St bluenote.net/newyork

MUSIC ON THE OVAL This unique out-door summer concert series brings the

sweet sounds of rock, funk, reggae, and soul to the famed Stuyvesant Town Oval every Wednesday night through July 15. Free. 7 P.M. pre-show 6 P.M. The Stuyve-sant Town Oval- between 16th and 18th Streets and Avenues A & B (the entrance is off First Avenue and 16th Street) 212-598-5296 stuytown.com

H I R O M I - Y O U N G W O M A N ’ S BLUES A performance of Japan’s it-girl of Jazz. $20-$30. July 1, 8:00P.M. and 10:30 P.M. The Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 E. 3rd St bluenote.net/newyork

TREVOR EXTER, STEVE WAITT AND THE NEW YORK HOWL This performance is a presentation of what beautiful music you can create with the cello. July 1, 10 P.M. 18-minimum age. ( Le) Poisson Rouse, 158 Bleecker St, lepoissonrouge.com

BRASIL GUITAR DUO A performance of one of the most critically acclaimed guitar duos of the generation. Free tickets available after 4 P.M, day of the show, at the box office. June 29, 7.30 P.M. Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, 3 Spruce St. rivertorivernyc.com

ROB PLATH AND TONY O’NEILL- A NIGHT OF ANARCHY It’s a night dedi-cated to two authors, whose lives have influenced their writings. July 8, 7-9 P.M. KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, 212-505-3360 kgb-bar.com

THE SHARP THINGS/SANGSARA A double performance-two bands, whose music sounds like you are driving along the beach in a convertible. $12, June 29, 7 P.M. Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. joes-pub.com 212-967-7555

FUNKBOX This is a performance by DJ Tony Touch. You must be over 21 to enter. $10, Sunday, 10 P.M. The Sullivan Room, 218 Sullivan St, 212-252-2151 sullivan-room.com

MADOU SIDIKI DIABATE This lunch-time performance of an artist highly respected for his command of the tra-ditional kora repertoire, combines jazz sensibilities and foreign influences with the Malian sound. Free. July 8. 12.30-1.30 P.M. Zucotti Park – formerly the Lib-

erty Plaza Park (Broadway and Liberty St) artsworldfinancialcenter.com

EVENTS FREE HEARING SCREENINGS AT THE LEAGUE FOR THE HARD OF HEAR-ING Every Wed. from 12-2 P.M. and every Thurs. from 4-6 P.M. Call or email to sched-ule an appointment. LEAGUE FOR THE HARD OF HEARING, 50 Broadway, 6th Fl. 917-305-7766, appointments@llh.org.

MIND-BODY STUDIES IN PERFORM-ING ARTS FESTIVAL The Arts-in-Education Division of Greenwich House Music School offers a unique program of Mind-Body Studies in the Performing Arts. Participants will learn new skills and perspectives in the area of wellness to quickly improve technical and perfor-mance abilities with increased flow, bal-ance and emotional connections. $275 plus $25 registration fee. June 26-28. Renee Weiler Concert Hall, Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, For information/registration on this pro-gram, call (212) 242-4770 or mbspafest@gmail.com. myspace.com/mbspafest

PRIDE MEETS THE STREETS Dance, sing along, celebrate and bring your own lawn chair. Come by E. 4th Street for an afternoon of rainbow kite flying for kids, a costume shop and special events and per-formances including: V-Love, transgender cabaret artists, HyperGender Burlesque, rock band, Tongue in Public, Dred, a solo performance about gender. June 27, 3:00PM-7:00PM E. 4 Street (between 2nd Avenue & Bowery), fabnyc.org

THE REALLY REALLY FREE MARKET Expect and share free food, skills, music, clothing books, other things--and fun! This is an open participatory event. Some groups and individuals are planning to bring and share food, clothes, skills, music and things and there is always space for you to do the same. 3:00- 6:00 P.M. Judson Memorial Church, Meeting Room- 243 Thompson St. myspace.com/anewworldinourhearts

ADULT DODGEBALL This recreational event takes place every Monday, 7 P.M. Registration may be required. Phone:

(212) 242-5228, Phone 2: (212) 242-5418. Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, 3 Clark-son Street @ 7th Avenue South. nycgov-parks.org/facilities/recreationcenters

NOTES ON COOKING: A SHORT GUIDE TO AN ESSENTIAL CRAFT Lau-ren Braun Costello, co-author of Notes on Cooking will read from her new book and lead a discussion of the culinary craft. Free food samples will be served. Free. June 23, 7:00 P.M. The Strand, 828 Broad-way, 212-473-1452 strandbooks.com

LAST CHANCE

S H A K E S P E A R E ’ S T W E L F T H NIGHT Queens Shakespeare makes its Manhattan debut with an encore engage-ment of it acclaimed production of Wil-liam Shakespeare’s romantic comedy classic. $15. Through June 27, Wednes-day-Saturday 7 P.M., Saturday matinees 3 P.M. The Flea Theater- 41 White Street (between Broadway & Church) 212-352-3101 theflea.org

AND DON’T FORGET…

35TH ANNUAL STUDENT RECITAL AT THE NY CHINESE CULTURAL CEN-TER Dance and art come together as students present the traditional Red Ribbon Dance, Ballet and Tai Chi as well as visually inspiring Dunhuang. $20, $15 for groups 10+. June 28, 2 P.M. BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center-199 Chambers Street (between Greenwich and West St.) For tickets call: 212-220-1460 tribecapac.org

LISTINGS REQUESTS for The Villager may be mailed to Listings Editor at 145 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-1548 or e-mailed to listingsedi-tor@gmail.com. Please include listings in the subject line of the e-mail and pro-vide the date, time, location, price and a description of the event. Information must be received two weeks before the event is to be published. Questions? Call 646-452-2507.

