Volume 76, Number 17
September 13 - 19, 2006

Editorial/ Op-Ed

A dangerous world half a decade later
Thoughts about the attack that changed our world and neighborhood five years ago intensify every September. In our community there is real progress, but as we look at where we are in the world on this milestone anniversary, we see the perilous consequences of bad choices and squandered opportunities.

Talking Point
The war that we’re in now started years before 9/11
By Jerry Tallmer
SEPTEMBER 11, 2006. God was unkind this morning. He gave us a beautiful day. Blue sky. Balmy breeze. A few friendly little clouds. Too blue, too balmy, too friendly. The Traffic & Transit guy on the radio — 1010 WINS — around 8 a.m. suddenly said that nothing was going in or out of Penn Station “because of a police investigation.”

Notebook
Western Beef goes north, but two blocks can be a lot
By Michele Herman
I went on a walking tour this morning, not of Federal-era architecture or Rockefeller Center, but of a place at once more mundane and more integral to my family’s life: the new Western Beef store on W. 16th St. between Ninth and 10th Aves., which will replace the W. 14th St. store any week now. I wanted to see for myself whether the new space — smaller and less centrally located — stands a chance of surviving.

Letters to the editor

Scoopy's Notebook

Editorial Cartoon

Police blotter

Scene

News In Brief
When push comes to tug

Game’s up for Basketball City at Pier 63

Pier 40 R.F.P. pitches ‘extraordinary opportunity’

Feelings on 9/11’s anniversary and the ‘Bush agenda’

Penn South celebrates 20 years of NORC

Picture Story

The death of bohemia

Obituaries
Lillian Milgram Schapiro, 104, art historian’s widow
By Albert Amateau
Dr. Lillian Milgram Schapiro, a pediatrician and widow of the renowned art historian, Professor Meyer Schapiro, died Aug. 6 at the age of 104 at her home in the Village where she had lived since 1931.

Margaret Patel, loved garden and tango, dies at 57
Margaret Patel, known as Ruby, a volunteer at the Jefferson Market Garden and an enthusiast of tango dance and music, died Fri. Sept. 8 at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx at the age of 57.

Richard Blinder, 71, of Village architecture firm
Richard Blinder, a founding partner of Beyer Blinder Belle, died on Sept. 7 in Shanghai, China. He was 71. He had been working on a new Shanghai theater complex.

Youth/Sports

Speed racer finds she’s at home at the velodrome
By Judith Stiles
When Erin Dyer moved to New York City seven years ago to play guitar in a band, she found that cycling to her day job on the Lower East Side from Brooklyn was a pleasant trip, that is, in contrast to her days of riding in the subzero weather of Willmar, Minn.

Gauchos don’t horse around, get into Parade Ground Finals
The 14-and-under Gauchos swept to the Parade Ground Finals this weekend. The Gauchos were the number-one seed going into the tournament, and have now completed the early rounds undefeated.

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

Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel Antiwar protester Laurie Arbeiter being arrested at Ground Zero Sunday afternoon after arguing with an unidentified man who was heckling her. Police intervened, but Arbeiter refused to leave and started reading the First Amendment, which she holds in her right hand, at which point she was arrested. Bush, Grannies, Nuts, ‘Path’ and remembering how to laugh By Lincoln Anderson President Bush standing solemnly outside the Pitt St. firehouse next to a fire engine door battered at Ground Zero as subway trains rumble by on the Williamsburg Bridge. Antiwar protesters carrying a flag-draped coffin chanting “Bring them home alive now!” An East Village church incorporating 9-foot-tall replicas of the World Trade Center in its Sunday service.		NEWS Kavanagh, Schwartz both shock incumbents; Friedman won’t give up By Lincoln Anderson While the favorites all won in the big-name races in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, it was a day of surprising outcomes, if not outright upsets, in local contests. All new bar applications are bounced for 4 months By Albert Amateau The State Liquor Authority, long blamed by critics for the overconcentration of liquor licenses in Manhattan, declared a moratorium last week on new licenses for Manhattan bars, clubs and cabarets subject to the 500-foot rule.

INSIDE
Preservationists ride to defense of Stella studio
By Albert Amateau
Preservation advocates, East Village neighbors and elected officials last week urged the Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant landmark protection to a former horse showroom on E. 13th St. that last served as a studio for the artist Frank Stella.

