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Page 1: Downtown Express

JUNE 16 – JUNE 29, 2016VOLUME 29, NUMBER 12

1 ME TROTECH • N YC 11201 • COPYRIGHT © 2016 N YC COMMUNIT Y MEDIA , LLC

BY COLIN MIXSONFaced with growing demands from residents

and local lawmakers to allow public comment at its board meetings, the Battery Park City Authority has offered what many are calling a “half mea-sure” — permitting only elected offi cials to speak at meetings, but restricting residents to submit-ting written comments — a move that satisfi es no one except the governor’s hand-picked appoin-tees on the board, according to state Sen. Daniel Squadron.

“This was never about elected offi cials’ oppor-tunity to be heard. We have many opportunities to be heard,” said Squadron. “It’s about local residents sharing their local perspective with a board who overwhelmingly resides elsewhere.”

A cadre of Downtown legislators put their names to a letter in April calling on the author-ity to provide locals the opportunity to speak for themselves at the board’s meetings, with Squadron, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Borough President Gale Brewer, Assemblymember Deborah Glick and City Councilmember Margaret Chin writing that “public comment is an important part of public engagement.”

SPEECHLESS Continued on page 31

Speechless

BY YANNIC RACKIt’s game over for the Water St.

arcades.The City Council is set to sign

off later this month on a controver-sial zoning change that would hand two football fi elds worth of public space to developers along Water St., after the Land Use Committee unanimously approved the plan on Wednesday.

Downtown councilmember Margaret Chin had successfully pushed for several changes to the text amendment to refl ect commu-nity concerns, but the measure’s chief critics — who decry it as a giveaway to developers that short-changes the community — still argue the zoning text change is a

bad deal for Lower Manhattan, and for public open spaces across the city.

“It’s depressing that this is going through. It just opens the door — it sets a precedent,” said Alice Blank, an architect and mem-ber of Community Board 1 who spearheaded local opposition to the plan, in part because she feared it could lead to similar public spaces being handed over to landlords elsewhere. “Any agreement of tak-ing away public space is a bad idea,” she added.

At the initial subcommittee hearings last month, several of the legislators expressed grave con-cerns about the deal, but once Chin came on board this week opposi-

tion on the committees evaporated, since councilmembers usually defer to the local member when consid-ering a measure that falls entirely within their district.

The zoning text amendment, introduced by the Downtown Alliance and the city’s Economic Development Corporation and Dept. of City Planning, seeks to hand 110,000 square feet of cov-ered arcades at 20 Downtown offi ce towers to building owners for retail development in exchange for upgrades to public plazas in the area.

Both the walkways and pla-zas — which are privately owned

WATERSHED VOTEControversial Water St. arcade plangets Council committee green light

Photos by Yannic Rack

Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin (inset) is poised to declare victory in her group’s quest to allow developers to put retail space into the Water St. pedestrian arcades (left) in exchange for sprucing up the area’s public plazas (right), after the Council’s Land Use Committee unanimously endorsed the proposal on Jun15, setting up approval from the full Council on June 21.

ARCADES Continued on page 12

Suggestion box, not soap box for public at BPCA meetings

File photo by Milo Hess

Battery Park City Authority chairman Dennis Mehiel considers allowing only elected offi cials to speak at authority board meetings while restricting residents to submitting written comments to be a “reasonable approach” to growing calls for more community input.

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BY COLIN MIXSONYou can see a lot further than Jersey

from Wagner Park.A group of hobbyist astronomers

offered locals the chance to spy on dis-tant worlds from the unlikely vantage point of Battery Park City’s Wagner Park last week, where they set up high-powered telescopes and invited passers-by to discover the beauty of the heav-ens.

“I’ve had people who look and say, ‘Oh my god, you’ve changed my life forever,’” said Joe Delfausse, 75, a longtime stargazer and member of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York. “And when you see Saturn with its rings, that’s exactly how you feel. It’s incredible.”

Conditions in New York City are far from ideal for stargazing. In fact, the light pollution is about as bad as it gets. For most people, the bright lights of the big city aren’t so much a problem

as an essential aspect of the city that never sleeps. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the challenge of viewing cosmic spectacles — distant beyond reckoning — any easier.

But beholding truly distant sights is not what the Amateur Astronomers Association is all about. These star-ry-eyed hobbyists are more concerned with sharing with the uninitiated the dazzling sights that populate our own celestial backyard.

“There’s two kind of philosophies to stargazing,” said Delfausse. “One is you bring your telescope out into the middle of nowhere where the sky is really dark and you get to see all types of neat clus-ters that you wouldn’t normally see. But there are a gazillion people in NYC that have never seen the planets through a telescope. Even if we just limit ourselves to the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and Mars, we can do a lot of good by bring-ing our telescopes to the people. That’s

what I’m all about.”Wagner Park is a relatively new spot

for the group, which regularly meets up on the High Line and at Lincoln Center

to share the celestial view. This was only the second time they’ve set up shop in

STARSTRUCK

Photo by Milo Hess

Joe Delfausse, a leader of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York, promotes the joy of stargazing by setting up his telescope in public spaces and inviting passers-by to get a close-up look at the heavens.

Amateur astronomers call the view from Wagner Park out of this world

STARSTRUCK Continued on page 12

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Swingin’ tunes at BrookfieldUnleash your inner child — and musician — with interactive art installation

BY YANNIC RACKA new cooperative musical instal-

lation just opened at Brookfi eld Place, where a giant set of musical swings invites passers-by to have some nostalgic fun while collectively composing tunes.

The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation features a set of 10 giant swings, each representing one of four instruments — piano, harp, guitar and vibraphone — and triggering a sound when participants swing back and forth.

“We found something universal in people just loving to swing, having great nostalgia and attachment to it,” said Melissa Mongiat, one half of Montreal-based design duo Daily tous les jours, which came up with the project.

“And the whole music-making ele-ment is a great icebreaker between strangers,” Mongiat explained. “People usually feel amazed at how comfortable they can feel in a public space.”

Together with her partner, Mouna Andraos, Mongiat originally designed a larger set of 21 swings that has been a mainstay in Montreal’s arts and enter-tainment district every spring for the past fi ve years.

The smaller version, which will stay on the Waterfront Plaza at Brookfi eld Place until July 7 and is open every day from noon to 8 p.m., has just kicked off a whirlwind tour through the US — but it will be more than fun and games. The contraption will gather data on how the swings are used and how participants collaborate with each other to make music as a spontaneous community, making it more than just a fancy play-thing, according to Mongiat.

“We got a Knight Foundation grant, and we decided to have a study made around it to better understand the impact. We feel it’s a project that,

depending on its context, can relieve a lot of tension,” she explained.

The installation has already shown results in other locations in serious need of social cohesion, Mongiat said.

“We were in West Palm Beach, where there is a lot of social tension, and Detroit, which has a lot of econom-ic tension,” she said, “and it has quite a lot of power to relieve some of that and attract a mixed crowd. It just gets people to take down their barriers.”

The fun of literally playing on the musical swings can quickly gather a diverse group of people together — as evidenced during a preview session last

week, where both men in suits and mothers with toddlers gave it a go.

“I actually went to Colorado when it was there, and I had such a great time — swinging myself, and experiencing the installation,” said Elysa Marden, a senior producing director at Arts Brookfi eld who helped bring the instal-lation to the Hudson River waterfront. “So I came back to talk it up.”

Before The Swings’ grand tour, when Mongiat and Andraos were planning their original installation in Montreal, they studied the space it was going to occupy and found both a symphony orchestra and a science faculty nearby.

A few meetings later, the musical component was incorporated, and a biology professor came on board to con-tribute insights from his area of exper-tise — cooperation among animals.

“He got involved, and he helped us fi nd the whole interactive pattern,” Mongiat said. “We look at human

behavior, he looks at animal behavior, and somehow there is some nice overlap of how you can get people to do more together than alone.”

She also thinks that, on a grand scale, The Swings’ latest location is par-ticularly apt — even if Downtowners don’t associate Battery Park City with the social problems of Detroit.

“It’s a nice message for this par-ticular area, because if you think the World Trade Center is just behind it, it’s quite historically charged around here,” Mongiat said. “So it’s nice to see what can happen when people come together.”

The Swings will be at the Waterfront Plaza at Brookfi eld Place until July 7. Playing on the installation is free and it’s open daily from 12–8 p.m. No registra-tion is necessary, but visitors are asked to sign a waiver before getting on the swings, which is available online at arts-brookfi eld.com/event/theswings.

Photos by Yannic Rack

(Above) Not even a business suit can hold in your inner child when faced with Brookfi eld’s musical plaground of The Swings. (Right) But kids can have a ball too on the swings, each of which plays the notes of a particular musical instrument — piano, harp, guitar and vibraphone.

Photo by Yannic Rack

The musical swings will be at Brookfi eld Place through July 7. Playing on them is free, but participants are asked to sign a liability waiver.

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NewYork-Presbyterian/ Lower Manhattan Hospital. Just two blocks southeast of City Hall at 170 William St.

lower manhattan has many landmarks. but only one hospital.

nyp.org/lowermanhattan

BY BILL EGBERTFinally! A feel-good story about

Downtown garbage.Two weeks ago, Downtown Express

revealed the staggering amount of addi-tional household trash destined for Lower Manhattan’s sidewalks in the wake of the area’s unrelenting residential boom, showing that developments now in the pipeline would churn out another 19 tons of garbage every day into a neigh-borhood already drowning in detritus.

But there may be a solution to the garbage glut — and we can already see it in action right here in Downtown, in Battery Park City.

For the past ten years, most of the residential buildings in the waterfront development have kept their garbage off

the curb entirely by transporting it daily to one of several nearby compactors which compress the trash bags to a frac-tion of their normal size and store all the refuse until specialized Sanitation trucks arrive to haul the entire contrap-tion away to be emptied and returned.

Just one compactor at the southern end of BPC serves eight buildings with a total of 2,021 units. Overall, the four compactors operating in BPC handle all the household garbage generated by more than 7,000 units — more than the 6,537 new units going up across Downtown in the next three years — plus trash from two local schools.