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And so did thousands of our Readers.

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June 24 - 30, 2009 37

VALERIE CAPERSThe Pen and Brush (Dedicated to women in the visual, literary and performing arts since 1894) hosts this perfor-mance and awards pre-sentation acknowledging the work of jazz artist Valerie Capers. Honored for her outstanding musi-cianship, scholarship and performance career, Capers is not content to sit back and merely accept an award. She’ll perform along with ensemble members John Robinson on bass, and Rudy Lawless on drums. Sunday, June 28, 3:00p.m. to 5:00p.m., at 16 East 10th Street. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit www.penandbrush.org or call 212-475-3669.

NO LONGER EMPTYWalk the lean streets of New York these days, and you’ll see a shocking amount of shuttered businesses — but it takes an optimist, an opportunist or an artist to see those empty spaces as blank canvases. NO LONGER EMPTY is a group of curators and creators dedicated to presenting thought provoking exhibits in empty store fronts. Their inaugural exhibit happens at the Hotel Chelsea — which has seen its share of troubles lately (due more to landlord/tenant tensions than economic woes). Temporarily taking over the spaces formerly occupied by Capitol Fishing Tackle and Chelsea Healing, “The Ship of Fools” will feature works from Chelsea Hotel residents Rita Barros, Linda and Lothar Troeller, and Sam Bassett — as well as some strange installations (such as the salt-encrusted window displays of Raimundo Rubio). Through July 18, Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00a.m to 6:00p.m.; at Hotel Chelsea, 222 West 23rd Street. Visit www.nolongerempty.com.

KING LEARNew York Classical Theatre puts a new spin on outdoor sum-mer Shakespeare productions as they venture all the way downtown to Battery Park. Their “King Lear” (the Bard’s vener-able tale of a royal family’s infighting and power grabs) is billed as “Free Theatre for All Ages.” To that end, they’re offer-ing free Drama Workshops for families, adults and kids ages 7-12 prior to the play (on June 25, June 30, July 2 and July 7. Meet inside Castle Clinton; workshop runs from 5:00p.m. to 5:45p.m.). Then, at 7:00p.m., enjoy “King Lear” by meeting in front of Castle Clinton. You’ll be led inside, where the play begins. But you won’t stay put for long. Every 15-20 minutes, the audience must walk to where the next scene takes place — with actors using the castle, garden, trees, benches (and the occasional audience member) as scenery. For general Information and rainout info, call 212-252-4531 or visit www.newyorkclassical.org.

VIOLENT KINFor years, our neighbors up north have been send-ing us some of America’s most beloved comedians. This summer, though, they’re giving us the gift of music — in the form of a band we just might not send back. Canada’s Violent Kin is moving to NYC for the summer — and taking up residency at Fontana’s (105 Eldridge Street) for a series of concerts ($7; 9:00p.m., July 1st, 8th, 15th). They’ll also perform a July 30th Midnight show ($8 admission) at Arlene’s Grocery (95 Stanton Street). For a sneak preview of what you’ve been missing — and what you’re likely to see this summer, go to www.myspace.com/violent-kin. Access “Electrons” from their “available soon” CD “Bitter Blood” and discover what deserves to be a stateside summertime hit.

SOHO AND TRIBECALong before the warm weather made walking in the city a plea-surable experience, musician and sound artist Jeremy Dalmas was hard at work creating a free MP3 musical audio tour of Soho and Tribeca. Now that summer is here, get some exercise while harvesting the fruits of his long labor (while learning for-gotten and little-know information about the neighborhood). At tour’s end, you’ll end up at a picnic where you can hobnob with the artist, meet other tour-goers, work on communal art pieces, snack on homemade cookies and groove to the free sight of the setting sun. This ambient audio adventure (sponsored by The Artistic Intervention Project) lasts two hours, and you can begin anytime between Noon and 5:00p.m. on June 27/28 and July 4/5. Free; at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Spring Street. For technical information on how to take the tour, visit www.theabsurdists.com/weknowthesecret.html.

Photo by Miranda Arden

Battle between Britain and France, in “King Lear”

Photo supplied by the artist

Jeremy Dalmas, engaged in sidewalk solicit-ing (for art)

Photo by David Katzenstein

Valerie Capers

ALISTTHECOMPILED BY SCOTT STIFFLER Scott@thevillager.com

THEATER

MUSIC

TOUR

MUSIC

Photo supplied by the artist

From Raimundo Rubio’s “Sodom & Gomorrah”

ART

Photo by MakiFotos

Canada’s loss is NYC’s gain

38 June 24 - 30, 2009

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF NB ALTERNA-

TIVES HOLDINGS LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/27/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 02/19/09. Prin-cipal offi ce of LLC: 605 3rd Ave., NY, NY 10158. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corpora-tion Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE address of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. Jeffrey W. Bullock, Div. of Corps., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

