Volume 75, # 35
January 18 - 24, 2006
Editorial/ Op-Ed
Reform at S.L.A.might have to wait for a new governor
Governor Pataki’s recent appointment of an Upstate police chief to head the State Liquor Authority came as a huge letdown to residents of Downtown Manhattan who were desperately hoping the governor would appoint a commissioner who lives in New York City.
 Letters to the editor
Scoopy's Notebook
Editorial Cartoon
By Ira Blutreich
Talking point
Inflation defies Newton: That which rises keeps rising
By Daniel Meltzer
The government keeps telling us inflation is “in check,” that the economy is “stable,” “on the right track,” “growing at a steady pace,” etc. and so forth.
Read it and weep: New Orleans libraries are in ruins
By Andrei Codrescu
Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans Public Library. All of its 13 buildings were damaged; eight of them are completely unusable: books, furniture, computers, all destroyed. Eighty percent of the employees were laid off. Recovery will be a long process. Libraries around the country are helping, but many of them are not in such great shape themselves, having had their budgets slashed over and over during decades of laissez-faire capitalism.
Democrats must change tune and denounce Belafonte
By Ed Koch
An Associated Press dispatch earlier this month reported: “The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President George W. Bush ‘the greatest terrorist in the world’ yesterday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.”
Police Blotter
Scene
News In Brief
Governor calls special elections for Sanders’s and Stringer’s seats
The cat is the hat
Student died from a tiny heart tumor
Venting in Soho
Goodbye, Nixzmary
Obituary
Eloise Ann Iliff, 79, stage actress and school teacher
Eloise Ann Iliff, a stage actress and public school teacher, died on Sept. 16 at St. Vincent’s hospital in Greenwich Village. She had suffered a stroke and complications. She was 79.
Sports
Karate kids earn their stripes with Tiger’s teaching
By Judith Stiles
The idea of 3-year-old children enrolling in karate class can prompt guffaws as well as criticism that this kind of activity is inappropriate for preschoolers. However, in an age when modern parents seem to be fast-tracking their kids into just about everything, even SAT prep classes for seventh graders, it is no surprise that karate for the very young is a big hit in New York City.
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"Serving West and East Village, Chelsea, SoHo, NoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side"
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Villager photo by Talisman Brolin
Stylist Suzanne Schepis gave Quinn Lansill, 4, a haircut at the new kids’ salon Doodle Doo’s on Hudson St. Children can choose to sit in either a boat or car that were once rocking chairs and pick their own videos to watch while getting their hair cut.
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Gerson may pull funds if fountain is no-play zone
By Lincoln Anderson
There’s a water war brewing. No, it doesn’t involve Bolivia and a greedy multinational corporation, but rather children’s right to frolic in Washington Square Park’s fountain and the Parks Depart-ment’s plans that would say otherwise.
Rabbis vow to rebuild synagogue after collapse
By Lincoln Anderson
Following the collapse of the First-Roumanian American Congregation’s roof on Sunday afternoon, the three rabbi brothers who lead the historic Rivington St. synagogue are vowing that it will be rebuilt.
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Hip kids’ stores and salons are West Village’s new cutting edge
By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke
The West Village has been steadily changing over the past few years, as young, well-off couples flock to the brownstone-lined streets. Many of these young couples are having children, and stores have been springing up to accommodate the stroller-pushing crowd.
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Initial work on High Line park’s south end to begin next month
By Albert Amateau
Preliminary construction on the conversion of the High Line into a one-of-a-kind elevated park is scheduled to begin in mid-February when fencing will be installed to protect the railings of the structure between Gansevoort and W. 20th Sts.
Final Union Sq. north-end plan to be presented
By Albert Amateau
The Department of Parks and Recreation will present the final plan for the renovation of the north side of Union Square Park at the Community Board 5 Parks Committee meeting at 6 p.m. Mon. Jan. 30 on the eighth floor of Fashion Institute of Technology, Building A, 227 W. 27th St.
 Loss of affordable children’s shop leaves a void
By Barbara Caporale
The mood was somber, but the kids still had a blast, as Jane’s Exchange, Manhattan’s only children’s consignment shop, recently hosted a final thank you and get-together for Lower East Side parents and children who have depended on their services for over 12 years.
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Lawyer sues for Art Commission vote on fountain to be annulled
By Lincoln Anderson
Ronald Podolsky — the attorney representing a group of plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit last May against the Washington Square Park renovation — on Jan. 23 filed another lawsuit on his own behalf seeking to annul the Art Commission’s approval of the plan to move the Washington Square Park fountain and two statues.
 Argentine brothers take their ice cream seriousl
By Karen Kramer
Although it is the dead of winter, the D’Aloisio brothers are thinking about ice cream. They think about ice cream a lot — the taste, the consistency, how to get fresh ingredients and new flavors to introduce to Americans. Oscar, 43, and his brother Raul, 48, started their store Cones on Bleecker St. near Morton St. eight years ago, bringing the technique of made-from-scratch ice cream and sorbets from their native Buenos Aires.
At ‘owner-occupancy tenement,’ construction dust is latest worry
By Chad Smith
There’s a new complication at 47 E. Third St.
But this time, it’s not an injunction or a loophole in the Rent Stabilization Code. It’s dust. Lots and lots of it.
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Arts
A heart in winter
By Scott Harrah
The northernmost part of Maine in the dead of winter is truly an unlikely setting for a lighthearted romantic comedy, but playwright John Cariani creates a lot of warmth and humor in this bleak geographic area in “Almost, Maine.” The two-act play consists of 11 vignettes, each set in the fictional town of Almost near the Canadian border, and all take place around 9 pm on a wintry Friday night. The play, originally written in 1999, received much acclaim with various readings and a successful regional run two years ago in Portland, Maine.
 100,000 years of evolution, live
By Sara G. Levin
Watching Troika Ranch’s new work, 16 [R]evolutions, is like tuning into a nature-show version of the Matrix. Projections of coded bars flash across the floor like grass; digital bits flow up like a river and cave across the background.
Jeff Daniels, playwright, takes a shot at love
By Jerry Tallmer
Anyone who ever saw “Ragtime” or “The Fifth of July” or “Terms of Endearment” or Woody Allen’s great “The Purple Rose of Cairo” or “Gettysburg” or “Johnny Got His Gun” or “Yellow Sky” or “Something Wild” or “Fly Away Home” or “Good Night, and Good Luck” or “The Squid and the Whale” or any of 60 or so other movies and plays in which he’s been realer than real, will know that Jeff Daniels can act — is a marvelous actor — but who knew he could write plays?
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Koch on Film
By Ed Koch
Transamerica (+) A host of films, including “Brokeback Mountain,” the story of homosexual cowboys, are now being accepted by mainstream critics and audiences and recommended as solid movies worthy of patronage. “Transamerica,” about the trials and tribulations of a transsexual, is also well on its way to becoming a cult film.
The Matador (-) It is difficult for me to review this film adequately. It is certainly not a good movie, but it is not really bad. On occasion, because of the fine acting of Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan, it is even amusing.
 Waiting for ‘Bubble’ to burst
By Steven Snyder
In many ways, the concept behind Steven Soderbergh’s new film “Bubble” begins with the assumption that the bubble has already burst — that is, mainstream cinema has already reached a breaking point with its big-budget films and measly box office sales. Which is why, this weekend, Soderbergh will test an entirely new distribution strategy for the first time.
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