Bruno Pomponio, the director of parks operations for the BPCA, said that a compactor system could be a simple

solution to add to the new supertall tow-ers going up elsewhere Downtown that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the trash their residents will produce.

“It would be easy, and it would save space,” said Pomponio, noting that the daily collection means building manag-ers would only have to store one day’s worth of garbage downstairs, rather than letting it pile up for two or three days awaiting curbside collection.

At the compactor at the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy Headquarters, which Pomponio manages, workers from nearby buildings start arriving at about 2:30 each afternoon pushing carts loaded with the same long, black garbage bags that would otherwise be stacked on the curb the day before regu-lar collection. But instead of blocking

Sanitation salvation?

Photo by Bill Egbert

Bruno Pomponio, center, the director of parks operations for the Battery Park City Authority, supervises the daily ritual of workers from the surrounding residential buildings lining up to load the day’s trash to the compactor on Second Pl., the green device on the left. When the dumpster is full, the city sends a truck to pick it up.

Battery Park City may hold the key to conquering Downtown’s garbage glut

COMPACTORS Continued on page 18

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BY COLIN MIXSONTaking a break from their bold

endeavor to circumnavigate the globe with only the sun and stars as their guide, the brave crew of a traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe, Hokulea, swung by Battery Park City’s North Cove Marina for a bit of Manhattan landlubbing on June 5.

The big highlight of the crew’s time in Gotham was their state of the seas address by Master Navigator Nainoa Thompson at the United Nations on June 8, when the international body cel-ebrated the annual World Oceans Day.

The intrepid seamen and women hosted several other community events — including a June 7 appearance at the American Museum of Natural History — at which they passed on both ancient tips for sailing by the stars and messages from coastal communities they have vis-ited worldwide.

“Reaching New York City is a pin-nacle point of our journey where we will be able to share what we have learned from the communities we have visited around the world,” said Thompson.

The Hokulea and her crew set sail from the Hawaiian Islands way back in 2013, heading west toward the setting sun and making numerous pit stops along the way, including layovers at such far-fl ung locales as New Zealand, Australia, Samoa, Mauritius, South Africa, Brazil, and Cuba before ulti-mately making their way to New York.

Between then and now, the Hawaiian

vessel has put four continents and three oceans between her and home.

At the United Nations on June 8, the crew of the Hokulea took part in several events as part of World Oceans Day, and, having recently voyaged through the Pacifi c, Indian, and Atlantic, gave an account of the watery parts of the world and the communities that cling to their edges. In a traditional Hawaiian ceremony dockside and onboard, they presented UN offi cials with “ocean pro-tection declarations” regarding the need to ensure the earth’s sustainability that the sailors collected from their various hosts throughout the journey.

Three days ahead of the UN event, on Sunday, June 5, New Yorkers were invited to witness the historic arrival of the Hokulea as it sailed up the Hudson and docked at North Cove Marina at 385 South End Avenue in Battery Park City at around 9 am. The vessel’s com-ing was accompanied with cultural per-

FANTASTIC VOYAGETraditional Polynesian canoe stops off at North Cove on its trip around the world

Photo by Milo Hess

The traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe, Hokulea, swung by Battery Park City on its way around the globe.

Photo by Milo Hess

Traditional costumes and drumming greeted the Hokulea when it arrived at North Cove Marina on June 5.

HOKULEA Continued on page 19

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WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING RESERVATIONS FOR THANKSGIVING CONGRATULATIONS TO THE GAY CITY NEWS IMPACT HONOREES — & THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMITMENT IN MAKING NEW YORK THE BEST PLACE TO LIVE.SERVING OUR COMMUNITY SINCE 1970 — AND STILL RUNNING STRONG

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BY COLIN MIXSON Jenifer Rajkumar, a Democratic dis-

trict leader and six-year member of Downtown Independent Democrats, heaped scorn on the venerable politi-cal club after it voted to endorse her club rival in the race to fi ll the state Assembly seat left vacant by convicted felon Sheldon Silver. Rajkumar said the club “does not represent the greater community” and likened it to the noto-rious triumvirate in Albany that once ruled New York State with an iron fi st.

“A small group cast a vote that doesn’t refl ect the true sentiments or diversity of our community,” Rajkumar said of the DID vote to endorse her co-district lead-er, Paul Newell, for Assembly. “I suppose it was to be expected, since there’s really no difference between ‘three men in a room’ and a gang in a clubhouse.”

The 45-year-old political club was faced with making the unenviable deci-sion of choosing to endorse Newell or Rajkumar, both running for Assembly in

the 65th District and both veteran mem-bers of DID, at its meeting last week.

Not only have Newell and Rajkumar paid dues to the political club for many years, but DID has a long history of supporting both Newell and Rajkumar in their elections, including Newell’s bid for district leader in 2009 and Rajkumar’s run against then-District Leader Linda Belfer in 2011, plus Rajkumar’s unsuccessful challenge to Councilmember Margaret Chin in the 2013 primary election.

More than that, many DID members refer to both Newell and Rajkumar as a friend, underscoring the diffi culty of the decision to endorse one candidate over the other.

“Everybody’s been friends with Paul and Jennifer for over a decade, so it was a very diffi cult call for everybody,” said DID member Tom Goodkind.

Some members were so upset with the prospect of choosing between Rajkumar and Newell that there was

an effort to include “Captain’s Choice” on the DID ballot, an option allowing members to endorse all candidates in a given race — which is more positive than voting “No Endorsement.”

DID President Jeanne Wilcke went so far as to put Captain’s Choice on the ballots that were handed out at the begin-ning of Wednesday’s meeting. However, the members who were present voted overwhelmingly to strike it off, with the general sentiment being that Captain’s Choice would dilute the group’s infl u-ence in the coming election, which is

not limited to Newell and Rajkumar, but has a whopping six other candidates, including incumbent Alice Cancel, who prevailed in the April special election to replace Silver after a jury found him guilty on corruption charges.

“People were so concerned and would say, ‘Can’t we elect both?’ that the Captain’s Choice thing was fl oated,” Wilcke said. “But people understood that we really had to endorse a candi-date. We’re here to give guidance to

RAGE-kumar!Rajkumar rages at ‘clubhouse gang’

after Newell gets nod from their club

RAGE-KUMAR Continued on page 18

Jenifer Rajkumar (left) blasted the Downtown Independent Democrats when it endorsed rival Paul Newell (right) in the race to fi ll the Assembly seat tarnished by convicted former Speaker Sheldon Silver.

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Keyed upBY YANNIC RACK

An arts non-profi t that provides artistically embellished pianos for pub-lic schools unveiled its new slate of instruments last week with an event in Lower Manhattan that invited kids from all over the city to tickle the ivories and sing with the stars.

Sing for Hope is celebrating the fi fth year of its community arts pro-gram, providing public schools with 50 pianos hand-painted by local and international artists, and this year’s kickoff event at 28 Liberty St. was a resounding success, according to one participant.

“It was lovely, they were very gen-erous to include us and invite our stu-dents,” said Lisala Beatty, a program manager at the non-profi t program Music and the Brain, which gives grants

to support music education in public schools.

Beatty, who attended the event on June 6 with a group of students from her group’s participating schools, said the youngsters particularly appreciated the chance to try their hands at real, full-sized pianos.

“Our students are usually working on electric keyboards in their school, so it was nice for them to play real pianos,” Beatty explained. “Plus, they really appreciated the beautiful art-work!”

The inspired instruments were designed and painted by artists includ-ing singer Jessie James Decker and photographer Bruce Weber over the past few weeks at studio space provided by Fosun Group at 28 Liberty St. The June 6 event featured performances

from celebrities including Tony Award-winning Broadway actress and singer Lea Solonga and former Late Night with David Letterman bandleader Paul

Shaffer, who sang along with the stu-dent musicians during a lunchtime per-formance.

“It was a beautiful day,” said Beatty. “Their music teachers were all there, and it was a really fun time.”

Following last week’s kickoff at 28 Liberty St., the eye-catching instru-ments were dispersed across the city to high-traffi c areas where members of the general public can try their hands at plinking out a rendition of “Chopsticks,” or regale passers-by with an impromptu recital, depending on their level of tal-ent. Anyone interested in marveling at — and trying out — the painted pianos before the installation wraps up on June 19 can locate them with a free iPhone app called SFH Pianos.

After this weekend, all of the pianos will fi nd permanent homes at city pub-lic schools through a partnership with the Department of Education, and will benefi t an estimated 15,000 school chil-dren, according to the organizers.

If you’re inspired by the project, but not quite brave enough to attempt a street-corner concert, there’s still a way you can participate. A crowdfunding campaign has so far raised a bit more than half of the $25,000 needed to cover the costs of the project. It will run through June 19, and can be found at sfhpianos.splashthat.com.

Photo by Milo Hess

The 50 pianos were hand painted by local and internationally known artists, and will brighten up music rooms in public schools across the city.

Photos by Milo Hess

(Above) After the June 6 kickoff event, the 50 painted pianos were dispersed across the city to high-traffi c areas where members of the general public are invited to try them out until June 19, when they will be delivered to public schools. (Right) Tony Award-winning Broadway actress and singer Lea Solonga lent her voice to the Sing for Hope event.

Kid musicians strike chord at public piano-art event

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June 16 - June 29, 2016 11DowntownExpress.com

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BY COLIN MIXSONThe Battery’s aggressive ticket

vendors are fleeing the park fol-lowing a recent crackdown by the NYPD — but they haven’t gone far, and now they’re plaguing the nearby “tourist corridor” along Whitehall St., according to local community leaders.

“You’re starting to see them along Whitehall Street near Beaver. I think they’re just moving away from the edge of the park,” said Patrick Kennell, president of the Financial District Neighborhood Association. “It’s a huge tourist corridor, so that’s a huge place to pick up tourists.”