XIV RIVER CONSULT-

ING LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/5/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 200 Riverside Blvd #10A New York, NY 10069. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

TEN90 SOLUTIONS, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/16/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to C/O David Schanoes 150 Thompson Street, Apt. 3C New York, NY 10012. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

TRIPLE T 143 HOLDINGS

LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/24/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Mark Friedland-er Esq 15 Maiden Lane Suite 2000 New York, NY 10038. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

GARY G. VENTER, FCAS,

CERA, ASA, MAAA, LLC

Company Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/12/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Gary Venter 5 West 91ST Street Suite 6E New York, NY 10024. Pur-pose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

TULLY’S BAKERY LLC

Company Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/17/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Helen Tully Lewis 201 West 11TH Street, APT #3G New York, NY 10014. Purpose: Any law-ful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF AQUA ROSA

ADVISORS, LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/25/2009. Offi ce location: NY Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 2/17/2009. SSNY des-ignated as /agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Oded Lev-Ari 327 E 12TH Street-Ground Floor NY, NY 10003. DE address of LLC: 2711 Centerville Road Suite 400 Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. Of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal ST, Suite 3 Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF LITTLE APPLES PHO-

TOGRAPHY, LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/10/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: Little Apples Photography, 160 Riverside Blvd., Apt 32A New York, NY 10069. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 143 PROPERTIES LLC

Art. of Org. fi led w/ Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/23/04. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC for service of process. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: 875 Ave. of Americas #501, New York, NY 10001. Present name of LLC: 143 Development Partners, LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF GO PRETTY LLC

Art. of Org. fi led w/ Secy. Of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/7/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC for service of process. SSNY shall mail process to: 888C 8th Ave. #106, New York, NY 10019. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

247 REALTY ASSOCI-ATES LLC

Arts of Org fi led with NY Sec of State (SSNY) on 02/26/08. Offi ce: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to: c/o Redi Management Corp., 4 Wash-ington Ave. South, Lawrence, NY 11559. Purpose: Any law-ful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF REALM PART-

NERS FUND LP

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/5/09. Offi ce loca-tion: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 390 Park Ave., 16th Fl., NY, NY 10022. LP formed in DE on 1/22/09. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agt. upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NAME OF LLC: MY FAIR

ROSES, LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with NY Dept. of State: 4/24/09. Offi ce loc.: NY Co. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Business Filings Inc., 187 Wolf Rd., Ste. 101, Albany, NY 12205, regd. agt. upon whom process may be served. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFI-

CATION OF FLEXIBLE

OPPORTUNITIES, LLC

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 3/4/09. NYS fi cti-tious name: Flexible Opportu-nities Fund, LLC. Offi ce loca-tion: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 2/26/09. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to the prin-cipal business addr.: 522 5th Ave., NY, NY 10036. DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any law-ful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF REALM PART-

NERS SUB-FUND LLC

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/5/09. Offi ce loca-tion: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 390 Park Ave., 16th Fl., NY, NY 10022. LLC formed in DE on 4/30/09. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. Regd. agt. upon whom process may be served: CT Corpora-tion System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilm-ington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any law-ful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF ASTAR 325

ROUTE 17M - MONROE

LLC

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 4/29/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1114 Ave. of the Americas, 39th Fl., NY, NY 10036. LLC formed in DE on 3/31/09. NY Sec. of State des-ignated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail pro-cess to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agt, upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corpo-ration Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: real estate investments and fi nance.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF O-CAP GP, LLC

App. For Auth. fi led with Secy. of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 4/23/2009. Offi ce loca-tion: New York County. LLC formed in DE on 4/21/2009. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 140 E. 63rd St., Apt. 17C, New York, NY 10065, Attn: Michael Olshan. DE address of LLC: 615 S. DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Cert. of Form. fi led with DESS, P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: to engage in any act or activity lawful under the NY LLC Law.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF CAPOSALDO 37TH STREET, LIMITED PART-

NERSHIP

Certifi cate fi led with Secy. of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 1/8/09. Offi ce location: New York County. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Davis & Gilbert LLP, 1740 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Name/address of each genl. ptr. available from SSNY. Term: until 1/8/2089. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/20-6/24/09

NAME: STONE LANE PICTURES, LLC

Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. Of State of NY 02/05/09. Off. Loc.: New York Co. Corpora-tion Service Company desig-nated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to THE LLC, C/O CSC, 80 State Street, Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: Any law-ful act or activity.

Vil 5/27 – 7/1/09

MANGALA NAIK, PHYSI-CIAN, PLLC,

Articles of Org. fi led N.Y. Sec. of State (SSNY) 7th day of April, 2009. Offi ce in New York Co. at 630 1st Avenue, Suite 31D, New York, New York 10016. SSNY design. agt. Upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to 630 1st Avenue, Suite 31D, New York, New York 10016. Reg. Agt. Upon whom process may be served: Spiegel & Utrera, P.A., P.C. 1 Maiden Lane, NYC 10038 1 800 576-1100 Purpose: Medicine.

