Volume 77, Number 25
November 21 -27, 2007
Editorial/Op-Ed
New school grades are step in right direction
The Department of Education’s first-ever School Progress Reports, with their grading system of “A” through “F,” have sent shockwaves through the city’s educational community.
Scoopy's Notebook
Mixed Use
Letters to the Editor
Police Blotter
Talking Point
Sisterhood is powerful, not piggy; The manicure cure
By Reverend Donna Schaper
A Chinese manicurist left her post recently, declaring that she had worked straight for 12 hours and she needed a break. The boss fired her. The rest of the staff sided with her and filed out of the salon.
Washington Square Park renovation: Fiction vs. fact
By Elizabeth Butson, Judy Paul, Maria Passannante Derr, Anne-Marie Sumner and Rocio Sanz
Now that the bid review process for Phase I of Washington Square Park is almost complete, it is important, now more than ever, that our community receive accurate.
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Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel
‘Peace and quiet! Not a riot!’
The sign on the back of Zacherly Zamsky, an E. Fifth St. resident, expressed neighbors’ sentiments Monday night at a half-hour protest against the Cooper Square Hotel at E. Fifth St. and Cooper Square (Third Ave.). Neighbors say developers Peck Moss Hotel Group had promised that a corner outdoor space would be a quiet, green oasis. But now they hear it will be an outdoor lounge with cocktails and ambient music, with more bars nearby on the second floor and in the basement.
C.B. 3 renews discussions on Seward Park renewal
By Joe Pompeo
Affordable housing was among the priorities community members placed on a wish list for the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area at a Nov. 13 Community Board 3 task force meeting.
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NEWS
Bank St. tenants told they may have just 3 years till checkout
By Chris Lombardi
The woman, a longtime tenant at One Bank Street, stood to ask her question at St. John’s Church. An actor, her professional training was evident in her careful tone.
 Former Trust chairperson pleads guilty to tax fraud
By Lincoln Anderson
Was hubris the cause? It may never be known. But James Ortenzio — the classics-quoting former chairperson of the Hudson River Park Trust — last week pleaded guilty to a felony tax charge, as well as a misdemeanor violation of the state’s Public Officers Law. On Thurs., Nov. 15, Ortenzio, 62, pleaded guilty on both counts.
Immersed in ritual, mikvah is still afloat
By Bonnie Rosenstock
To unobservant passersby, the classic-revival, limestone-and-brick building at the intersection of Grand St. and East Broadway would be just another spectacular Lower East Side structure, if not for an intriguing bronze sign on the facade that says “Ritualarium” in English.
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ARTS AND LIFESTYLE
Dylan biopic tangled up in the telling
By Steven Snyder
As much as some might complain that independent cinema has been co-opted by the corporate big wigs, that the Sundance Film Festival now resembles less an alternative to the mainstream than a snow-covered shopping mall for the major studios, there are still a handful of directors who have been able to push their projects through the studio gauntlet, all while keeping firm hold of their independence and autonomy.
Koch On Film
An epic journey through the life of Jack Kerouac
By Stephen Wolf
This month, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s highly influential novel “On the Road,” the largest collection ever assembled of Kerouac’s manuscripts, diaries, journals, notebooks, photographs, painting, and personal memorabilia opened to the public at the New York Public Library on Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. in an exhibition entitled “Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road.” Accompanying the exhibition, which runs through March 16, 2008, is a stunning and meticulously researched book, abundant with photographs and end notes, by Issac Gewirtz, curator of the exhibit as well as the Library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature.
A new killer in town
By Steven Snyder
It opens to the sound of wind whipping across the vast, arid desert, and ends with the detached tick-tock of a wall clock marking the seconds — both not-so-subtle testaments to the relentlessness of fate. One can’t change the weather, just as one can’t stop the hands of time. And the characters in “No Country For Old Men” slowly come to learn that there’s no stopping what’s coming to them either.
An audacious opus, not for the faint of heart
By Scott Harrah
This British import definitely tries to evoke a reaction from its audience, and gets it. Intentionally vulgar and vile, and containing some of the most lurid scenes and profane dialogue the New York theater world has seen in some time, it’s the type of offbeat play that could only be produced in an off-off Broadway venue such as Soho’s Ohio Theater.
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