The ticket vendors preying on unwitting out-of-towners Downtown have become notorious following sev-eral assaults — including one slashing amid a disagreement between rival ticket gangs near the Whitehall Ferry Terminal, and an altercation that sent a tourist to the hospital with a concus-sion — prompting the crackdown that

began last month.The police sting netted 21 suspects,

who will face charges of fraudulent accosting after selling tickets to ferries-they claimed would make stops at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but instead merely circled the harbor and then returned, according to a New York Times report.

Those charges barely scratch the surface of the various cons and crimes the ticket vendors have been accused of, which range from selling tickets to the (free) Staten Island Ferry for several hundred dollars and physically assaulting tourists who decline their offers.

Additional security measures are coming to The Battery sometime next year in the form of a seven-day Park Enforcement Patrol, thanks to $5.3 mil-lion of increased funding for Fiscal Year 2017 that will provide for a PEP substation at the park, according to a

Hawker haven

Photo by Bill Egbert

A police crackdown has driven some predatory ticket vendors out of The Battery, but they haven’t gone far enough, complain locals.

Crackdown drives ticket vendors from The Battery, but only to nearby streets

HAWKERS Continued on page 16

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12 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

Battery Park City. But they found the view spectacular — as far as NYC goes — with a sweeping, unrestricted view to the west and fairly good sightlines to the east as well.

The only disappointment for them is that by sundown at around 8:30 p.m., the crowds clear out and Wagner Park becomes a veritable ghost town.

“It’s fantastic and there’s very few places in NY like that, but the problem is there aren’t too many people passing by,” said Delfausse. “We’re hoping that, when it gets warmer, there will be more people passing by.”

The stargazers rolled up with a whop-ping 10 telescopes for their inaugural visit to the Battery Park City green space on May 29. Their second visit was more subdued, with only four telescopes, each turned to a different celestial body, which is about what you can expect from here on

out at any given Wagner Park stargazing foray, according to Delfausse.

The astronomers’ next visit to Battery Park City is scheduled for Thursday, June 16 at sundown. For information

regarding possible schedule changes and other spots where you can catch Delfausse and his crew, head over to the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York website at aaa.org.

Photos by Milo Hess

(Left) People strolling along the esplanade in Wagner Park on June 9 got a chance to get a close look at some heavenly bodies, like this view of the moon, (above) snapped through one of the telescopes.

STARSTRUCK Continued from page 2

public spaces, or POPS — were origi-nally ceded to the city by landlords in exchange for permission to construct taller, bulkier buildings than zoning laws allow.

The idea behind the text amend-ment, according to the Alliance, is to incentivise landlords to bring in more of the retail amenities so lacking along the Water St. corridor and make the area more attractive to its growing residen-tial population.

“This amendment should enliven the street, improve public plazas, and incen-tivize investment for the benefi t of all those who live, work, or visit the area,” said Alliance president Jesica Lappin following the committee vote.

As originally written, the text amendment would have allowed land-lords to develop the arcades any way they saw fi t, barring a few restrictions, with only a sign off by the City Planning Commission. Under the modifi cations secured by Chin, any retail infi ll at the six largest arcades will be subject to extensive pubic oversight through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP.

Other changes include limiting banks and drug stores to 30 and 50 feet of retail frontage, respectively, and restoring some compliance and report-ing provisions that the original proposal would have eliminated, leading Chin to throw her support behind the plan.

“This wasn’t an easy decision to make,” Chin said in a statement after Wednesday’s vote. “There have been many passionate voices that wanted

this proposal to be rejected outright, or conversely, wanted the text amendment passed as is. The modifi ed proposal seeks to strike a balance of community input and public oversight with regard to the infi ll of arcades while providing fl exibility to achieve the desired goals of improved public space, neighborhood retail, and pedestrian experience.”

But Blank and her fellow critics — both on the community board and at various organizations including the Tribeca Trust — said the changes don’t go far enough.

“It still doesn’t take away the fact that [the arcades] can now be removed, and that we’re getting nothing in exchange,”

Blank said.Landlords that do infi ll will be

obliged to spruce up the nearby public plazas, to bring the 1960s-era spaces into compliance with new standards instituted in 2007 and 2009 that require more plantings and greenery. But critics doubt that this would be fair compensa-tion to the city for handing over devel-opment rights to 110,000 square feet of space, which real estate experts estimate could collectively net $250 million in rent as ground fl oor retail.

But what seemed to irk locals most about the plan — which even skeptics agreed could help revitalize a dreary section of the Financial District — was

less about the particulars than the sense that it was being pushed on to the com-munity.

The Downtown Alliance said it had been working on the proposal for years with community stakeholders, but when the group presented the fully formed proposal to CB1 earlier this spring, it was the fi rst time many had ever heard such a dramatic zoning change was in the works.

After initially rejecting it, the board eventually approved the zoning change in March, but critics claim most of the community was never given the chance to weigh in, and that the Alliance was less than upfront in the way it presented and promoted the plan.

“This is a strange example to me of how the community can get a voice,” said Roger Byrom, the chair of CB1’s Landmarks committee, “even though this has been done, in my opinion, in the most manipulative of ways — in terms of not having full transparency from day one, in having oblique answers to very basic questions all the way through this, and then to fi nally discover that the agencies that are promoting this have used extremely unethical, if not illegal practices to try and get this through.”

Byrom’s last comment refers to the disturbing experience of fellow CB1 member Paul Hovitz, who recently received a call to solicit support for the zoning change that purported to come from Chin’s offi ce, but was actually from a public relations fi rm hired by the Alliance.

The plan will now go before the full Council, which is expected to approve it on June 21.

ARCADES Continued from page 1

Photo by Bill Egbert

The owners of 100 Wall St. could realize a $6-million annual windfall if they built out 2,518 square feet of ground-fl oor retail in the building’s public arcades, as the Downtown Alliance’s zoning plan will allow.

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June 16 - June 29, 2016 13DowntownExpress.com

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14 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

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BY YANNIC RACKA New Jersey man has been charged

with manslaughter for hitting and kill-ing a cyclist on the West Side Highway on Saturday evening.

Police say the 26-year-old driver, from Newark, was heading southbound on West St. in his 2011 Ford truck around 7:50 p.m. when he made a right turn onto Chambers St. and hit a woman cycling in the lane next to him.

The victim, who has not been identi-fi ed, was taken to Bellevue Hospital but died from head and body trauma.

The driver was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian and driving while impaired — the latter because he tested .062 on an alcohol test on the scene of his arrest, according to a police spokes-man.

An off-duty MTA offi cer detained the driver at Warren St. and North End Ave. in Battery Park City around 8 p.m., according to police, where he found the driver sitting in his white truck.

The MTA cop, identifi ed as Otis Noboa in news reports, was driv-ing by on West St. when he saw the

cyclist lying on the ground.He pulled over, radioed for backup

and then searched the area until he found the driver a few blocks away, according to WABC 7.

“She was trying to get up — they were trying to help her. Somebody chased after him and they called the cops,” an eyewitness told the channel.

It wasn’t immediately clear who would represent the driver in court.

A woman from Philadelphia current-ly faces up to six years in prison after she pleaded guilty two weeks ago of hit-ting a woman with her car on Beekman St. last summer, although that accident was not fatal.

In Battery Park City, a woman was run over and seriously injured in 2011 when a corporate car turning from Rector Pl. onto South End Ave. at high speed hit her as she was cross-ing the intersection, according to The Broadsheet.

The paper also notes that another woman was run over and killed by a drunk driver at West and Albany Sts. in February, 2009, in an accident that also seriously injured her fi ancée.

Cyclist killed in hit-and-run on West St., driver arrested

BY YANNIC RACKThe man who triggered an evacu-

ation of Liberty Island last year after he made a hoax 911 call and threat-ened to blow up the Statue of Liberty pleaded guilty in federal court this week, according to authorities.

Jason Paul Smith, a 42-year-old from West Virginia, pleaded guilty to one count of conveying false and mis-leading information, which carries a maximum sentence of fi ve years in prison, said Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Offi cials said that Smith used a call service for the hearing impaired on his iPad to make the call on April 24 last year, in which he claimed to be an ISIS terrorist named “Abdul Yasin” — a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — who was preparing to “blow up” the land-mark.

Cops responding to the hoax swarmed the island and eventually evacuated more than 3,200 people

because bomb-sniffi ng dogs alerted them to possible explosives near the visitor lockers at the base of the statue, according to a complaint — although that suspicion was later proven to be unfounded.

Authorities said the iPad Smith used was also found to have been used to make 911 calls in May of last year, in which a caller identify-ing himself as an “ISIS Allah bomb maker” threatened to attack Times Square and kill police offi cers on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Smith is scheduled to be sen-tenced on September 6.

Guilty plea in fake

bomb threat at

Statue of Liberty

Page 15: Downtown Express

June 16 - June 29, 2016 15DowntownExpress.com

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FIRST CALL

A boisterous burglar apparently couldn’t wait for the grand opening of the Fork and Parrot, a bar set to soon make its debut in Soho — so he simply broke in and had a pre-opening party all by himself, while pocketing $1,000 worth of construction tools, cops say.

The hard-partying perp left behind bottles of alcohol after he came in through an open window and vandal-ized 519 Broome St., which is currently under construction, sometime after 10 p.m. on Saturday June 4, according to a police report.

But in addition to taking the tools, he also appears to have left behind his iPhone at the scene of the crime, police say.

BOOZY BURGLARY

Two thirsty thieves were seen help-ing themselves to cases of beer from the back of a delivery truck in Soho last week, cops say.

The two were seen stealing two cases containing 24 bottles of Corona each, worth $60 in total, out of the truck while it was parked in front of a Duane Reade on Broadway at 2:25 p.m. on Friday June 10, police say.

Cops canvassing the area caught up with one of the thieves, a 40-year-old man who had an outstanding arrest warrant, but the other one got away, according to a report.

LATE-NIGHT YOGA

Police arrested a man apparently in desperate need of some new yoga pants after they found him wandering around inside a Soho boutique shop after clos-ing time, according to a report.

The 42-year-old man was seen inside the high-end Lululemon yoga store on Prince St. around 2:15 a.m. last Saturday June 11, and was promptly taken into custody, police say.