Vil 5/27 – 7/1/09

MIHARO GAMES LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/6/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Orcun Koro-glu 88 Edgecombe Ave Ap 2 New York, NY 10030. Pur-pose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

LAZ RESOURCES, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/4/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC 205 W 57TH ST. 6AD New York, NY 10019. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

BULLSEYE VENTURES LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/26/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Jonathan Bull 56 Perry ST. APT. 1R New York, NY 10014. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NANDITA KHANNA ASSOCIATES LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/24/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC 160 East 38TH Street, #28H New York, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF DCMF LIQUI-

DATING COMPANY LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/22/2009. Offi ce location: NY Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 4/8/2009. SSNY des-ignated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to THE LLC 461 Fifth Ave, 10TH Flr NY, NY 10017. DE address of LLC: Corpo-ration Trust Center 1209 Orange Street Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. Of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State John G. Townsend Building P.O. Box 898 Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF NB ALTERNA-TIVES ADVISERS LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/28/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 02/19/09. Prin-cipal offi ce of LLC: 605 3rd Ave., NY, NY 10158. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corpora-tion Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE address of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. Jeffrey W. Bullock, Div. of Corps., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFI-CATION OF CARBON VISUAL EFFECTS LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/07/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 04/30/09. Prin-cipal offi ce of LLC: 180 Varick St., 14th Fl., NY, NY 10014. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE address of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Design and produce graphics for com-mercial broadcasting.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF SUITE ACCESS,

LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/13/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 05/01/09. Princi-pal offi ce of LLC: c/o Suite 850 LLC, 230 Park Ave., Ste. 850, NY, NY 10169. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Attn: Marc Adel-man at the principal offi ce of the LLC. DE address of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of the State of DE, Corp. Dept., Loockerman & Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SUPER LAW GROUP,

LLC

Art. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/23/09. Off. Loc.: NY Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served and shall mail process against the LLC to the principal business addr.: 156 William St, Ste 800, NY, NY 10038. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF ANTIPODEAN DOMESTIC PARTNERS,

LP

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 3/25/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LP org. in DE 3/23/09. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to 499 Park Ave., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10010. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF TOCQUEVILLE GOLD PRIVATE EQUITY

GP, LLC

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 4/8/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC org. in DE 7/23/07. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Attn: John Hathaway, 40 W. 57th St., 19th Fl., NY, NY 10019. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF TOCQUEVILLE GOLD PRIVATE EQUITY

FUND, L.P.

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 4/8/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LP org. in DE 7/23/07. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Attn: John Hathaway, 40 W. 57th St., 19th Fl., NY, NY 10019. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF METROPOLI-

TAN REAL ESTATE PART-

NERS GLOBAL III, L.P.

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 3/2/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LP org. in DE 2/26/09. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Attn: Felipe Dorregaray, 135 E. 57th St., 16th Fl., NY, NY 10022. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF GF INVESTORS, LLC

Arts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 05/01/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: Emanuel Gerard, 1 E. End Ave., NY, NY 10075. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF SHANY LANDMARKS

LLC

Arts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 05/01/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: The LLC, 12 E. 86th St., #727, NY, NY 10028. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF GRAND CEN-

TRAL OPPORTUNITIES

FUND, LP

Authority fi led with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/12/08. LP formed in DE on 06/03/08. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: The LP, 230 Park Ave., Ste. 539, NY, NY 10169. DE address of LP: 160 Green-tree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. The name & address of each general partner is available from SSNY. Cert of LP fi led with DE Secy of State, 401 Federal St, Dover DE 19901. Purpose: any law-ful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF LOCUST VALLEY, LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with NY Dept. of State on 4/22/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail pro-cess to the principal business addr.: c/o Jacobson Family Investments, Inc., Carnegie Hall Tower, 152 W. 57th St., 56th Fl., NY, NY 10019. Pur-pose: all lawful purposes.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF KONDAUR

VENTURES VIII OFF-

SHORE REO 1, L.L.C.

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/12/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 4/30/09. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail pro-cess to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agt. upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corpo-ration Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. fi led with DE Sec. of State, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF LEAD LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/23/2006. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: Scott Martel, 245 East 54th Street, Ste 29B, New York, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 5/27-7/1/09

NOR JEWELRY LLC,

Articles of Org. fi led N.Y. Sec. of State (SSNY) 5th day of February 2009. Offi ce in New York Co. at 72 Bowery, New York, New York 10013. SSNY desig. agt. Upon whom pro-cess may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to 72 Bowery, New York, New York 10013. Reg. Agt. upon whom process may be served: Spiegel & Utrera, P.A., P.C. 1 Maiden Lane, NYC 10038 1 800 576-1100 Pur-pose: Any lawful purpose.

Vil 6/3 – 7/8/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF SPYE DESIGN STU-

DIO, LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/02/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: The LLC, PO Box 1150, New York, NY 10037. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF BOTTOM LINE CON-

CEPTS LLC, A DOMESTIC

LLC.

Arts. of Org. fi led with the SSNY on 04/01/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: c/o Feffer & Feffer, LLC, 440 E 57th St. #18 C-D, NY, NY 10022. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

P U B L I C N O T I C E S

June 24 - 30, 2009 39

MARTIGNETTI PLANNED

GIVING ADVISORS, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/30/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Anthony Martignetti 900 Park Terrace East 4TH Floor NY, NY 10034. Purpose: Any lawful activity. Registered Agent: Robert B. Moy 575 Lexington Avenue, 23RD FLR NY, NY 10022.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF TEMPEST CAPITAL

ADVISORS, LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/20/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: Tem-pest Capital Advisors, LLC, 520 West 19th Street #5B, New York, NY 10011. Pur-pose: To engage in any law-ful act or activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF T&L SPORTS

AND ENTERTAINMENT,

LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 04/24/09. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 275 Madison Ave., 35th Fl., NY, NY 10016. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. offi ce of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilm-ington, DE 19908. Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any law-ful activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF LEXINGTON

CAPITAL PARTNERS

VII, L.P.

