Volume 76, Number 7
July 4 - 11, 2006

Editorial/ Op-Ed
Bicyclists should not have to ride in fear of their lives
The death of three bicyclists — two of them in this part of Manhattan — last month has tragically illustrated, once again, the frightening truism that to ride a bike in this city is to take one’s life in one’s hands.

Talking Point
Words, words; Do we know what we’re talking about?
By Daniel Meltzer
The administration is now offering to negotiate with Iran if it promises not to make nuclear bombs. If it doesn’t promise, the U.S. and its allies may impose sanctions on Tehran.
According to Webster’s, “to sanction” means to condemn and/or punish. It also means to approve. Should we sanction the Iranians? Or should we sanction them?

Letters to the editor

Scoopy's Notebook

Editorial Cartoon
By Ira Blutreich

Police blotter

Scene

News In Brief

Take it to the bank

The city’s safer, but not for those riding bicycles

Mosaic Man tries to hold
pieces together on St. Mark’s

Obituary

Elizabeth Brennan Garcia, 89, part of newsstand clan
By Lincoln Anderson
A constant figure on Christopher St. for most of a century — as a young girl selling newspapers by the old Hudson Tubes, a lifelong parishioner of St. Veronica’s Church and, in her later years, a kindly presence standing in her doorway holding her Chihuahua, Sugar — Elizabeth Brennan Garcia died on June 20 at Cabrini Hospice on E. 19th St.

Norma Becker, 76, fought for peace and civil rights
By Judith Mahoney Pasternak
Norma Becker, teacher, civil rights activist and prominent figure of the peace movement during the Vietnam War, died of lung cancer in her New York City home on June 17. She was 76.

John Repetti, 84, owned family plumbing business
John Repetti, born and bred in the Village and owner of John J. Repetti Plumbing & Heating at 21 Downing St., died in St. Vincent’s hospital on Jan. 28, the day before his 85th birthday. He had been ill for a year and suffered from diabetes and a heart condition, according to his cousin George Repetti.

Village People

Michael Horn, Off-Off Broadway’s biggest champion
By Noah Fowle
Theater is in Michael Horn’s blood. Nicknamed “Box Office” at birth, the self-proclaimed producer, house manager, publicist and janitor of the Big Little Theater, home of the Michael Chekhov Theater Company (www.chekhovtheatre.com) on 141 Ridge Street, Horn was raised in the East Village by a family of actors, directors, and playwrights, and has been around the stage as long as he can remember.

Youth/Sports

Young goalie gets a thrill in net, and from World Cup
By Judith Stiles
A highly contagious fever is sweeping through countries all over the world, even in pockets of the U.S.A., with soccer fans sweating bullets over the outcome of the 2006 World Cup games in Germany. Soccer, better known as “football” in other countries, is the most popular sport worldwide, with the exception of here in the States, where it trails behind American football, basketball and baseball.

"Serving West and East Village, Chelsea, SoHo, NoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side"

Villager photo by Talisman Brolin Sweet Jane A memorial for Jane Jacobs, who saved the Village from Robert Moses’ misguided megaprojects, was held in Washington Square Park on Saturday. Robert Tierney, chairperson of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Roberta Brandes Gratz, an L.P.C. commissioner, held a city proclamation to Jacobs.<MORE>		NEWS Art of the deal; ABC No Rio buys building for only $1 By Lincoln Anderson While the Lower East Side, day by day, is rapidly changing, an agreement reached last week between the city and a nonprofit arts organization will insure that a vital nerve center of the neighborhood’s alternative arts and radical political activist scene remains. NEST charter doesn’t fly; Is principal’s goose cooked? By Anindita Dasgupta After months of explosive arguing, passionate protests, livid letters and emotional court dates, the parents of the New Explorations in Science Technology and Math school have won. Ross Global Academy Charter School will not be coming into NEST+m’s building on Columbia St.

Hopes high as gay marriage decision is ‘likely’ this week
By Andy Humm
Roberta Kaplan, the dynamic attorney who was one of the leads arguing for the right of same-sex couples to marry before New York State’s Court of Appeals in May, said that a decision in the case was “likely” to come down Wed., July 5, or Thurs., July 6 — unless the six out of seven high court judges who heard it are tied 3 to 3.

INSIDE
Remembering Jane Jacobs
A memorial for Jane Jacobs, the legendary Greenwich Village community activist and urban planner, was held in Washington Square Park on June 28. Among the speakers were her son, Ned Jacobs, shown above, at left, talking with another of the speakers, Paul Goldberger, architecture critic and dean of the Parsons School of Design at New School University.

‘Survivor’ tiki torches are removed at Epstein’s Bar
By Janet Kwon
It was a quiet night at Epstein’s Bar on the corner of Allen and Stanton Sts. last Saturday. A midsized crowd dotted the bar’s sidewalk cafe area, and the conversation hovered at murmur level past midnight. An Elvis song played in the dark, cozy establishment but could hardly be heard by patrons sitting on the small picnic table-like seats outside.

New IFC Center is proving to be the reel thing
By Rania Richardson
Last month, the IFC Center quietly marked the one-year anniversary of its conversion of the defunct Waverly Theater into a “cultural hub” for the Village. Traditional art house audiences, as well as a new generation of students and filmmakers, have come to check out the diverse range of programming and numerous events that make the center a beehive of activity.

Runners race time to delay repairs
By David Spett
For marathon runner Thom Little the upcoming renovation of the E. Sixth St. track and field will cause a major inconvenience.

Arts & Entertainment

Shaking the family tree for all of its stories
By Jerry Tallmer
When Avram Jojne Ehrenreich and his wife Bella, having survived the Holocaust in work camps in Soviet Siberia, arrived in this country along with their two young daughters in 1949, they were first given shelter by HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, in that extraordinary organization’s beautiful old Lafayette Street building that had started existence in 1849 as the Astor Library.

Material girl: Hesse retrospective revisits her life and art
By Rachel Youens
When sculptor Eva Hesse died of a brain tumor in 1970 at the age of 34, she was already recognized as an authoritative voice in the discourse of Minimalism. Discovered early, she had her first one-woman show of drawings at Allan Stone Gallery in 1963 — a feat for a female artist at the time.

Koch On Film
By Ed Koch
“Wordplay” (+) This film about crossword enthusiasts is a delight. We meet Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times, who receives puzzles from a string of constructors. We learn the rules of construction and how The Times puzzle builds in difficulty from Monday to Saturday.
“Water” (+) This is an extremely sad and true tale depicting the fate of widows in India in the late 30’s during the time of Gandhi. In ancient India, a woman had three options when her husband died: to die at the same time and be cremated with him, marry her husband’s younger brother, or live in an ashram and support herself as a beggar or a prostitute.

For these characters, it’s not a wonderful life
By Leonard Quart
A low budget, indie ensemble film, directed by Danny Leiner, “The Great New Wonderful” is about five sets of disparate New Yorkers trying to cope with their emotionally troubled existences one year after 9/11. The film is not in any direct way about 9/11, but that apocalyptic day looms as a giant dark cloud that is present, perhaps unconsciously, in all the characters’ lives.

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