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"Serving West and East Village, Chlesea, SoHo, NoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side" SINCE 1933
Volume 74, Number 19 | September 08 -14 , 2004
Inside
Editorial
Police did their job, but what was the cost?
The Republican National Convention is over and for that we’re glad. The convention did a monumental job of tying up Midtown and otherwise inconveniencing New Yorkers. And the much-touted expected economic boon of the convention hasn’t panned out from what we hear. Lastly, it was simply galling and hard to stomach to see our city and the 9/11 attacks used as backdrop for President’s Bush’s reelection campaign and justification for the war on Iraq, which many here do not support.
Editorial Cartoon
Talking Point
The real patriots speak up: Bush brings out our best
By Keith Crandell
My view of the Republican convention invasion is a minority view. Some see the visiting Bushies simply as disturbers of the peace. I see them as energizers of the body politic of our town. While this little army of fibbers and boodlers and humbuggers seemed to hold much of our city in thrall, thousands of my neighbors went into the streets and into assemblies to exercise the rights enumerated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Notebook
Chelsea march zone journal: Lockdown to W throw down
By Tim Gay
Thursday, Day 1: Ominous signs appear on Eighth Ave. parking meters: “No Parking Aug. 28 through Sept. 3.” People seem hurried yet determined. Boyfriend Neal calls with bad news: no more rental cars anywhere in Manhattan.
Only memories come cheap now
By Andrei Codrescu
Indulge in remembering and you’ll soon be lost and sad like the sea. I told the young Romanian student that once upon a time in New York you could rent a one-bedroom for $65 a month and buy two grocery bags for 5 bucks and you came out ahead even if you were mugged once or twice a month. And once upon a time in San Francisco you could eat Chinese food in a restaurant where everything on the menu cost less than a dollar and you didn’t have to take the Mao pamphlet in the basket by the door if you didn’t want to.
A moving moment: Saying ‘No Bush’ with N.Y.C. style
By Wickham Boyle
Sun., Aug. 29, 2004: The heat is brutal, as if big sacks of wet, warm laundry hung around your shoulders and slung across your belly. The sweat runs rivers on the populace who pour into this island between two rivers; protesters from across continents and counties converge on N.Y.C. to make minds known.
Reporter’s notebook
Sitting through the partisan pogo at the Garden
By Lincoln Anderson
So I’m sitting in the Republican National Convention.
On my left is a woman who runs a Christian retail store in Texas. On my right are a Hispanic couple from New Mexico who switched from Democrat to Republican two months ago because of their faith.
Scoopy's notebook
Letters to the editor
News In Brief
St. Vincent’s breaks ground on new trauma center
Police Blotter
Obituary
Bob Cardinali, civic leader, ran grocery with brother
Bob Cardinali, a Greenwich Village native and civic leader who ran a family grocery store with his late brother on Sullivan St. for many years, died Aug. 26 at St. Vincent’s Hospital at the age of 84.
Picture Story
Unconventional, and proud of it
While there was plenty of fanfare inside Madison Sq. Garden at the Republican National Convention, it was matched by the creative, sometimes controversial, signage and costumes dreamed up by the protesters outside.
New York's
Exciting downtown scene
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NEWS
Porn free? Villagers try to sweep out smut
By Albert Amateau
Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Greenwich Village Block Associations forum last month, “I wouldn’t want a porn parlor in my neighborhood and you shouldn’t either.” But given First Amendment guarantees of free expression and a pending court case regarding zoning intended to curtail adult entertainment shops, the solution to problems about porn shops is far from simple.
A prolific producer archives, with a twist
By Deborah Lynn Blumberg
Years ago, Lower East Side artist Aaron Beall helped rescue a homeless 40-year-old archive of New York’s Yiddish radio and theater from a near trash dumpster death, and found them a home in the Yiddish Archives at Harvard University.
St. Mark’s Counter Convention ends; no grave impacts seen
By Lincoln Anderson
As the last stragglers from the Republic National Convention were leaving town this week, protesters who participated in the “Counter Convention” at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery were doing the same. During the R.N.C., the famously progressive East Village church opened its doors and its churchyard to provide a sanctuary for protesters from out of town.
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Protesters outside Central Booking, at 100 Centre St., last Thursday.