Although he seemingly didn’t have time to try on any clothes, cops found two stolen credit cards in his wallet, according to police.

GUMPOINT ROBBERY

A man was arrested for allegedly robbing and threatening to shoot up a drug store in the Financial District last weekend, cops say.

The 50-year-old accused perp walked into a Duane Reade on Wall St. at 8:20 a.m. last Sunday June 12 and bagged $337 worth of products — including 44 packs of Doublemint chewing gum, body wash, deodorant and a pair of sandals — before an employee tried to stop him.

He told her, “Back up or I’ll shoot,” according to a report.

He fl ed the store towards Pine St. and was eventually caught on Broadway, and the store employee later identifi ed him in a police line-up, cops say.

PUNCH CAR

Cops caught a 25-year-old man after he allegedly punched a livery cab driver during an argument in the Financial District and then fl ed in the victim’s car — only to crash it an hour later, accord-ing to a report.

The Brooklyn man pulled over the 60-year-old cabbie at the corner of Vesey and West Sts. around noon on Sunday June 5 and hopped in the driv-er’s $20,000 black Lincoln after punch-ing him to the ground, police say.

About an hour later, the alleged perp was arrested after he rear-ended anoth-er car at W. Third St. and LaGuardia Pl with the stolen cab and then tried to fl ee the scene, cops say.

His charges include robbery, grand larceny, assault, leaving the scene of an accident, false impersonation and driv-ing without a license, and he is currently being held on $5,000 bail.

IPHONE CAPER

A man dressed as an Apple Store employee stole 19 iPhones from the company’s store in Soho, cops say.

According to a police report, the thief “dressed similarly” to store employees, who wear blue T-shirts imprinted with the Apple logo, and walked right into the shop’s second-fl oor repair area around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1.

The man grabbed 19 iPhones from a drawer, worth a total of $16,130, and handed them over to an accom-plice, who hid the loot under his shirt before he walked out of the store, police say.

FILCHING WITH FLATTERY

A young teen swiped an iPhone right through an open restaurant window in Tribeca, police say.

The victim told police that the girl, estimated to be 13 years old, was part of a group of around 20 men and women who approached her as she was sitting by an open window at Mudville 9, a Chambers St. bar, at around 11:45 p.m. on Friday, June 3.

Before grabbing the $900 phone, the girl told the 19-year-old victim and her friend, “You girls are sexy,” according to a police report.

—Yannic Rack

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16 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

Rain couldn’t take the shine off Dine Around Downtown

BY TEQUILA MINSKYLocals may love the annual Dine

Around Downtown food festival, but this year, the weather spirits did not look on kindly. About halfway through the event, the sky opened up and steady and cold rain came down.

Residents could see the clouds gath-ering, however, and swooped in to nab their knoshes early.

“We had a large turnout during the fi rst 90 minutes —before the rain,” said Jessica Lappin, President of the Downtown Alliance, co-sponsor of last Wednesday’s food fest at 28 Liberty Plaza that offered tastes from over 40 Downtown restaurants for about $5 a portion.

By 1 p.m., the umbrellas popped up, but the downpour didn’t stop the hardy, hungry local foodies, who still formed lines around many stands, even in the rain.

People took shelter under the plaza’s sculpture or pedestrian arcades of the Fosun building and on the Liberty St. side of the plaza, some eaters sat at out-door tables under the protective over-hang.

Chris Chen visited two restau-rant stalls and happily chomped a lamb chop and steak sandwich. Chen has been working on Wall St. for four years and said that normally he doesn’t go out for lunch but there he was with two friends who came from Connecticut to join him at this food festival.

Jasmine Rivera trudged through the downpour from Brookfi eld Place to meet this year’s celebrity host.

“I came specifi cally because I heard that chef Alex Guarnaschelli would be here,” Rivera said as she fi nished up her charred swordfi sh taco.

Balancing her umbrella and shop-ping bag, she pulled out Guarnaschelli’s

cookbook, proudly pointing out the “To Jasmine” inscription on the title page.

Guarnaschelli is a Food Network star and owner and executive chef of a number of NYC restaurants. She was the host and event emcee, and she greeted the crowd around noon. Her “Old-School Comfort Food” cookbook sold out.

The National Jazz Museum Allstars band also performed before the rain.

For one brief, shining moment, Lower Manhattan workers could spend their lunch hour enjoying the best tastes

of Downtown, but due to thunder and lightning, the event itself was called to an end around 1:30 p.m.

Photos by Tequila Minsky

(Above) Even in the middle of last week’s downpour, people still lined up for a taste of local cuisine. (Right) Though some have said that pedestrian arcades are a waste, people took full advantage of the public spaces at 28 Liberty St. to nibble their noshes during a rain at the food fest co-sponsored by the Downtown Alliance.

letter sent from Parks commissioner Mitchell Silver to Borough President Gale Brewer.

In light of that measure and the possibility of future NYPD crack-downs, the ticket sellers are expect-ed to diffuse even further away

from the park and deeper into sur-rounding neighborhoods, according to Diana Switaj, the director of plan-ning and land use for Community Board 1.

“It’s going to force them into other areas,” Switaj said.

The Council is taking steps to tame the ticket-vending trade with

a bill backed by Councilmember Margaret Chin and introduced by Councilmember Daniel Garodnick in the works that would force the ticket sellers to obtain licenses and empower the Department of Consumer Affairs to determine where the ticket ped-dlers can operate, in addition to giv-ing NYPD the authority to relocate

the vendors if necessary.The licenses, which would have to

be renewed annually for a $125 fee, could be revoked by the Department of Consumer Affairs for violating any of a long list of rules against unsa-vory tactics, including fraud and aggres-sive sales pitches, and selling tickets in restricted areas.

HAWKERS Continued from page 11

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June 16 - June 29, 2016 17DowntownExpress.com

DROWSY DRIVING CAN BE AS DANGEROUS AS DRIVING IMPAIREDADVERTORIAL

The public is well educated about the dangers of driving while impaired by medication, alcohol or illegal drugs. But drivers may not be aware that driving while tired can be just as dangerous.

Driving when tired can be a fatal mistake. Just as alcohol or drugs can slow down reaction time, impair judgment and in-crease the risk of accident, so, too, can being tired behind the wheel. Drowsy driving is re-portedly what caused the fatal crash in June 2014 between a limousine and a Walmart truck that ended the life of comic

James McNair and seriously injured fellow comedian Tracy Morgan. The driver, Kevin Roper, was going 20 miles over the speed limit and was almost at his drive time limit, accord-ing to preliminary reports by the National Transportation Safety Board.

According to the U.S. Na-tional Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 100,000 car crashes in the United States each year occur as the result of an overly tired driver. Various studies demonstrate that driv-ers who have remained awake for 18 hours prior to driving

mimic the driving perfor-mance of intoxicated motorists. In fact, drowsy driving can be confused with driving with a high blood alcohol content.

Sleepiness can arise rela-tively quickly, and according to Thomas Balkin, PhD, director of the behavioral biology pro-gram at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and a leading expert on sleep and fa-tigue, it’s difficult for drivers to assess just how sleepy they are.

“Sleepiness affects the part of the brain responsible for judgment and self-awareness,”

he says. “When you’ve reached the stage where you are fight-ing sleep, the effect of any method of reviving yourself can be very short-lived.”

Furthermore, people do not have to be in a deep sleep to actually be asleep behind the wheel. Micro-sleeps occur when certain brain cells tem-porarily shut down for a few seconds. A person is not com-pletely asleep but in a sort of fog as if they are asleep.

When sleepiness sets in, the best course of action is to pull off the road. Opening the window, turning on the radio

or blasting cold air is, at best, only a temporary solution. If driving with passengers and feelings of sleepiness appear, hand the keys over to a passen-ger and have them take over driving, if possible. Otherwise, a short nap and a cup of coffee can be used in combination to increase alertness.

It’s also a good idea to avoid beginning a long road trip in mid-afternoon around the hours of two or three o’clock. While alertness generally dips in the evening hours, due to the circadian rhythm, alert-ness also dips in the late after-

noon, prompting drowsiness. A 2010 study by the AmericanAutomobile Association Foun-dation for Traffic Safety foundthat as many drivers reported falling asleep at the wheel in the afternoon hours as report-ed falling asleep late at night. Driving in a warm, quiet car also may spur drowsiness, as would driving after a heavy meal.

Driving tired is just as dan-gerous as other impaired driv-ing. Slow reaction times andunawareness of surroundings can contribute to accidentsthat are otherwise avoidable..

Page 18: Downtown Express

18 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

sidewalks and attracting rats overnight, these garbage bags are tipped into a compactor about eight feet wide and eight feet tall and stretching 23 feet back into the conservancy building. Then a hydraulic piston compresses the refuse to make room for the next cart-load. When the compactor unit is full, a Sanitation truck comes to pick it up.

The entire operation for all eight buildings takes about 90 minutes, and the trash bags never even touch the ground.

The original reason the BPCA adopt-ed the compactor system was to reduce the rat population, which had exploded in the midst of all the construction at the nearby World Trade Center com-plex, and on that count the program has been “very, very successful,” according to Michael Gubbins, building manager at The Solaire, which led the way in imple-menting the program in 2006.

“The rat population decreased sig-nifi cantly,” he said. “And without using any pesticides.”

But Gubbins said the compactor pro-gram has been a boon to the buildings and their residents in other ways, too.

“You have one truck coming to pick it up, instead of several, which means less traffi c,” he said. “You don’t have the garbage piled on the street, and the trucks idling. And you don’t have to clean up after it,” Gubbins said, referring to the scourge of “garbage juice” that plagues sidewalks across Downtown. “That’s a waste of water and unnecessary labor.”

Pomponio added that the Sanitation trucks that pick up the compactors are not the same model as those used for curbside collection, which are drafted into service as snowplows after win-ter storms. So while garbage bags can pile up for days across the city after a snowstorm, collection continues unin-terrupted in BPC.

Gubbins said that Solaire’s experi-ence with the program helped win over

the other two dozen BPC buildings that now use compactors.

