Editorial
Road to recovery: Transportation
As Albany muddles through, apparently close to funding the M.T.A., it’s clear that they have little idea as to the enormous payoffs transportation investments bring. Government should be much bolder, farsighted and generous when it comes to public transportation. State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith’s failure to get bridge tolls passed was just the latest evidence of the problem.
Governors Island’s future
And speaking of the mess in Albany, although Governors Island received enough funding to reopen this spring, the last-minute budget skirmish suggests there is a better way to fund this jewel in Lower Manhattan’s harbor.
Letters to the Editor
Talking Point
The emperor’s new house: We should all be like Mike
By Daniel Meltzer
We note with unmitigated relief and admiration that the financial crisis has not impeded our mayor from expanding, as recently reported, upon his modest Manhattan real estate holdings by buying and breaking through to four of the five stories in the Upper East Side townhouse next door to his own.
D.I.D. prez rejects actual olive branch
By Julie Shapiro
This year’s Downtown Independent Democrats election is starting to look a lot like last year’s — complete with shouting matches, political maneuvering and allegations of packing the club.
Flashback
Ingrid, Ike and the LME
From The Villager, April 3, 1969
A front-page story in The Villager, “Ingrid Takes 8th St. Ramble,” told of movie star Ingrid Bergman’s filming around the Village: “She peeks discreetly into Stereo Heaven looking for Walter Matthau, who plays the dentist in the movie ‘Cactus Flower.’ Goldie Hawn, who plays his receptionist, won’t be on the scene, which elicits some ‘aw’s’ from the gathering crowd.
Villager photo by Mark Hassleberger
Spied outside a hamburger joint in Hoboken, N.J., was this sign hawking old Villagers.
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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 J.B. Nicholas
The games must go on
At an event dubbed the Unemployment Olympics in Tompkins Square Park on Tuesday, out-of-work New Yorkers gathered to compete in events like the “phone toss,” above, the “you’re fired! race” and “pin the blame on the bosses.” The Olympians needed to show proof of unemployment, such as welfare-benefits forms or a pathetically low bank statement.
 Soho activist is facing discipline in $50 million Hamptons swindle
By Lincoln Anderson
In news that sent shock waves from Soho to Southampton, last week Don MacPherson, a former Community Board 2 member and owner of the Soho Journal, was arrested as part of a $50 million mortgage fraud ring, reportedly involving more than 50 Hamptons properties.
Kindergarten classes in limbo, like middle school
By Albert Amateau
The District 2 Community Education Council last week was angry and worried that not enough room would be available for incoming kindergarten students in the district in September, especially at P.S. 3 on Hudson St. and P.S. 41 on W. 11th St.
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Villager Arts & Lifestyles
 Jeff Daniels breathes likability into unsympathetic characters
By Jerry Tallmer
In Cobble Hill Park, Brooklyn, an 11-year-old boy named Benjamin Raleigh hit a classmate named Henry Vallon in the face, with a stick (breaking one or maybe two of Henry’s teeth) for calling him a snitch.
Koch on Film
By Ed Koch
“Everlasting Moments” (+)
In Swedish, with English subtitles. The film, which begins before World War I, tells the story of a poor family in Sweden. As I watched it, I thought about “East of Eden” — the wonderful epic starring James Dean.
“Goodbye Solo” (-) It happened again. I decided to see a film based on another critic’s very positive review.
Italian Americans and Yesterday’s Greenwich Village
By Christine Palamidessi Moore
The boho-beatnik, boutique, food and folk music scenes of Greenwich Village have made indelible marks in the imagination of people everywhere. Less reknowned are the Italian-American immigrants who lived in the area around Washington Square and the stories about their lives, love, and rabbletrousing.
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Troubles All Around
By Steve Erickson
Steve McQueen isn’t your typical debut filmmaker. He began as a video artist, creating work like the Buster Keaton-inspired “Deadpan,” as well as an uncompleted project of postage stamps commemorating all the British soldiers killed in the Iraq War.
Illusion, mystique and plain beauty in sparkling paintings
By Jeffrey Cyphers Wright
America has three super myths — the frontier, the racial mix and the belief that anybody can be somebody. We’re informed and fascinated by all three. Their intersection is our most potent avenue to metaphor and metamorphism.
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