Tales from Guantanamo
By Lincoln Anderson
While Mayor Bloomberg has been crowing about the Police Department’s successfully heading off major disruptions by protesters during the Republican National Convention, it’s becoming increasingly clear that keeping the peace for Bush came at a price.
Photographers describe picture of rough treatment
By Josh Rogers
 News photographer Robert Stolarik was taking pictures of an arrest Tuesday near Union Sq. Park when he says police tackled him to the ground and cuffed his hands so tightly he thought it cut off his circulation. Thursday he was wearing two casts because doctors feared he could have fractured two bones in his wrists. He’s more concerned about being allowed to do his job than his injuries.
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Downtown schools to share history grant of $900,000
Some area students may sigh at the thought of poring over the long-reaching effects of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration or the daily life of Americans in urban centers during the Industrial Era, but a recently awarded federal grant to New York City schools looks to intensify the focus on American history in Downtown schools.
Section 8 funds restored, for now, as threat remains
By Albert Amateau
In response to appeals by New York City and 400 local housing departments across the country, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last week decided to drop its proposal to reduce financing this year for Section 8 housing vouchers.
Towers are no more, but Petit to walk the wire again
By Jerry Tallmer
After the first death, there is no other.
With those words, Dylan Thomas ended his great poem on the death of a child, by fire, in the London Blitz. But for Philippe Petit there was, after the first one, another death. Three thousand of them.
Downtown streets among most unsafe for pedestrians
By Albert Amateau
There were eight auto accidents in which pedestrians were killed on Houston St. in the seven years from 1995 to 2001 — and three of those fatal accidents were on Houston St. at Avenue A, according to a new study by Transportation Alternatives, a group that advocates for traffic safety.
Back to School
A special Villager Supplement
Convention adds up to new computers for public schools
While many New Yorkers who disagree with the Republicans’ agenda objected to the presence of the Republican National Convention and others breathed a sigh of relief that the event was no longer tying up Midtown, for New York City public schools, at least, the Convention added up to a benefit.
Overcrowding problem is growing at P.S. 234
By Ronda Kaysen
Sandy Bridges, principal of P.S. 234, has about 10 more students in her small Tribeca neighborhood school than she did last year and nowhere to put them. Desperate for classrooms, the computer lab suddenly looks like a viable option.
Word from the playground
ARTS
Annual ‘Issues Project’ more relevant than ever
By Davida Singer
Tired of what you’re not seeing and hearing during the current political conventions? Stay tuned for “Issues Project: DEMOCRACY,” at Culture Project on Bleeker Street.
Neuwirth’s certainly got legs
By Chris Schmidt
Who is Jenny, the title character of “Here Lies Jenny,” the high-concept Kurt Weill revue at the Zipper Theater starring Bebe Neuwirth?
 George and Martha as you’ve never seen them before
By Jerry Tallmer
It is unlikely that the N.E.A. — is there still an N.E.A.? — will give Karen Finley a grant to further develop her latest work, a play called “George & Martha.”
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Koch on film
By Ed Koch
“Bright Young Things” (+)
I went to see this movie because of the generally good review it received by A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Referring to “Vile Bodies,” the Evelyn Waugh book on which the film is based, he wrote that it is regarded by some critics “as the funniest novel ever written in English.”
“Donnie Darko” (-)
This 2001 movie has become a cult film. The current version of this flick, which includes 20 minutes of deleted scenes from the original (the director’s cut), has been showing in a number of art houses around town.
Public citizen number 1
By Brian McCormick
For the past ten years, Dancenow/NYC’s annual fall festival has delivered a stunningly full-range program of modern dance in New York City, in whatever venues they could muster. Under the leadership of Robin Staff and Tamara Greenfield, the festival has become more organized and its tenth anniversary season program illustrates a pinnacle of outstanding public-event planning that is truly informed by the dance public.
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Sports
A select group of players win tournament trophies
By Judith Stiles
 While women on the U.S. National Team were fighting for the gold in overtime against Brazil in the Olympics, our 10-year-old girls from New York City were busy battling top regional teams at the East Meadow Soccer Tournament on Long Island. For the first year ever, the Cosmopolitan Junior Soccer League sent not one, but two, U-10 (under 10-years-old) Girls Select Teams to compete in this well-known tournament. Both teams were made up of talented players from soccer clubs in the five boroughs who convened this summer to enter tournaments, and like thousands of other girls on teams around the country, they jumped for joy when the U.S.A. took home the gold.
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