“We were able to demonstrate to the other buildings how well this works, and they eventually joined in,” he said.

And he said that compactors could be a good way to address the problem of residential garbage piling up in fast-developing areas elsewhere Downtown — especially if nearby buildings joined together like at BPC.

“If you have an area like Downtown where several new buildings are going up, you could have one compactor room serving several buildings,” he said. “It’s well worth exploring.”

The compactor room at the con-servancy headquarters is 12-feet wide, 18-feet high, and extends 28-feet in from the building line, and the Dept. of Sanitation trucks would require

wider entrances for access on the nar-rower streets common in the rest of Downtown, so Pomponio conceded that installing a compactor in an existing building could be challenging.

“It’s harder to retrofi t a building, but not impossible,” he said.

But it could be worth the money for some of the pricey residential conver-sions going on in Fidi, such as 70 Pine St., which will bring 644 units — and nearly two tons of daily garbage — to some of the narrowest sidewalks in the city.

In addition to saving ground fl oor storage space and making trash collec-tion more effi cient, a compactor system could even be seen as a competitive advantage for a new luxury building in a tightening market. High-end condo-minium developments already compete fi ercely on amenities — from rooftop

pools to world-class restaurants — but who wants to pay millions for a posh pad only to fi nd they have to march past mountains of garbage every other day?

A developer with the foresight to plan for a compactor system could guarantee prospective residents that walking out of their building would always feel just as glamorous as when they walk in.

“It gives the building bragging rights,” said Gubbins. “No garbage on the streets.”

Photos by Bill Egbert

(Above) Rather than stacking bags of garbage at the curb every other day to sit overnight awaiting pickup and attracting rats, most residential buildings in Battery Park City bring each day’s worth of garbage to central compactors in pushcarts, so the trash never even touches the neighborhood’s sidewalks. (Right) Once the carts are rolled up to the compactor, it tips the contents back into the dumpster, where a hydraulic press compacts the trash to the rear of the container to make room for more.

people who look to our endorsements.”But Rajkumar took issue with the

decision to nix Captain’s Choice, which — in light of the club’s decision to go for Newell — could have left her campaign in a far better position come November.

“The removal of Captain’s Choice from the internal club ballot — which would have offered an opportunity for members to support their preferred candidate — smacks of a fi x being in,” she said.

However, Wilcke took issue with that

statement, saying the decision to remove Captain’s Choice from the ballot was made in as open and democratic a way as possible, with a vote among members that followed a lengthy discussion on the nature of Captain’s Choice and its merits.

“We actually spoke at length — about to the point where people’s eyes were glazing over — to make sure we got it right,” Wilcke said. “So I don’t think that’s a fair comment.”

Former club president Sean Sweeney said that Rajkumar apparently knew her chances of beating Newell for DID’s

endorsement were slim, since she called Sweeney requesting that Captain’s Choice be added to the ballot as a means of hedging her bet.

“She knew she was losing,” Sweeney said. “It was a very shrewd political move.”

Regardless, it would seem that Rajkumar is cutting off her nose to spite her face — as well as spite the club — in hurling accusations at her longtime friends and supporters, according to Goodkind.

“For her to scorn the club certainly is

bridge burning,” he said.But, despite her harsh words, there

doesn’t seem to be any hard feelings on the part of DID’s leadership, which looks forward to supporting her in future endeavors — just as long as she’s not running against Newell.

“I consider Jenifer like a daughter and I told her that, and Paul like a son,” Sweeney said. “She’s a little annoyed, I understand, it’s natural. She put a lot of time and effort into this campaign. And Paul and Jenifer were the best of friends. We all were. We still are.”

RAGE-KUMAR Continued from page 8

COMPACTORS Continued from page 6

Page 19: Downtown Express

June 16 - June 29, 2016 19DowntownExpress.com

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formances by Native American tribes and local hula halau troupes.

The following Tuesday, June 7, Captain Chad Kalepa Baybayan and Apprentice Navigator Celeste Manuia Ha’o talked wayfi nding at the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater at the American Museum of Natural History.

On Thursday, June 9, Baybayan and crew regaled New Yorkers with their adventures across the Seven Seas at Patagonia New York Soho, 72 Greene Street, between Spring and Broome Streets, at 7:30 pm.

The crew concluded their public events in style at Pier 26 on the Hudson at N. Moore Street in Tribeca, on Saturday, June 11, where they welcomed

the public to tour the canoe and partake in a free festival, dubbed Kamehameha Day, featuring the Hawaiian Airlines Liberty Challenge, one of the world’s premiere competitive outrigger canoe races.

The Hokulea is a 40-year-old replica of ancient Polynesian voyaging canoes, whose twin-hull design gives her the ability to withstand ocean swells. Her iconic triangular sails lend her speeds of up to 20 knots.

The Hokulea will depart New York City on June 18, and is scheduled to conclude the remaining 34,000 miles of her daunting task around this time next year, when it will have passed through the Panama Canal, braved the Pacifi c, and returned to her home berth in Honolulu, a world in her wake.

Offi ce of the Governor

The spire of 1 WTC lit up in rainbow colors this week to honor the 49 victims of the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida over the weekend, in which a lone gunman went on a rampage that became the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The city’s highest point was one of several land-marks across the city and the world that displayed the colors of LGBT pride in response to the massacre, including the Harbour Bridge in Sydney and City Hall in Tel Aviv. Impromptu memorials and vigils were also held across New York City, which is currently celebrating Pride Month. In response to the shooting, offi cials announced that this year’s Pride Parade, scheduled for Sunday June 26, would include heightened security.

Sorrow and pr ide

HOKULEA Continued from page 7

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20 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

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Thurs., June 16–Wed., June 22 ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING

RULES IN EFFECT ALL WEEK

Expect more traffi c on West St. overnight as the FDR Drive is fully closed for construction at 63rd St. from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning on Wednesday through Friday nights.

Happy Father’s Day this Sunday! Be sure to follow me on Twitter @GridlockSam and check the website www.GridlockSam.com to avoid the gridlock as you celebrate dads, uncles, grandfathers, etc. on Sunday.

Double trouble under the Hudson River on Thursday night: In the Holland Tunnel, one New Jersey-bound and one New York-bound lane will be closed from 11 p.m. Thursday night to 5 a.m. Friday morning. No relief for inbound traffi c at the Lincoln Tunnel, where the New York-bound tube will also close from 11 p.m. Thursday night to 5 a.m. Friday morning.

The Bamra Bleecker Street Festival will close Bleecker St. between Seventh Ave. and LaGuardia Pl. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.

The Exchange Board Meeting will close Liberty St. between Church St. and Broadway from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The Chabad Gala will close Wall St. between William and Hanover Sts. from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Several entertainment productions in Lower Manhattan this week will slow traffi c on streets including: Broad St. between Water and South Sts. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Liberty St. between West and South End Sts. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday,

and Greenwich St. between Vesey and Barclay Sts. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Lower Manhattan streets closed all week include: Thames St. between Greenwich St. and Trinity Pl., Fletcher St. between Front and South Sts., and Avenue D between 12th and 13th Sts.

In the Battery Park Underpass, one tube will be closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday through Friday nights, and from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. Saturday. Traffi c will be maintained in both directions in the open tube. If the north tube is closed, use the detour and exit onto South St., continue on to Whitehall St., turn left onto State St. to Battery Pl., and then turn left onto Battery Pl. to West St. If the south tube is closed go south on West St., left onto Battery Pl., continuing onto State St., and going one block north on Water St., then right onto Broad St.

From the mailbag: Dear Sam, My wife and I have an argument I’d

like you to settle. As the summer gets hotter and we take more and more trips out of the city by car, I prefer to drive without shoes on. My wife says it’s dan-gerous and not legal. I’ve never heard this before. Besides, how could it be ticketed or enforced? Who’s right?

Burt, New York

Dear Burt,Your wife might not be a fan of your

barefoot driving, but you’re right on this one — it’s a perfectly legal practice.

Gridlock Sam

Being sick and hungry is an urgent crisis no one should face.

Help us deliver hope, compassion and love, all wrapped up in a nutritious meal.

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June 16 - June 29, 2016 21DowntownExpress.com

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PublisheR emeRitusJohn W. Sutter

EDITOR IAL

by leNoRe skeNaZySolomon Feuerwerker grew up as

an alien. Not “alien” as in “immigrant.” Alien as in someone from another plan-et.

That planet was Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

While many people in Williamsburg lead lives most of us can relate to, Solomon was the youngest of 11 chil-dren in an ulta-orthodox Jewish family. The religious sect he grew up in, a group called the Satmar Hasidim, believes in large families and distrusts the modern world. Members wear distinctive cloth-ing — the men are in black suits, white shirts and side curls — and speak the traditional Jewish language of Yiddish. They do not mingle with outsiders. They do not watch any media. Boys like Solomon go to sex-segregated schools and are forbidden to study almost any-thing other than religion.

No algebra. No biology. No non-Jew-ish studies beyond what a fourth or fifth grader would get at public school.

Which is why it is all the more remarkable that about a week ago Solomon stood up in front of a crowd of 300 and announced that he had been accepted to medical school.

The crowd went wild. This was the annual Downtown gala for Footsteps, the organization that helped Solomon and hundreds of others find a way out of ultra-Orthodoxy to lead lives of their choosing. Footsteps is not anti-religion, but rather pro-freedom. Its slogan is “Your life, your journey, your choice.”

“Our core value is choice,” says Lani Santo, the executive director. “We really help people think through the conse-quences of their various decisions.”

Because people leaving ultra-ortho-doxy are often shunned by the commu-nity they left behind, including their own

families, Footsteps provides counseling, practical help, and a home base for those who lose their entire support system.

The gala was organized to celebrate the milestones in the lives of Footsteps participants, since few had family mem-bers to cheer them on. Instead, the audi-ence of Footsteps supporters whooped for a member who just got her first tech job, and another who just became an Uber driver. Several members had become engaged, provoking joyous applause. Then Solomon took the stage as the evening’s keynote, and the audience sat in stunned silence as he told his story.

