Volume 75, Number 08
July 13 - 20 2005
Editorial
Time to tighten rules on evictions by owners
The effort by Alistair and Catherine Economakis to evict 24 residents from 11 apartments in a six-story E. Third St. tenement building is a glaring example of the problems with the owner-occupancy provision. The landlords claim they plan to use the entire 15-apartment building for their personal residence. Under plans filed with the city, they would gut the building to create a five-bedroom, six-bathroom home for themselves, their infant child and live-in nanny. However, the tenants, most of whom have lived there for at least 20 years and who pay from $500 to $1,000 rent, charge the owners just want to get them out, then sell the building for a massive profit.
West Village rezoning still doesn’t make grade
Talking Point
Take my wife, please, to protect the First Amendment
By Ed Gold
It must have been one of his most poignant moments when his wife handed him her thin gold necklace with the ruby as she left the courtroom last week. She wouldn’t be wearing it for a while.
Notebook
Love is blind
By Andrei Codrescu
The F.D.A. warns that Viagra may cause blindness, thereby confirming what everyone knows. The mystery of what attracts one person to another will be forever obscure. Not only is love blind, people like to be blind while they are in love. That’s why they close their eyes when they think of their love and often during lovemaking. Love courts darkness perpetually. Love’s habitat is the dark: dark corners, dark bars, dark alleys, dark rooms, the night itself. Even the most brazen porn depends on effectiveness for dim lighting.
Scoopy's Notebook
Police Blotter
Letters to the editor
Scene
News in Brief
Ghost bike gives up the ghost
Girl hit by car on Avenue A
Oh baby, what a fundraiser!
Pompei erupts with music
Obituary
Joseph Meek, 78, gentle father figure of E. 10th St.
By Bonnie Rosenstock
Joseph Meek died of cardiac arrest on April 21, four days short of his 79th birthday. At his wake on April 28 at R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home, 22 First Ave., and funeral the following day at the Church of St. Emeric, 185 Avenue D, there were no photo-ops for politicians, movie stars or other celebrities, and no write-ups in the dailies.
Dr. Vincent J. Fontana, led fight against child abuse
Dr. Vincent J. Fontana, medical director and chief pediatrician of New York Foundling Hospital in Chelsea and for whom the Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection in the Village was named, died suddenly on July 5 while vacationing on Block Island.
Youth/ Sports
Hard work, team spirit is booters’ winning combination
By Judith Stiles
When 11-year-old Travis Wantchekon of Greenwich Village stepped out on the soccer field to compete against a team from Maryland, the opponent he was marking on the throw-in towered over him a good 10 inches, and the manly body looked like a daunting 140 pounds. Even more overwhelming was the fact that if Wantchekon could beat that player to the ball, there were at least five other giants on the field from the Potomac Fusion, a team that was ranked number one in the country in the U-12 (under-12-years-old) age bracket.
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NEWS |
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Villager photo by Clayton Patterson Tenants of 47 E. Third St. rallied on their stoop to denounce the owners’ plan to evict them and turn the building into a five-story single-family residence. Turning tenements into mansions: landlords try to mass-evict tenants |
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Neighbors are not hip to triple-story hip-hop club
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Manolos replace meat, as trend is more trendinessBy Cathy Jedruczek
Hair blowout at Blow Styling Salon, breakfast at Florent Restaurant, shoe shopping at Christian Loboutin, drinks and chocolate truffles at The Double Seven and dinner at The Garden of Ono — the list and possibilities are endless and the Meatpacking District has it all. This year only, close to 20 new businesses have opened up and there are a lot more on the way. The neighborhood, which had 150 meat businesses operating as recently as the 1950s, now has only about 20 remaining — with bars, nightclubs, restaurants and designer boutiques instead on almost every block.
By Lauren Dzura
Bright pink signs hyping the city’s nightlife recently made an appearance on light poles high above the streets of the Gansevoort Market.
Meatpackers scramble for last scraps of the Market
By Lincoln Anderson
As the number of meat businesses in the Meat Market continues to shrink to an ever-smaller core, speculation continues about how much longer the industry will last in the area to which it gives its name.
High Line’s the spine connecting major new projects
By Albert Amateau
Friends of the High Line are riding high these days, confident that the derelict elevated rail line running between Gansevoort St. in the center of the Market district and the Javits Convention Center is certain to become an amazing and unique elevated park.
When the Meat Market was a walk on the wild sideBy Patricia Fieldsteel
The first rule I learned when I moved to the Village 35 years ago was never ever go into the Meat Market. It was downright dangerous. Of course, there were male sex clubs such as the Anvil and Mineshaft, but there were also serious criminals, drug dealers, pimps, hookers, murderers, thieves. My apartment was on the corner of Horatio and Washington Sts., at that time really part of the Market, which officially began one block north on Gansevoort St. The Manhattan Meat and Refrigeration Plant (now the West Coast Apartments) was directly across the street; the High Line still passed through its middle, terminating at the Bell Telephone Laboratories Building, soon to open as Westbeth, the first artists’ housing project.
Restaurant puts focus on changing scene in its new photography show
By Cathy Jedruczek
Patrons at Macelleria, a pioneering restaurant in the Meatpacking District, indulge in rustic Italian food and artwork — Tokyo style. The restaurant’s current exhibit, on display till Aug. 9, features photos of the Meat Market by two Japanese artists, Takayoshi Nonaka and Hanayuki Higashi.
Hotel Gansevoort claims noise problem has finally been cured
By Albert Amateau
The dull roar coming from the Hotel Gansevoort that pervaded the Gansevoort Market District faded away last week, according to many of the West Village residents who had been complaining about it since last year.
Arts and Entertainment
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Koch On Film
By Ed Koch “War of the Worlds” (-) Queen Elizabeth referred to the year 1992, when Windsor Castle caught fire and the lives of her children were falling apart, as Annus Horribilis. I believe that term can be applied to the disappointing movies released this year with a few exceptions like “Crash,” “Cinderella Man,” and “Mat Hot Ballroom.” Intended blockbusters are usually released over the July 4th holiday. As often happens, they are disappointing. That is the case with the much anticipated Steven Spielberg film, “War of the Worlds.” It is a flop. “The Great Water” (-) I don’t have a clue as to why the title. The story takes place after World War II in Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito who is mentioned once in the film. It also covers the time before Tito broke with Stalin. Its target of scrutiny is a large orphanage which houses some of the million orphans who roamed the streets of Yugoslavia after the war. |
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