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 3/4/09. Offi ce loca-tion: NY County. LP formed in DE on 1/15/09. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to the prin-cipal business addr. of the LP: 660 Madison Ave., 23rd Fl., NY, NY 10065. DE addr. of LP: The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilming-ton, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 367 BROOKLYN, L.L.C.

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/20/08. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: 570 Lexington Ave-nue, 40th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 2131 MERRICK LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/8/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: The LLC, Attn: Jeff Sutton, 500 Fifth Ave., 54th Fl., NY, NY 10110. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/3-7/8/09

JADETRIBE, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/11/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC Kimberly Hartman 99 Bank Street APT 2C New York, NY 10014. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

MEDITERRA COLLEC-TION LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/18/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Sema Tekinay 300 East 56 Street APT. 28B New York, NY 10022. Pur-pose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

THE TAX STRATEGISTS, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/11/2003. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 2 Wall St., Ste. 500 NY, NY 10005. Purpose: Any lawful activity. Registered Agent: Dan Korn-blatt 2 Wall St., Ste. 500 NY, NY 10005.

6/10-7/15/09

EISDORFER DENTAL PLLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 5/5/09. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY desig. agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to 121 E. 60th St., Ste. 7C., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: To practice the profession of dentistry.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PANTOGA LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 4/07/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom pro-cess against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: The LLC, 4014 13th Ave., Ste. 202, Brook-lyn, NY 11228. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE OF REGISTRA-TION OF MICHELMAN &

ROBINSON, LLP

Certifi cate fi led with Secre-tary of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 03/26/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLP, 15760 Ventura Boulevard, 5th Floor, Encino, CA 91436. Purpose: To engage any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

LUDLOW6 LLC

a domestic Limited Liability Company (LLC) fi led with the Sec of State of NY on 4/14/09. NY Offi ce location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom pro-cess against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her to The LLC, 333 Hudson St., 6th Fl., NY, NY 10013 General purposes

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

ACCELAPAYMENT LLC

a domestic Limited Liability Company (LLC) fi led with the Sec of State of NY on 4/2/09. NY Offi ce location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom pro-cess against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her to The LLC, 105 E. 34th St., Ste. 163, NY, NY 10016 General purposes

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF AH 88 GREEN-

WICH LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/13/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 7/1/05. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o National Registered Agents, Inc., 875 Avenue of the Americas, Ste. 501, NY, NY 10001. Address of the principal offi ce: 45 Horatio St., NY, NY 10014. Address to be maintained in DE: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. Of State, 401 Federal St., Ste 4., Dover, DE 19901 . Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF SEG LATIGO

ADVISORS GP, LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/19/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 03/31/09. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 590 Madison Ave., 9th Fl., NY, NY 10022. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NAME OF LLC: BIG SLIDE

ENTERTAINMENT LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with NY Dept. of State: 1/27/09. Offi ce loc.: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 10 E. 75th St., NY, NY 10021, Attn: Jer-emy H. Schneider, regd. agt. upon whom process may be served. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF SALA ASSOCI-

ATES LLC

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/14/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 2/27/07. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail pro-cess to the principal business addr.: 44 Still Rd., Ridgefi eld, CT 06877, Attn: Louis Sala. DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Fed-eral St., Dover, DE 19901. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/10-7/15/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY

GIVEN

that a license, #TBA has been applied for by Water Taxi Beach Governors Island to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in a restaurant. For on premises consumption under the ABC at Governors Island NY, NY 10004.

6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY

GIVEN

that a license, #1226919 has been applied for by Artifakt 54, Inc. to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in a restaurant. For on premises consump-tion under the ABC law at 54 Watts Street NY, NY 10013.

6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY

GIVEN

that a license, #1226799 has been applied for by Food 2 Lex LLC d/b/a TBD to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in a restaurant. For on prem-ises consumption under the ABC law at 2 Lexington Avenue NY, NY 10010.

6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY

GIVEN

that a license, G748950 to be assigned has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer at retail under the Alco-hol Beverage Control Law at 5923 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11220 for on/off premises consumption. Jerry Grocery Store Inc.

