Inside
Editorial
A great win for affordable housing
The signing last week of an agreement-in-principle insuring that the West Village Houses will become an affordable co-op was a resounding win for the West Village and for the city, too.
At stake were 420 affordable apartments at risk of becoming market rate — with many occupants being forced to lose their homes — as the complex leaves the Mitchell-Lama program.
Editorial Cartoon
Talking Point
Sorrow and shame: Has America produced a generation of torturers?
By Andrei Codrescu
Has Internet porn turned the United States into an S&M chamber of horrors?
Have we finally been media-tized to a point where we can’t tell real torture from playacting? The images from prisoner-torture in Iraq look like sadomasochistic porn, but they are not. Real people are suffering in them. The torturers are not some rogue sadists who slipped somehow past psychological profiling to get into the Army; they are American kids who’ve seen their required share of violent movies and porn, the same kids who like to binge drink at frat parties, the same kids who occasionally kill somebody during hazing at their school.
Scoopy’s notebook
Notebook
Tony Randall was a ‘gentleman of the old school’
By Jerry Tallmer
There are 178 entries for Tony Randall, if I’ve added it all up correctly, in the Internet Movie Data Base — motion pictures and television series starting in 1949, “Notable TV Guest Appearances” starting in 1947 — and I expect when all the numbers are in, his appearances on the living stage, all across America, will more than double that.
Confessions of a hordaholic, a.k.a. pack rat extraordinaire
By Wickham Boyle
It is age or disposition? Do we realize as we grow older that we are hoardaholics, keeping way too much? Or are we born that way and it only reaches a critical mass when we get to be middle-aged?
Letters to the editor
News In Brief
It’s a nice day for a green wedding
The Annual Rites of Spring: Procession to Save Our Gardens wended through the East Village and Lower East Side last Saturday. Above, at La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez, at E. Ninth St. and Avenue C, the participants reenacted the mythic drama of the Birth, Marriage and Kidnapping of Gaia.
Egg creams and egg rolls
On Sunday, the Eldridge Street Project will throw its Fourth Annual Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Block Party. The theme of this year’s festival, which celebrates both the Jewish and Chinese cultures, is “Generations,” and will focus on traditions and how stories are transmitted from one generation to the next.
Sports
Equality was always the goal for soccer director
Interview by Sydney Chun
It’s Saturday morning around 11 a.m. and I’m seated across the table at a diner from Judith Stiles. A Soho resident, Stiles is the mother of three children, two girls and a boy, who are all involved with sports. She has managed and coached a number of soccer and softball teams. She was my first soccer coach.
Bonetti blast powers Blazers’ 5th straight W
In the girls’ softball Senior Division, the Greenwich Village Blazers came from behind to beat the Yorkville Dodgers 14-11. The tense and well-played game saw the lead change four times, but the Blazers ultimately prevailed to up their record to 5-2. The Dodgers had their ace fireballer, Jessica Joy, on the mound featuring one of the best fastballs in the league, while the Blazers went with their control expert, Laura Manos-Hey.
Cardinals go with small ball and get the best of Red Sox
By Gabriel M. Zucker
Little League baseball is quite often characterized by the performances of several stars. The heart of the order smashes doubles and triples, while following innings may be less eventful. But last Saturday the rebellious Greenwich Village Little League Juniors’ Cardinals defied the stereotype, as all nine players in attendance chipped in, with a hit, run, RBI or all of the above, to top the Red Sox.
A’s in comeback beat Red Sox, 9-7
Eagles, 12-0, soar to new heights
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Villager photo by Elisabeth Robert
Mayor Michael Bloomberg watched as Katy Bordonaro, president of the West Village Houses tenants association, signed an agreement last week insuring the complex will become an affordable co-op.<more>
Villager online EXTRA
‘Restoration’ of CHARAS building called a façade to block landmarking
By Lincoln Anderson
As the nonprofit group that had been exploring building a 23-story dormitory on E. Ninth St. announced it is pulling out of the project, opponents of the plan last week uncovered potentially a new threat: a permit issued for “repairs and restoration” of the façade of the old school building on the site.