“You need to understand just how insane it is for me to be here,” the 26-year-old began. “I grew up in a typically sized family in Williamsburg: I have 10 siblings. Exposure to the main-stream world is almost non-existent. Some people say I’m an immigrant in my own country, but I prefer ‘alien.’ An immigrant might know about sci-ence and history and politics — an alien doesn’t. An immigrant has read books and watched television — an alien hasn’t. An immigrant has spoken to people of the opposite sex without feeling like the world is about to end. An immigrant might be culturally unaware, but at the same time be an informed citizen of the world. An alien is just an alien, and let me tell you, if an alien is going to successfully transition to immi-grant, they need Footsteps.”

Solomon heard about Footsteps through the grapevine as a teen. By then he’d already been sneaking off to the DVD store in the Puerto Rican part

of his neighborhood and voraciously renting action flicks. These taught him colloquial English, and gave him direc-tion: He wanted to be a cop, just like the guys in the movies. But then he went on a tour of Hunter College sponsored by Footsteps and his life changed.

Classes in art and sociology! Laboratories! Students of every stripe talking, studying, laughing together. Footsteps was founded by a Hunter stu-dent, Malkie Schwartz, who’d made her way out of ultra-Orthodoxy and wanted to help others who chose that path. Solomon enrolled at Hunter — and immediately floundered.

“I had never tackled the concept of the atom, or seen a periodic table of the elements,” he later recalled. “I did not even know that all living things were made up of cells.”

He had to make up for lost time and at first, he couldn’t. He was in danger of failing, but reached out for help. And by the next year, he rose to the top of his class in chemistry.

Solomon continued to climb, get-ting A’s in his coursework while work-ing part time, and becoming a mentor to others following in his, well, foot-steps. He began volunteering at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and doing genetics research.

And last year, he graduated with a degree in sociology, but he put off applying to medical school, however, to stay on for a year at Hunter — teaching organic chemistry.

Now Solomon is heading to Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Yes, he will be an immigrant from New York.

But no longer an alien. Lenore Skenazy is a keynote speaker

and founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids.

Posted ToWASTELANd: NEW RESI-

dENTIAL dEvELOPMENTS TO dUMP 19 TONS MORE

gARBAgE ON dOWNTOWN EvERY dAY BY 2019 (JUNE 2)

What Dept. of Sanitation commu-nity officer Iggy Terranova also pointed out at November’s CB1 Quality of Life meeting was that there is no enforce-ment of fines. Apparently building own-ers do not have to pay until the building

is sold, and the fines show up somewhat as liens on the building.

Jeff Ehrlich

Holy Mounds of Garbage, Batman! Thanks for this incisive analysis of the mounting garbage problems caused by over development in Lower Manhattan. The statistics are troubling. What actions are our politicos taking to rec-tify this imminently dire situation?

A. S. Evans

Really important article.Have worked in area for 10 years –

and stunned to see the huge amount of development and garbage on the side-walk. Really horrible.

Raises the issue that NYC zoning and land use requirements do not take garbage/trash into account.

Bloomberg’s plan for development has serious and permanent consequenc-es.

AL

He’s a stranger in a strange land

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22 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com June 16 - June 29, 2016 23DowntownExpress.com

BY MICHAEL BURKEOn May 27, President Obama visited the Hiroshima

Peace Memorial, with the iconic Peace Dome — the last remnant of the world’s first atomic bombing — in the background, and the image moved hearts around the world.

But what if the Peace Dome was not there anymore? If generations of Japanese had not preserved the Dome where it stood, would the memory of Hiroshima and the dropping of the atomic bomb have remained so poignant, and its imagery so powerful?

It’s a question me must ask ourselves about the last remnant of New York’s own great tragedy.

Our billion dollar, eight-acre National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center famously remakes the site so that it does not acknowledge the attacks. It has been praised by cultural critics for doing this, as memorial foundation officials say that it must.

Apply this thinking to Hiroshima and the Dome would have been gone long ago. There is little chance that the memory of the bombing would have so viscer-ally powerful across the generations.

Today most young people visiting our September 11 WTC memorial have little memory of the day. Half of today’s teenagers were born after the attacks occurred. At the site of the tragedy, they find a pristine, pretty plaza wiped clean of all reminders and lessons of the attacks. By design, the memorial instructs them that there are no traumatic memories there, no lessons here they need learn. So they pose for happy selfies, leaning back on the names of the fallen, and nap on the stone benches.

Signs posted remind visitors to respect the sacred history of this place. Why should they, however, when the memorial does not?

Joe Daniels, President of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation, will not allow the return of the Fritz Koenig Sphere — which was damaged in the attacks but remains standing as the last intact artifact of the original WTC — to the memorial plaza. This reminder of the devastation, and proud symbol of resilience, remains hidden away

far from the plaza.How is this different from denying the Peace Dome

a place at the Hiroshima Peace memorial?It isn’t. There is no coherent, honest reason for not

returning the Sphere to the memorial plaza. While millions visit Michael Arad’s immense waterfalls and Peter Walker’s pretty little trees, the Sphere stands unseen and forgotten in an obscure corner of The Battery, where it serves mostly as a backdrop to a Pier A happy hour drinking spot.

This is an obscenity — an affront to truth and memory.

The Battery Conservancy, which is in the midst of redesigning the park to serve the new families of Downtown, very reasonably wants the Sphere moved to a more appropriate location. It does not belong there.

Some have suggested it be placed at the new Liberty Park — so Downtowners traveling to work or school or shopping centers will have to face the stark evidence of the 9/11 attacks every day, while visitors to the memorial don’t. Brilliant.

As at the Hiroshima memorial, visitors to September 11 Memorial should not be allowed to avoid confront-ing the site’s history, immediately and directly. It is the duty of anyone coming to memorialize the victims of that terrible day.

And putting the Sphere anywhere but back on the plaza where it once stood is an alternative to what? Truth? Memory? Duty?

The Sphere could easily fit in a clearing just out-side the museum entrance and west of the Oculus Transportation Hub. This would put it literally steps from where it stood for 30 years and survived the 9/11 attacks in place. It is the place where we all remember it.

Instead of denying the Sphere it’s rightful place, Daniels and the Foundation — entrusted (and very well paid) to faithfully preserve and honestly convey the history of September 11 — should be demanding and guaranteeing its return to that very spot. They should promise to spend a small part of the annual $25 million stipend they just received from the federal government to make that happen. They should be elbowing others out of the way to get to it. They should celebrate and honor its return.

Or they can send the Sphere, a survivor of the September 11 just like all of us, off to a remote hang-er out at JFK, or out to Coney Island or up to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx or some other equally absurd, idiotic spot. But the Sphere is ours — it belongs to Downtown Manhattan. It Belongs at the National September 11 Memorial.

If it disappears, Daniels and the memorial Foundation will be to blame — and shame.

Michael Burke’s brother, Capt. William F. Burke, Jr., FDNY, gave his life on 9/11. His truck, Engine 21, is a permanent exhibit in the September 11 Museum.

The Sphere belongs in the 9/11 memorial, not a park

The Fritz Koenig Sphere, iconic survivor of the WTC attacks, now stands in a wooded area of The Battery.

To the Editor:I read your recent article titled

“Wasteland” (June 2) with both inter-est and disappointment. I am fascinated that despite a very successful experi-ment conducted by the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy and the NYC Department of Sanitation, to install rat proof compactor/dumpsters in BPCPC facilities for the disposal of residential trash, there was no discussion of their success as a possible solution. If the NYC Departments of City Planning, Sanitation, and Buildings worked togeth-er, all new apartment towers could be built to accommodate the compactor/

dumpsters used in Battery Park City to keep trash off the streets.

The original goal of the experiment was to reduce the general rat popula-tion in a non-toxic manner which in turn would reduce rats in the parks. Residential trash clearly had to be han-dled differently due to the fact that apartment buildings in Battery Park City are essentially “in” the parks. It is a well known fact that rat poison alone is quite unsuccessful as a “solution” to managing any population of rats. Poison merely reduces rat populations on a temporary basis; if the food source is not removed then the survivors will

have more offspring and the cycle will begin again.

Battery Park City Parks Conservancy’s experiment has been an unqualified success and has the happy consequence of making the neighborhood signifi-cantly more pleasant as well. These compactor/dumpsters are picked up by special Sanitation trucks that need only one staff person thereby reducing staff costs as well.

My point is that the City of New York has to force, via code, the design of these large apartment towers to accom-modate the special compactor/dump-sters (they have very specific space

requirements). Unfortunately, I fear that the Department of City Planning does not talk to the Sanitation Department on a regular basis to develop mutual solutions. These compactor/dumpsters would go a long way to solving the cur-rent and growing problem. Perhaps a follow-up article on this successful sys-tem would be helpful.

Tessa HuxleyFormer executive director of the

Battery Park City Parks Conservancy

Editor’s note: Thanks for the tip! Please see page 6.

EDITOR IAL

Letters

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24 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

BY SEAN EGANIt’s time once again — the 15th

time, in fact — for New Yorkers to take in boundary-pushing cre-ative work against the backdrop of Downtown’s waterfront.

Run by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), June 16–26’s River To River Festival pres-ents free music, art, theater, and dance in unique venues (as well as outdoor spaces) below Chambers St. This year’s highlights include: Jillian Peña’s Foucault-inspired dance piece “Panopticon;” “M is Black Enough,” a Poets House-sponsored evening of music and spoken word; and Saya Woolfalk’s festival-spanning, multi-

disciplinary work “ChimaTEK: ChimaCloud Control Center.”

Earlier this week, we spoke with some of the artists whose work is amongst the most promising to be pre-sented during the fest. Read on about these events, and visit rivertorivernyc.com for the full schedule.

MUSIC: OLGA BELL’S “KRAI”This live performance of Olga Bell’s

critically acclaimed 2014 album “Krai” was actually supposed to be one of the highlights of last year’s festival, but wound up getting cancelled due to inclement weather. While currently on tour in Europe to promote her new

record, “Tempo,” Bell is making the time to return to River To River, for a belated rain date.