Vil 6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOOVU LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/9/09. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of pro-cess to The LLC 151B Gates Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11238. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

CAREY STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 4/29/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Joseph W. Carey Suite 12-A 211 East 53RD Street New York, NY 10022. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

FORTIUS PHYSICAL THERAPY, PLLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 5/5/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC 850 7TH Avenue Suite 406 NY, NY 10019. Purpose: Any law-ful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

AIRY TECHNOLOGY, LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 5/15/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 19 West 44TH Street, Suite 415 New York, NY 10001. Pur-pose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

DAHL LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 1/21/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 347 W. 36TH ST #1002 New York, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

176 CLOTHING LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 5/27/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC 230 West 39 Street, 15 Floor New York, NY 10018. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF ASOLARE CAPI-TAL MANAGEMENT, LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/15/2009. Offi ce location: NY Co. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 5/8/2009. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to THE LLC 159 Bleecker Street, APT 4D NY, NY 10012. DE address of LLC: Corporation Trust Center 1209 Orange Street Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. Of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, PO Box 898 Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 5 GEMS LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/26/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 145 W. 71st St., NY, NY 10023. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to the LLC at the princ. offi ce of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF EAST 93RD

MANAGER LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/26/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 05/21/09. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 152 W. 57th St., 60th Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. offi ce. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMA-TION OF HOBBS CIENA

DEVELOPER LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/04/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 902 Broadway, 13th Fl., NY, NY 10010. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. offi ce. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF LAW OFFICES OF ADAM R. SANDERS,

PLLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 05/29/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the PLLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the PLLC is to: Law Offi ces of Adam R. Sanders, PLLC, 419 Lafayette Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10003. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF VICEROY CONSULT-

ING LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/28/09. Offi ce location: NY Co. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, Attn: Steven D Oppenheim, Esq., 488 Madison Ave., 17th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Duration: 12/31/2059. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF CITY / COUNTRY

GARDENERS, LLC

Arts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 05/20/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 200 W. 108th St., #10-A, New York, NY 10025. Purpose: any law-ful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BROADWAY 36TH

REALTY LLCArts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 01/22/08. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: C/O Broadway Export LLC, 57 W. 38th St., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF RD WINTER

ASSOCIATES LLC

Application for Authority fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 4/3/09. N.Y. Offi ce location: New York County. LLC formed in NJ on 2/13/2009. SSNY has been designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The P.O. address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is C/O the LLC: 41 Crestwood Drive, Maplewwod, NJ 07040. The Principal Business Address of the LLC is: 41 Crestwood Drive, Maplewwod, NJ 07040. Purpose of LLC: Mod-eling Agency.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF DIANNE B. COSMET-ICS DISTRIBUTION LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 5/6/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom pro-cess against the LLC may be served, and the Secretary of State shall mail a copy of any process against the company served upon him or her to c/o Larry Kramer CPA. The name and address in NY of the company’s registered agent upon whom process against the company may be served is Larry Kramer CPA, 575 Madison Avenue, 10th Floor, NY, NY 10022. Pur-pose: To engage in any law-ful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFI-CATION OF ANSON

STREET LLC

Authority fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/29/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 625 Pilot Rd., Ste. 4, Las Vegas, NV 89119. LLC formed in DE on 4/17/07. NY Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. DE addr. of LLC: The Corpo-ration Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

that license number 1226660 has been applied for by the undersigned to sell liquor at retail in a restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Con-trol Law at 110 John Street a/k/a 3-5 Platt Street, New York, N.Y. 10038 for on-prem-ises consumption. 110 JOHN STREET PUB INC.

Vil 6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

that license number 1220448 has been applied for by the undersigned to sell wine at retail in a restaurant under the alcoholic beverage control law at 271 Bleecker Street, New York, N.Y. 10014 for on-premises consump-tion. KESTE GROUP LLC

Vil 6/17/09 & 6/24/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF FRENCH BULL LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/11/02. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: 161 E. 61st St., NY, NY 10065. Purpose: any law-ful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF GLOBAL BIO-

FUND GP, LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/25/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 2/23/09. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 787 Seventh Ave., 48th Fl., NY, NY 10019. DE address of LLC: Stellar Corporate Services LLC, 3500 South DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Cert. of Form. fi led with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF HERSHEY

STRATEGIC CAPITAL, LP

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/20/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LP formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 5/15/09. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 660 Madison Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10021. DE address of LP: Stellar Corporate Services LLC, 3500 South DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Name/address of each genl. ptr. available from SSNY. Cert. of LP fi led with DE Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF OPTIMAL ASSET

SOLUTIONS LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy. of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 5/8/09. Offi ce location: New York County. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 600 Lexington Avenue, 4th Fl., New York, NY 10022, Attn: Andrew Jones. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-TION OF MOULTON POINT CAPITAL LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/12/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC formed in Dela-ware (DE) on 5/4/09. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 40 E. 78th St., #10-C, NY, NY 10075. DE address of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/17-7/22/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

that a license, #TBA has been applied for by La Lucha LLC to sell beer only at retail in a restaurant. For on premises consumption under the ABC law at 147 Avenue A NY, NY 10009.

Vil 6/24/09 & 7/1/09

P U B L I C N O T I C E S

40 June 24 - 30, 2009

Villager photo by Isaac Rosenthal

Supermarket goes the whole 9 yards for its shoppersWhole Foods Market recently offered free pedicab rides to shoppers. At the Union Square location, the pedicab drivers apparently were also offering free cookies.

P U B L I C N O T I C E SNOTICE IS HEREBY

GIVEN

that a license, #TBA has been applied for by Piedmont Hospitality LLC d/b/a Sorella to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in a restaurant. For on premises consumption under the ABC law at 95 Allen Street NY, NY 10002.

Vil 6/24/09 & 7/1/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

that a license, #TBA has been applied for by Citrine Lounge LLC to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in a restaurant. For on premises consump-tion under the ABC law at 676 6th Avenue a/k/a 59 West 21st Street NY, NY 10010.

