Volume 76, Number 39
February 21 - 27, 2007
Editorial/Op-Ed
Pier 40: Which plan is best for the community?
In 2003, the effort to redevelop Pier 40 at the end of W. Houston St. into a park and commercial complex crashed. Before that happened, however, four years ago, hundreds of engaged Villagers packed public forums at which the development groups presented their plans.
Talking Point
Fashion designers have unraveled my neighborhood
By Kate Walter
“Oh no, they got the Japanese store too,” the young woman walking ahead of me on Bleecker St., exclaimed to her friend as they passed what used to be Old Japan Antiques and was now another Marc Jacobs outlet, set to open this summer.
Barack’s black dilemma: Figuring the funk factor
By Salim Muwakkil
The day after the national celebration of King Day, Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) announced he was forming a committee to explore a run for the presidency. Obama’s rapid ascent and the popular draft that has swept him into the presidential race would have amazed the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Letters to the editor
Police Blotter
Scene
Scoopy's Notebook
Ira Blutreich
Obituary
Emmit Noland, 82, financier, Foreign Service officer
By Albert Amateau
Emmit E. Noland, a retired banker and former U.S. Foreign Service officer, died Feb. 8 in his apartment on Perry St. at the age of 82.
Renato DeMaria, principal, 75
By Albert Amateau
Renato DeMaria, a retired principal of New Dorp High School in Staten Island and a resident for the past 17 years of Christopher St. in the West Village, died Mon., Feb 5, in Lennox Hill Hospital at the age of 75.
Public Notice
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Villager photo by Corky Lee
Horn of plenty of confetti
A tuba player from the Jin Bao Band blew through the colorful confetti-filled air at the Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown on Sunday.
Death & Co. is frightening some neighbors on Sixth St.
By Julie Shapiro
Death & Co., an upscale new nightspot that serves drinks and appetizers, has attracted glowing reviews and throngs of patrons since it opened at the beginning of January.
St. Brigid’s is hanging on by a prayer after ruling
By Albert Amateau
The Committee to Save St. Brigid’s is still fighting to save the East Village church, built by immigrant Irish boat builders, despite a Feb. 13 State Supreme Court ruling lifting an injunction that has prevented the Catholic Archdiocese from demolishing the 1849 building.
McMansion legal beef continues; Landlords win appeal
By Sarah Ferguson
Tenants fighting to stop a wealthy couple from turning their E. Third St. tenement into a private McMansion suffered a big legal setback this month when a state appeals court ruled that there is nothing in the law that limits the number of rent-regulated apartments a landlord can take over for his or her personal use.
 Dinosaur Hill recognized with monster-size stores
By Jefferson Siegel
The day before the International Toy Fair opened earlier this month for 15,000 buyers, representatives and other toy-business types, several dozen of these took a tour of three local businesses.
 Keeping down bar noise is starting to get fashionable
By Julie Shapiro
Designers for the international clothing chain H & M must be hanging out in bars on the Lower East Side. That’s the only explanation resident Rebecca Moore can concoct for the T-shirts she recently found at H & M, which read: “Please Respect Our Neighbors.”
Arts and Entertainment
 A sentimental journey from one war to another
By Jerry Tallmer
In 1987 a gorgeous and gorgeously talented young actress/singer named Andrea Marcovicci made her New York cabaret debut in the Hotel Algonquin’s historic Oak Room. “A voice of apricots and almonds,” said my review — noting also that here was a voice, repertoire, and running commentary of high intelligence.
For this theater critic, a round of applause
By Nicole Davis
Whether Norman Mailer’s father was a skilled accountant, or whether he wasn’t, by June of 1956, a year after Mailer senior agreed to look after the finances of the brand-new Village Voice, Edwin Fancher’s paper was out of money. So Fancher closed it down, and together with the drama critic Jerry Tallmer, they spent July and August redoing the books.
Negatively Fourth Street
By Will McKinley
It’s 7:30 in the morning Los Angeles time and Richard Lewis is already talking a mile a minute. TV viewers know the notorious neurotic for his portrayal of a (slightly) fictionalized version of himself on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Kids
The total workout for 2-year-old tykes at 14th St. Y
By Judith Stiles
The name of the game for 2-year-olds is “free play,” better known as “Tumbling Tykes” at the Sol Goldman Y on 14th St. near First Ave., in which toddlers run amok for the first five minutes, and then settle down to a more organized form of exercise.
UPS delivers for young students
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Listen to The Villager on Internet Radio:
Associate editor Lincoln Anderson and reporter Albert Amateau host guests Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, and David McWater, chairperson of Community Board 3, on The Villager's pilot radio show on Tribecaradio.net. Zoning, preservation and future political aspirations (?) top the list of discussion topics on this 44-minute premiere.
PREVIEW PODCAST BY TRIBECA RADIO
NEWS
 Private dancer
By Chris Bragg
Two years ago, Lisa Viola stood speechless on the stage before a full house at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea. Viola, a Paul Taylor dancer known for her charismatic performances, had just won one of the dance world’s great honors. But in her acceptance speech, she struggled to conjure up a single word.
Koch on film
By Ed Koch
“The Lives of Others” (+) A.O. Scott of The New York Times brilliantly described this great movie as follows: “Goodness, as a subject for art, risks falling prey to piety and wishful thinking, but ‘The Lives of Others,’ one of the nominees for this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, never sacrifices clarity for easy feeling.
Regular Lovers (-) One of the worst films of the year. It got a very good review in The New York Times by Manohla Dargis, which is why I went to see it. What a dog it was, particularly since it was a very long picture at 179 minutes.
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