S.I.A.C.U. is sacked after flap over letter backing artist zones
By David Spett
The Soho International Artists’ Cooperative Union, a group of W. Broadway artists that includes Lawrence White and Jill Stasium, has decided to disband.

13-story apartment building ready to rise on Renwick St.
By Lori Haught
A new 13-story apartment building is under construction at 15 Renwick St. in Hudson Square.

M.C.I.’s, decontrol already changing Stuy Town
By Gerard Flynn
For decades after Metropolitan Life opened Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in 1947, residents of the 110-building twin-housing projects on the East Side held some very tender affections for the insurance giant.

New manager at C.B. 4 knows from development
By Albert Amateau
It took a few months, but Community Board 4 found an ideal replacement for Anthony Borelli, who resigned in January as the board’s district manager after five years to become Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s director of land use.

Astor Pl. tower is finished, but public plaza’s still closed
By Lori Haught
According to David Wine of Related Companies, the public plaza at 22 Astor Pl. should be opening up “momentarily.”

Demand attorney general rescue Village Fire Patrol
By David Spett
In the midst of his primary campaign race for State Committee, Arthur Schwartz, held a press conference in front of the Village Fire Patrol on Aug. 30 to say that that the proposed closure of the patrol is illegal and that he may sue to block the shutdown.

Knickerbocker win, not on hardcourt, but in court
By Albert Amateau
Tenants of Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side are rejoicing about a recent court decision they hope will keep the complex affordable.

Lola now has a liquor license again in Soho Cajun bar battle
By Lori Haught
The Appellate Division on Aug. 31 overturned a prior ruling by the State Supreme Court revoking the liquor license of Lola, a Cajun-creole restaurant and jazz lounge at 15 Watts St. in Soho.

Groans of disapproval for groin-grabbing ad
By Lori Haught
A billboard of a larger-than-life-sized man grabbing his crotch is thinking outside the box, according to Richard Golden, president and founder of SEE Eyewear. But offended Villagers are saying the man in the ad should keep it in his pants.

Unclear if new Starbucks Salon is causing any buzz
By Lori Haught
Starbucks calls it an open forum to promote local “emerging” artists, while community members say it’s just another way to sell more coffee.

Back to School
A Special Villager Supplement
New principal is driven to ‘make the world better’
By Albert Amateau
Dr. Stephen Noerper, the new principal of Old St. Patrick’s elementary school, brings a world of education experience and an enthusiasm for the parish’s Lower East Side neighborhood where he moved to last year.

The eagle has landed, at NEST
On the first day of school, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver greeted parents of the NEST school at Columbia and E. Houston Sts., who gave him a rousing thank you for his effort to keep a second school from moving into the building.

No fear of school

Arts & Entertainment

Crystal Field gets a few things off her mind
By Jerry Tallmer
Walt Whitman would have loved Crystal Field. She’s been sending her barbaric yawp over the roofs of the five boroughs of this city for 30 years now, with this year’s version of her free summertime Street Theater touching on almost as many bases as old Walt’s encyclopedic “Song of Myself.”

Au revoir from Aznavour, adventurer with guts
By Jerry Tallmer
It is to be wondered how many of the thousands who will pack Radio City Music Hall on the 18th and 19th of September 2006 to say au revoir to Charles Aznavour would have been at tiny Café Society Downtown in Greenwich Village to say bienvenue, comment ça va?, to the unknown 23-year-old Aznavour 58 years ago this coming Christmas.

Ideas of the Skies
By Cynthia Carr
This Thursday night’s art extravaganza at the Angel Orensanz Foundation features multimedia by the multi-dimensional.

NY Musical Festival gets a little complex
By Rachel Fershleiser
Let’s get one thing straight: “Oedipus for Kids!” is not appropriate for children. The new musical comedy, premiering this week at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, is the brainchild of Gil Varod

Koch on film
By Ed Koch
“Sherrybaby” (+) I tried to see this film last Friday night when it opened, but met a sold-out sign at the box office. I was able to see it the following Sunday afternoon, and it was well worth the wait.
“Hollywoodland” (-) This was supposed to be the movie of the week. However, the theater I attended for a6:00 p.m. performance was only 20 percent full, so the drums must have been sounding out the message — Stay away!

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