Vil 6/24/09 & 7/1/09

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

That a license, #1223826 has been applied for by the undersigned to sell liquor at retail in restaurant / bar under the Alcohol Beverage Con-trol Law 95-16 Astoria Blvd., East Elmhurst, NY 11369 for on-premises consumption. 95-16 El Sombrero Corp.

Vil 6/24/09 & 7/1/09

NAME: SHAH COMMU-NICATIONS L.L.C.

Art. of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 01/08/09. Off. Loc.: New York Co. Kamal Shah desig-nated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to THE LLC C/O Kamal Shah, 292 Fifth Ave-nue, 4th Flr., NY, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

FIFTH AVENUE MAINTE-NANCE LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/2/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to C/O Business Filings Incorporated 187 Wolf Road, STE. 101. Purpose: Any lawful activity. Regis-tered Agent: Business Filings Incorporated 187 Wolf Road, STE. 101 Albany, NY 12205.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

BP PANAMA LLC

Articles of Org. fi led NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 5/14/2009. Offi ce in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to THE LLC 320 West 13TH Street, Suite 7B New York, NY 10014. Pur-pose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF AULIS & CO., LLC

Cert. of Conversion fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/09, convert-ing AULIS & CO. to AULIS & CO., LLC. Offi ce location: NY County. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 345 Park Ave., 5th Fl., NY, NY 10154. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Ser-vice Co., 80 State St., 6th Fl., Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF RESIDENTIAL

TELEVISION PRODUC-

TIONS LLC

Authority fi led with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/08/09. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/13/09. Princ. offi ce of LLC: 320 Roe-bling St., #126, Brooklyn, NY 11211. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to Kathy A. Hobbs at the princ. offi ce of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. fi led with DE Secy. of State, Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF CAPE SAG ELITE

ASSOCIATES, LLC

Arts of Org., fi led with NY Sec. of State (“SSNY”) 04/15/2009. Offi ce in New York County; SSNY desig-nated agent for service of process with copy mailed to Attn: Thomas J. Malmud, Esq., Pryor Cashman LLP, 410 Park Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10022, All lawful business purposes.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF PEACELOVE 1 LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 05/08/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: Peace-Love 1 LLC, Darada David, 206 East 87th Street Apt. 5B, NY 10128.Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF LIMITED LIABILITY

COMPANY. NAME: 603

ASSOCIATES, LLC

Articles of Organization were fi led with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 07/10/08. The latest date of dissolution is 12/31/2108. Offi ce location: New York County. SSNY has been des-ignated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to the LLC, 210 East 86th Street, Suite 603, New York, New York. Purpose: For any lawful purpose.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFICA-

TION OF SANCUS CAPI-

TAL ADVISORS LLC

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 5/12/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LLC org. in DE 5/8/09. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Attn: Olga Chernova, 111 Wooster St., Apt. 6B, NY, NY 10012. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFI-

CATION OF CRISPIN

CAPITAL OPPORTUNITY

FUND, L.P.

App. for Auth. fi led Sec’y of State (SSNY) 5/22/09. Offi ce location: NY County. LP org. in DE 5/21/09. SSNY desig-nated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Attn: Michael Cahill, 375 Park Ave., Ste. 1305, NY, NY 10152. DE offi ce addr.: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP on fi le: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF FIVE OTHER TEN CONDOMINIUM LLC

Arts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 05/12/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: The LLC, 503 W. 27th St., #4, NY, NY 10001. Pur-pose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 323 CONSULTING,

LLC

Arts. Of Org. fi led with Sec. Of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on 04/08/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail pro-cess to: The LLC, 10 W. End Ave., Ste. 31B, NY, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF NY ELIZABETH PROP-

ERTIES LLC

Articles of Organization fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 4/30/09. Offi ce location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom pro-cess against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: The LLC, 87 Elizabeth St. #4D, New York, NY 10013. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF QUALIFI-

CATION OF EARL OF

SANDWICH (350 PARK),

LLC

Application of Author-ity fi led with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 12/3/2008. Offi ce loca-tion: NY County. Principal business address: 6052 Tur-key Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32819. LLC formed in Florida (FL) on 11/12/2008. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: The LLC, c/o Earl of Sandwich, 6052 Turkey Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32819. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF DIVINE STRATEGIES,

LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with NY Dept. of State on 5/28/09. Offi ce location: NY County. Sec. of State designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail pro-cess to the principal business address: 254 W. 31st St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF DIVINE CONSULT-

ING, LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with NY

Dept. of State on 5/28/09.

Offi ce location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated as

agent of LLC upon whom

process against it may be

served and shall mail pro-

cess to the principal business

address: 254 W. 31st St., 10th

Fl., NY, NY 10001. Purpose:

any lawful activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

NOTICE OF FORMATION

OF GIRONA CAPITAL,

LLC

Arts. of Org. fi led with Secy.

of State of NY (SSNY) on

5/26/09. Offi ce location: NY

County. SSNY designated as

agent of LLC upon whom

process against it may be

served. SSNY shall mail pro-

cess to: The LLC, Attn: Jef-

frey Ravetz, 498 West End

Avenue, Unit 7-A, NY, NY

10024. Purpose: any lawful

activity.

Vil 6/24-7/29/09

June 24 - 30, 2009 41

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Bikers bare it all, well almost, for environment Two participants compared body paintings at the fi rst World Naked Bike Ride on Sat., June 13. Organizers said the “environmental event” was intended “to protest oil dependency and celebrate the power and individuality of our bodies.”