“It’s difficult to perform this record, to really take it on an extensive tour or anything, because to play it the way that it was written requires six people singing and six people playing instruments,” Bell said. “So every performance of ‘Krai’ is really special, and it’s sort of an honor to have the resources to put it on.”

Described by Bell as “a smorgasbord of folk styles from across Russia” that’s then “presented alongside electronic and pop structures,” the song cycle will be brought to life by musicians — including guitarist Rafiq Bhatia, and Aaron Arntz (who toured with

the bands Grizzly Bear and Beirut). In addition, the June 22 performance’s venue of the plaza at 28 Liberty holds a special significance to Bell.

“I’m excited to play the piece out-doors; I’ve never done that before. A lot of ‘Krai’ is sort of a love song to the natural world, of these nine regions in Russia, so that will be cool,” she commented, describing how she explored those places via Google Maps and researched their folk traditions in preparation for the album. “And the fact that the concert is free and open to the public is awesome, because there’s literally no barrier to entry.”

River To River Delivers Annual fest highlights Lower Manhattan arts

R2R continued on p. 26

Photo by Darial Sneed

Choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh’s “Cribles/Wild Governors,” from 2015. Among this year’s outdoor performances: Eiko Otake’s “A Body on Governors Island,” on June 19.

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24 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com June 16 - June 29, 2016 25DowntownExpress.com

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Page 26: Downtown Express

26 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

THEATER: KANEZA SCHAAL’S “GO FORTH”

Another pre-existing work being built upon in its River To River itera-tion is “GO FORTH,” Kaneza Schaal’s performance piece, inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which functions as a translation of seven of the text’s chapters (June 18, 19 & 25).

“The piece grew out of my think-ing about mourning rituals and how we make space for the presence of the absent in our lives,” explained Schaal, who began this line of thinking after suffering the loss of her father and considering the “ritualized grieving pro-cess” she experienced. By all accounts, the resulting meditation on loss, grief, and rituals has been as affecting as it is hard to classify.

“We’re trying to pull on as many dif-ferent languages of performance as we can,” Schaal noted, adding that the pro-duction features elements as disparate as dance and 16mm film. “There is text, and movement, and we worked with designer/fine artist Christopher Myers.”

The result of this collaboration with

Myers — a photo exhibit inspired by tomb paintings the pair saw in Egypt — is a new addition for River To River. Like Bell, Schaal has nothing but praise for the LMCC and the fest, noting that the wide net it casts and its accessibility helps bring in audience members that may not otherwise attend.

“I set out for the piece in my own process of losing a loved one, and it was very gratifying to have audience members find that work useful for them individually,” Schaal said. “I hope that audience members get to consider how we individually and collectively process death.”

DANCE: EPHRAT ASHERIE’S “RIFF THIS, RIFF THAT”

One exciting premiere is the result of a collaboration a lifetime in the mak-ing: Ephrat Asherie’s dance piece “Riff this, Riff that” (June 20 & 21), which is the result of working with her brother Ehud, a jazz pianist. While Asherie is known primarily as a hip-hop, house, and break-dancer, this new work — fea-turing an ensemble of six dancers and a quartet of musicians — focuses on jazz.

“I’ve been looking at the authentic jazz dance roots of these dances,” she said, noting the similarities between the “buoyancy and joyfulness and exu-

berance” of music and dance of the 1920s/30s/40s, and her modern day style. “That is really at the root of all of these contemporary, street, and club styles that I do.”

The piece features newly arranged jazz standards, and highlights the tal-ents of individual dancers. “You get to see how all of those elements and each of those voices kind of can play off each other in a more formalized, choreo-graphed vignette,” Asherie noted, while ensuring that — fitting for its focus —

there will be a “precise balance between choreography and improvisation” in the work.

Ultimately, the piece functions as a lesson about New York, with Asherie hoping that the connections drawn between past and present highlight the city’s progressive history regarding dance, community, and connection.

“I feel very strongly like this kind of piece is something that represents very much ‘Only in New York.’ Like, ‘Oh yes, this is what this place is about.’ ”

R2R continued from p. 24

Photo by Noah Kalina

Brooklyn-based musician Olga Bell brings her acclaimed 2014 song cycle “Krai” to life on June 22.

Photo by Maria Baranova

A view from a previous production of “GO FORTH,” Kaneza Schaal’s performance piece inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Photo courtesy the artist

Dancer/choreographer Ephrat Asherie collaborates with her brother Ehud at this year’s River To River Fest.

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June 16 - June 29, 2016 27DowntownExpress.com

BY NORMAN BORDENBefore West Chelsea became an art

district dense with over 300 galleries, and even longer before an elevated public park would once again trans-form the neighborhood’s relationship with tourism and foot traffi c, The Half King bar and restaurant opened on a deserted stretch of W. 23rd St. — which now happens to be less than 100 feet from an entrance to the High Line.

When it was established in July of 2000, the three co-owners — journal-ists Scott Anderson and Sebastian Junger and filmmaker Nanette Burstein — had envisioned Half King as a neighborhood place where mem-bers of the publishing and fi lm indus-tries could meet and talk shop. By the fall, weekly non-fi ction readings on topics of interest to the co-owners had been added to the menu, along with a rotating schedule of photography exhibitions.

“Sebastian and I had done a lot of war reporting,” Anderson recalled, “and we’d both worked with some pretty amazing photojournalists over the years… I recognized there was a limited number of outlets where they could show their work.” So Half King became “one of few venues where straight-ahead photojournalism can be displayed,” he said, noting that the forum they provide “allows the pho-tographer to show their work largely among their peers, and is a great opportunity for photojournalists to get together and see what others are doing.”

Writer and editor Anna Van Lenten and James Price (an editor at Getty Reportage) were hired as co-curators in 2010 to make the photography series more consistent. As a result, Half King is operating on a “strict schedule now,” Van Lenten said, with new shows every seven or eight weeks. “We’ve standardized the frame sizes (32 x 23 inches) and operate like a gallery/salon, even though we don’t look like one.”

That’s for sure — the 11 photo-graphs in each show are displayed along the walls of a separate dining room that seats 50, and is closed off from the bar and other diners. “The openings are meant to be super focused discussions around the story or book launch, very casual and inti-mate,” Van Lenten explained. “We turn off the lights and do a slide show that lasts from 45 to 90 minutes and encourage the audience to ask ques-tions. We show narrative photogra-phy. They’ve spent years immersed in stories they bring to us; they’re quite intense, and know their subject top to bottom.”

In her ongoing search for future exhibitors, Van Lenten asks other photographers to recommend peo-ple they like. She also pays atten-tion to award shows, Facebook and Instagram, and she subscribes to lots of newsletters. In any case, “The bar is high. The work has to be beautiful and visually distinctive; the story has to be compelling either because the photog-rapher took an alternative approach

All-In for Photojournalism at The Half KingChelsea gastro-pub has food for thought on the menu

Photo courtesy The Half King

L to R: Half King founders Sebastian Junger, Nanette Burstein and Scott Anderson.

HALF KING continued on p. 28

Photo © Adriana Zehbrauskas

“The family of Adán Abraján de la Cruz.”

PUBLIC NOTICE

TRIBECA SYNAGOGUE, a nonprofit organization is seeking sealed bids for sales and installation of security related enhancements. The project includes Construction of a Concrete Block Wall. Installation or CCTV equipment, Installation of a perimeter security LED lighting sys-tem, Installation of a physical Access Control System and Installation of blast resistant film. Selection criteria will be based on knowledge of sur-veillance and security, adherence to work schedule, prior experience and references, costs. Specifications and bid requirements can be obtained by contacting us at [email protected]. All quotes must be on com-pany letterhead. All interested firms will be required to sign for the pro-posal documents and provide primary contact, telephone, fax and email address. Bids will be accepted until 5pm on July 20,2016 and work is to commence by July 30,2016 and completed by September 30,2016

615 ½ Hudson St, NYC, New York 1004 • (212) 989-3155 TheBespokeKitchen.com • [email protected]

Welcomes Pride Month 2016

Page 28: Downtown Express

28 June 16 - June 29, 2016 DowntownExpress.com

or had an interesting evolution; and the photographer has to speak English well enough to give a talk on opening night.”

One excellent example of Van Lenten’s credo is the current exhibi-tion: “Family Matters,” by Mexico City-based photographer Adriana Zehbrauskas. It’s a bittersweet story that began when 43 male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Guerrero, Mexico disap-peared on September 26, 2014, taken by the police and then handed over to a narcotics gang. The photographer had been working on assignment with one of the families and had asked for photos of their missing brother. There were none — all they had were cell-phone photos that could be acciden-tally deleted or lost if the phone was changed. Since nobody printed pic-tures, she realized these families could suffer another loss — the memories of their missing loved ones.

Zehbrauskas decided to start a personal project where she would take family portraits for free and hand out the prints on the spot. Shooting “Family Matters” called for driving eight hours back and forth from Mexico City to Huehuetonoc, Guerrero, going through dangerous narcotics gang-controlled territory. Having worked in the area for 10 years as a freelance documentary pho-tographer, she said, “You have to stay alert for kidnappings and shootings.”

In the town, Zehbrauskas set up a table by the church where family members could meet her for their free pictures and people could clearly see what she was doing — taking portraits with her iPhone and using a small Canon printer to produce the photo on the spot.

“I’ve taken lots of photos,” Zehbrauskas said. “Eighty portraits on my first trip in 2016, and I also give my subjects large prints on my return trip from Mexico City. I’m pay-ing my expenses with a Getty Images Instagram grant I was awarded in September 2015 to document under-represented communities. I upload this work on Instagram and also pub-lish on the New Yorker Magazine’s live feed.”

At the exhibit’s opening on May 24, it was standing room only as Zehbrauskas showed about 40 imag-es in a fascinating hour-long slide presentation. Her comments added

a greater understanding and deeper appreciation of the project and its challenges. Her talk also demonstrat-ed the unique opportunity that pho-tojournalists from around the world have to show and discuss their work.