 Victory! West Village Houses to become an affordable co-op
By Albert Amateau
After two years of tense negotiations, the tenants association and the owner of the West Village Houses last week signed an agreement, joined by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, that would allow the association to form an affordable non-eviction co-op.
 Gehry glass tower to rise in Chelsea
By Albert Amateau
Groundbreaking will begin next week on a nine-story tower with a sculpted glass facade, designed by the architect Frank Gehry on West St. in Chelsea for the new headquarters of IAC/InterActiveCorp.
Blogger’s ‘addiction’hooks many
By Alan Bastable
Yes, Lockhart Steele is his real name. He was named after his grandfather, if you must know. And, no, he is not an aspiring movie star.
Contracts are issued for Pier 40 field, tennis courts
By Lincoln Anderson
The Hudson River Park Trust’s board of directors at their May 20 meeting approved $5.5 million in contracts to build a 3 3/4-acre, interim sports field at Pier 40. The Trust also awarded a contract of just under $900,000 to build three permanent tennis courts by the river at Spring St.
Kerrey talks on 9/11 and, no, he’s not running
By Albert Amateau
Bob Kerrey, former U.S. Senator from Nebraska and currently president of New School University and member of the federal 9/11 commission, gave the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce his views yesterday on the World Trade Center attack and on his career since he came from Nebraska in 2001 to head the New School.
Anti-development protesters build their case at City Hall
By Lincoln Anderson
Undaunted by humid, 90-degree weather plus a half-hour wait to go through a security check, 150 Villagers rallied near the steps of City Hall last Sunday to demand a stop to the overdevelopment of the Far West Village and waterfront.
P.S. 20 among ‘most improved’ schools
By Elizabeth O’Brien
Children at P.S. 20 always know where they stand. Teachers regularly evaluate students’ work and refine their instruction accordingly, just one of the strategies that propelled the Essex St. school onto New York City’s “most improved” list for the statewide English and math exams.
 New Israeli security barrier becomes focus of protests
East Village war photographer Q. Sakamaki was in the West Bank and Gaza from March 22-April 17, during which time he photographed protests against the new Israeli security wall and the reaction in Gaza directly after the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
 Tribeca man returns home to help Afghan widows
By Michael T. Luongo
JALALABAD — Unlike Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, the city of Jalalabad near the Pakistani border is green and full of gardens, birds chirping among the trees, its outskirts surrounded by rich fields of wheat. Most of the buildings remain unscathed by the war, and the shops are full of products brought in on caravans of trucks driven through treacherous mountain passes.
‘Stritch At Liberty,’ as she always was and will be
By Jerry Tallmer
If you haven’t heard Elaine Stritch being Ethel Merman bellowing: “Oh, Elaine, will ya for Chrissake go to New Haven and sing the fuckin’ song!” you haven’t begun to live.
Reporting war in Iraq, from Al Jazeera’s point of view
By Steve Erickson
A first-rate film, “Control Room” arrives in theaters in the wake of revelations about American torture of Iraqi detainees. Director Jehane Noujaim films the workings of Al Jazeera, the Arabic TV station, from the onset of America’s invasion of Iraq until the fall of Baghdad.
 Sculptor’s ‘Floating’ piece is grounded on 42nd St.
By Jerry Tallmer
Bernard Aptekar still doesn’t believe it.
“The Opera of the Floating World” floats not in the vast lobby of the Durst organization’s Conde Nast Building on Times Square. In fact, on installation day, Tuesday, May 18, his 39-foot-high allegorical sculpture — Aptekar’s cross-pollination of Passion and Reason — never got off the ground. It was stopped by men in suits.
Koch On Film
By Ed Koch
“Strayed” (+) This French film did not receive high critical acclaim, but I thought it was well done. It has an interesting story and the acting is excellent.
“Troy” (-) An epic disaster. If this clinker cost $250 million as reported, the investors were ripped off. The script is more wooden than the horse, the acting no better and the extravagant scenes and beautiful costumes look phony.
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