42 June 24 - 30, 2009

The city has previously recognized the historic significance of the Bowery by protecting the west side of the boulevard in the Special Little Italy District and the Noho Historic District.

“The east side of Bowery should be rezoned or it will become a wall of out-of-scale luxury development that would undermine the protective zoning in the surrounding communities,” Sawaryn said.

Last year’s 111-block East Village/Lower East Side rezoning protected the area just east of Bowery, but the east side of the street itself was left out.

“We tried to get the east side included, but it didn’t happen,” Sawaryn said.

“We felt it was important to preserve the wholesale lighting, restaurant-supply and jewelry businesses that remain on the Bowery,” said Mitchell Grubler, a member of BAN. “Rezoning was the only way to do that before those businesses are forced out by expensive high-rise development.”

Sawaryn noted that when the East Village and Lower East Side were rezoned, Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber issued a letter calling for consultation

among the Department of City Planning, Bowery neighbors and Councilmember Alan Gerson, who represents the area, to develop new zoning for the corridor along the east side of the Bowery. Gerson told the June 16 forum he intended to support new zoning for the street’s unprotected east side.

Diether developed the BAN plan as an unpaid volunteer.

“It was simple. I just brought the pro-visions of the Special Little Italy District from the west side to the east side of Bowery,” Diether said. She noted that 85 percent of the buildings on the street’s east side already conform to the proposed new zoning.

Other provisions brought from the west side of Bowery to the east side include 60 percent lot coverage for resi-dential buildings and 70 percent lot cov-erage for commercial buildings, which, however, may cover the entire lot on the ground floor.

Residential conversion of commercial space would not be allowed except by special permit by City Planning. But if a commercial building had been occu-pied as residential on Sept. 1, 1980, City Planning could waive some require-ments after review by the city Office of

Economic Development.BAN has come up with 15 buildings of

special signifi cance between Canal and E. Ninth Sts. that it hopes will have protec-tion against demolition under the new zon-ing. Two of those buildings — 97 Bowery at Hester St. and 357 Bowery between E. Third and E. Fourth Sts. — were calendared for Landmarks Preservation Commission hearings this week.

Also of special significance are many 19th-century and early 20th-century buildings from the days when “Bowery” was a byword for louche entertainment.

The building at 101 Bowery, built in 1870, was Worth’s Museum of Living Curiosities; 135 Bowery is a vacant Federal-style building dating from about 1809 that has served as a hotel and in 1890 as Red, White and Blue, a gambling den; 161 Bowery between Broome and Delancey Sts. was built in 1895.

The Lower East Side’s German immi-grant heritage is represented by 185 Bowery, a four-story building on the north side of Delancey St. that was a location of Germania Bank, which also built the palazzo-style building at 215 Bowery on the north side of Rivington St.

At 219-221 Bowery between Rivington and Stanton Sts. is the Alabama, a Bowery

flophouse since 1967. It was built in the 19th century to a design by James Ware as a hotel.

The Bowery Mission has occupied 227 Bowery since 1908. Built in 1879 between Rivington and Stanton Sts., it has a large stained-glass window on the second floor. Bowery Mission also occupies 229 Bowery, built in 1840.

The much-altered building at 313-315 Bowery was originally a hotel but it was the home of the famed CBGB music club until recently. The building at 319 Bowery, built in 1899 by Julius Blackwell as a cigar factory and converted in 1926 as the Holy Name Mission, in 1962 became the Amato Opera, which closed earlier this month.

Still existing in the shadow of the 23-story Cooper Square Hotel, nearing completion, is a 19th-century row house, which was review by L.P.C. but denied landmark designation.

The St. Mark’s Hotel at 73 Bowery on the south side of St. Mark’s Pl. was the former Valencia Hotel and was the home of the Five Spot jazz cafe. The Greek-revival style building 23 Third Ave. on the north side of St. Mark’s Pl. is also on BAN’s proposed list of buildings of spe-cial significance.

BAN group plans to keep Bowery building boom at bayAt left, the new Cooper Square Hotel rises high above the Bowery. At right, a map showing how the Bowery’s east side has been excluded from protective zoning districts.

Continued from page 1

June 24 - 30, 2009 43

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PUBLIC NOTICE

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to law, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, June 24, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. at 66 John Street, 11th fl oor, on the petition from Greenwich Village Bistro LTD, to continue to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk café at 13 Carmine Street, in the Borough of Manhattan, for a term of two years. Request for copies of the proposed Revocable Consent Agreement may be obtained by sub-mitting a request to: Dept. of Consumer Affairs, 42 Broadway, New York, NY 10004, Attention: Foil Offi cer.

Vil 6/17/09 & 6/24/09

P U B L I C N O T I C E S

PUBLIC NOTICE

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to law, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. at 66 John Street, 11th fl oor, on the petition from Out Of The Kitchen Inc., to continue to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk café at 420 Hudson Street, in the Borough of Manhattan, for a term of two years. Request for copies of the pro-posed Revocable Consent Agreement may be obtained by submit-ting a request to: Dept. of Consumer Affairs, 42 Broadway, New York, NY 10004, Attention: Foil Offi cer.

Vil 6/24/09 & 7/1/09

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