In my view, many of the 11 images in the exhibition can be considered to be in the realm of fine art photogra-phy. One outstanding example on view now is “Don Gerardo and La Rubia.” I see this photo as an intimate portrait of a man and his friend, a horse — the composition, lighting, and the print are all beautiful, as are the subjects themselves.

Also impressive was the portrait of “The family of Adán Abraján de la Cruz.” Adán was one of the 43 miss-ing students. This photograph was taken after the First Communion of Adán’s eight-year-old son, Angel, in Tixtla, Guerrero. You not only see the sadness in this photograph, but also feel it. Angel’s mournful, wistful look is haunting, reinforced by his mother

and Adán’s parents standing with him.Another photograph, the face-

less portrait of 19-year-old Xalpa, is a powerful reminder of the stu-dents’ disappearance on the night of September 26. Xalpa was one of the survivors and understandably didn’t want his face shown. You can only imagine what he saw and the pain he feels now. Sadly, there are many more stories of missing people in Mexico, and Zehbrauskas hopes her continu-ing work on “Family Matters” will help keep the families of the victims from feeling abandoned.

With stories like these, The Half King Photography Series has more than fulfilled the co-owners’ original intent. As for the future, Anderson said that changes in the neighborhood (most notably, rent increases) have made it “increasingly difficult for a small business to operate. We’ve had a good run. Our lease is up for renewal in 2019, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.” In the meantime,

there are burgers, beer, and plenty of food for thought at The Half King.

Adriana Zehbrauskas’ “Family Matters” is on view through July 17 at The Half King (505 W. 23rd St., btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). Hours: M–F, 11am–4pm; Sat. & Sun., 9am–4pm. Visit thehalfking.com and half-kingphoto.com or call 212-462-4300. Twitter: #hkphotoseries.

HALF KING continued from p. 27

Photo © Adriana Zehbrauskas

“Don Gerardo and La Rubia.”

Photo © Adriana Zehbrauskas

“Xalpa.”

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BY SCOTT STIFFLER

ARChive OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC’S SIZZLIN’ SUMMER SALE

While we were busy heralding the advent of the CD, mourning the loss of vinyl, praising the iPod, and debating the right to download our favorite tunes, the ARChive of Contemporary Music’s mission remained the same: amass the world’s largest collec-tion of popular music, for use by artists and scholars. Two times a year, the general public benefi ts from the bounty of their pack rat mentality, at a sale that’s as carefully curated as the three million sound recordings in ARC’s permanent collection. The highlight of this summer event: 65,000 recently donated 45s. The other 30,000-or-so items include pop, jazz, country, dance, rock, world, and Broadway music. There are hundreds of CDs for $1–$5 each; cassettes and Classical LPs, 2 for $1; plus music books of all kinds, 7� singles, VHS & DVD videos, and 60s psychedelic posters. The good news: All proceeds go to support the ARChive’s non-profi t music library and research center work. The bad news: You’ve missed the spirited June 9 members-only cocktail party and early shopping soirée. But don’t fret. Join ARC’s merry little band while you’re fl ipping through their bins, and you’ll score an invite to their second sale of the year, come December.

Daily, 11am–6pm, through Sun., June 26, at ARChive of Contemporary Music (54 White St., btw. Broadway & Church St.). Visit arcmusic.org or call 212-226-6967.

FATHER’S DAY “FIDDLER ON THE ROOF” SING-ALONG

Starting with (but not limited to) the fact that you’re alive to read this, Dad deserves a certain amount of respect — so don’t steal the old man’s thun-der during his show-stopping rendition of “If I Were a Rich Man.” That’s assuming you’ve started a new “Tradition!” of your own, by allowing him to channel his inner Tevye — at what we’re confi dently predicting will turn out to be the best go-to Father’s Day gift since

the invention of the necktie. One thing’s for sure: The Museum of Jewish Heritage’s sing-along screening of 1971’s “Fiddler on the Roof” is a socially acceptable way to come in costume as the fi lm’s iconic characters, then belt one out — which, sad to say, is discouraged at the otherwise excellent revival now on Broadway. In the likely event this gathering of the musical theater tribe gives your family patriarch a taste for more, note that it’s co-sponsored by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene — whose summer residency program at the Museum presents a fully-restored performance of the Roaring Twenties romantic comedy operetta “The Golden Bride” (July 4–Aug. 28).

The “Fiddler” event takes place Sun., June 19, 3pm, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (36 Battery Place). Tickets are $15, $10 for Museum or Theatre Folksbiene members, and $36 for families (up to four people). To

purchase tickets, visit nytf.org or call 212-213-2120, x204 (after business hours, 866-811-4111).

DOCUMENTARY: “THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY”

Lower East Side-based fi lmmaker Tim Slade brings his most recent work to neighborhood venue Anthology Film Archives, prior to a screening at the British Museum that will be followed by worldwide release — a local-to-global distribution tactic that’s appropriate, given his fi lm’s focus on the global catastrophe resulting from a century’s worth of war waged against numerous individual cultures. Based on Robert Bevan’s 2006 book of the same name, “The Destruction of Memory” looks at the agents and instruments of cultural destruction, as well as those who have dedicated their lives to protecting, salvaging, and rebuilding in response to the loss of art, architecture, and literature — and, by extension, identity. Interviewees such as the Director-General of UNESCO and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court discuss the current situation in places like Syria and Iraq, while linking past decisions that have, Slade notes, “allowed the issue to remain hidden in the shadows for so many years.” Sophie Okonedo (Tony-nominated for her current role on Broadway, as Elizabeth Proctor in “The Crucible”) narrates. Director/Producer Slade will open the house to ques-tions immediately following the screening.

Tues., June 21, 6:30pm, at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave., at Second St.). Visit nycdestruction-ofmemory.eventbrite.com for tickets ($17.50 general, $13 for students). Visit destructionofmemoryfi lm.com for more info.

Just Do Art

Photo courtesy ARC

ARChive of Contemporary Music opens its doors to the public through June 26, for a sizzlin’ summer sale.

Image courtesy Museum of Jewish Heritage

Tradition! Father’s Day is a great excuse for dad to belt one out, at this “Fiddler on the Roof” sing-along, June 19, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Photo by Derek Wiesehahn, courtesy Vast Productions USA

Ferhadija Mosque in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina, during its rebuilding.

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Other state authorities, such as the Brooklyn Bridge Park Authority, allow for public comment at their board meetings, but at the BPCA’s June 8 board meeting, authority chairman Dennis Mehiel sug-gested that allowing elected officials to speak on behalf of locals was a “reason-able approach” to enhancing public par-ticipation during meetings, where board members discuss and vote on matters affecting the lives of residents.

“To have the public, through its elect-ed representatives, to be able to come in and talk to us and express concerns, and so on and so forth, I think is a reasonable approach,” said Mehiel.

But Battery Park City residents are deeply unsatisfied with the change of policy, condemning it as an attempt to placate the community while barring them from providing any local meaning-ful input to a board ultimately account-able only to far-way Albany, according to one community leader.

“The bottom line for me is that the major stakeholders in Battery Park City are its 20,000 residents, who have no voice, and the authority seems unwilling to have a dialogue with us,” said Community Board 1 member Anthony Notaro, who chairs the its Battery Park City Committee.

“Even though now the elected officials can talk, nothing’s changed. I have no dialogue with the authority, and they have continu-ally shut out major stakeholders from their decision making process. That needs to be addressed, and this does not address that.”

Some are pointing to the board’s notion of public input as a good reason to shake up the authority’s leadership and install more locals to a group that cur-rently includes only one Battery Park City resident, Martha Gallo.

“This not only reinforced the need for more local stakeholder representation on the board itself, but also could be the spark for interest by the community to consider a substantial change in control,” said Battery Park City resident and CB1 member Tammy Metzler.

But the BPCA insists that its plan is the best means for meaningful stakeholder input, arguing that not only would locals be able to communicate with board mem-bers through their elected officials, but the legislators would also be able to engage the board members in discussion, which is often not the case with public comment at other agencies, which allow community members to make brief statements at meet-ings without replying to them, according to an authority spokesman.

“Unlike the public comment sessions

of some other boards, where individuals read statement after statement to mem-bers who sit silently and without discus-sion, our new policy provides for actual engagement between the public’s elected representatives — on any matter those representatives feel appropriate to dis-cuss — and the BPCA Board in an open forum,” said spokesman Nick Sbordone.

But the BPCA has yet to define the nature of this “actual engagement,” or say how much time the board is prepared to devote to it during board meetings. So the result may be even worse than the impotent, ignored, pro forma comment periods at other agencies’ meetings — but these would be open only to elected officials rather than the public.

As for allowing input from residents, that would be allowed under the new policy, but only in the form of written comments — which can be sent up to 24 hours after a meeting and will be included in the minutes. The author-ity characterized the change as creating the potential for “unlimited” community feedback which would become a matter of public record, to be made accessible online, while also allowing for the author-ity’s meetings to function smoothly.

“The new policy also enables the public to submit comment on any matter of interest up to 24 hours after the close

of a board meeting for review and inclu-sion in the minutes of that meeting. No time limit, no word limit — and all while creating a record, posted on our website, for the public to draw on for reference and research purposes at any point in the future,” said Sbordone.

Locals are welcome to submit writ-ten comments on any subject, however, Mehiel framed the change as giving com-munity members a chance to weigh in on items being decided by board members at the meetings.

But agendas for BPCA board meetings are only made public 24-hours before the meeting, giving locals scant time to com-pose their comments on those topics, and leaving no guarantee that board mem-bers would even see them before casting their votes on agenda items, according to Zeeshan Ott, spokesman for state Sen. Squadron.

The board’s compromise proposal certainly provides for more public input at authority meetings than Battery Park City residents were ever allowed before, but locals still say it falls short of that they were hoping for to improve communica-tion with the notoriously aloof panel that rules over their comminuty.

“They’re extending an olive twig instead of an olive branch,” said Battery Park City resident Tom Goodkind.

speechless Continued from page 1

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