The Villager, June 10, 2009

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

It was a recent Saturday nightshortly after 10 p.m. in GreenwichVillage and two police officers weresitting astride their horses, Georgeand Billy, on Greenwich St. just southof Christopher St. They were part of a unit of five mounted officers whohave been assigned to help patrol theChristopher St. area on weekends inthe wake of a recent rash of violentassaults. A pair of tourists were pettingeither George or Billy on his forehead.Suddenly a dark-haired man in abaseball cap ran up to one of theofficers and could be overheard say-ing something about a group of “30”people hanging out up the block, thatit was really bad, come quick. Based onhis excitedness and urgency, the mandidn’t appear to be a police officer, butperhaps a resident or merchant.One officer immediately started hishorse at a walk and hung a right ontoChristopher St. He proceeded downthe sidewalk and brought the powerfuland imposing animal to a halt next toa group of more like 15, not 30, blackmen seemingly peacefully congregatingby a chain-link fence across the streetfrom the PATH station entrance andChi Chiz, a bar that caters to blackgays. The officer talked to them and themen dispersed without incident.

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Concern is brewing overPier 40 once more, after theHudson River Park Trustpassed a resolution to askthe state Legislature toextend the lease term for thehuge W. Houston St. pierfrom 30 years to 50 years.Opponents of The Rela-ted Companies’ failedCirque du Soleil/TribecaFilm Festival plan for thepier fear that with a lease

With longer lease at Pier 40, would Related re-emerge?

Crackdown on Christopher St.after string of violent incidents

Villager photo by Q. Sakamaki

In front of the Christopher St. PATH train station on a recent Saturday night. Many young gays and lesbians cometo the Village from New Jersey via the PATH.

BY ALBERT AMATEAUAND PATRICK HEDLUND

The first segment of the High Line park openedon Monday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony includ-ing Mayor Bloomberg andother officials, along withJoshua David and RobertHammond, who 10 yearsago began promoting theidea of converting a der-elict, elevated railroad into apark-in-the sky.A class of 22 first-gradestudents from P.S. 11 inChelsea was among thegathered officials, Friends of the High Line and press cel-ebrating the June 8 openingof the park segment betweenGansevoort St. in the MeatMarket and W. 20th St. inChelsea.Construction crews werealso on hand ready to con-tinue working on the sec-ond segment of the elevatedpark, between W. 20th and W. 30th Sts., with 2010 asthe target completion year.The project’s third andfinal segment loops westaround the MetropolitanTransportation Authorityrail yards at W. 30th St.and goes up to W. 34thSt., where the old rails dipbelow the street acrossfrom the Javits ConventionCenter. But the third seg-ment’s future is uncertain.“We will be workingvery hard to make it part of the park, but it belongs tothe M.T.A. and it dependson what’s going to happenthere,” Bloomberg said of

High Line opens; Greenway raises parks to a new level

Continued on page 18

Continued on page 5 Continued on page 34

EDITORIAL,LETTERS

PAGE 22

CABARETCONFAB

PAGE 29

Volume 79, Number 1

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West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side,

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June 10 - 16, 2009

She’s allbaseball, p. 21

2

June 10 - 16, 2009

GLEASON SHOCKER AT D.I.D.:

Pete Gleason

wonthe endorsement of Downtown Independent Democrats lastweek, delivering a body blow to the re-election efforts of Councilmember

Alan Gerson

.D.I.D. is considered by many to be the most important politi-cal club in the Council’s First District because it covers most of the area’s Lower Manhattan neighborhoods. As a practicalmatter, the endorsement means club volunteers will be helpingGleason collect signatures over the next few weeks to be on theballot for the Sept. 15 Democratic primary, but perhaps moreimportant, it means primary voters who have not tuned in tothe race yet will see some of their most politically active friendsand neighbors out campaigning for Gleason, an attorney and aformer police officer and firefighter.“I’m stoked,” Gleason said immediately after beating Gersonin the vote, held at St. Anthony’s Church on Houston St. thenight of Tues., June 2. “This is tremendously important. It sendsa clear signal that new leadership is needed.”D.I.D.’s endorsement helped Gerson narrowly win theCouncil seat in 2001, when he was one of seven Democratsvying for the open seat. He has won the club nod each time since,including in 2003, when he handily beat Gleason in the endorse-ment vote and in the primary.In more recent years, however, Gerson has lost the supportof some Downtown political leaders who previously helped himget elected, including

Sean Sweeney, Julie Nadel, Adam Silvera

and

Jean Grillo

.Gerson also lost support in the club because many membersbelieve he put up two of his political allies,

Noel Jefferson

and

Avram Turkel

, to run as Democratic district leaders againstGrillo and Silvera. Gerson, in a phone interview, acknowledgedgiving “friendly advice” to both about mounting challenges, buthe said the decision to run was made by the candidates.The ofﬁcial vote tally was 62 for Gleason and 54 for Gerson,with their three opponents and “no endorsement” splitting theremaining 8 votes. The numbers were slightly different in the ﬁrstcount, tallied by two different people, with Gleason getting 65votes on both counts and Gerson getting 56 and 57.

Bob Townley

, a Gerson supporter, said he thinks Gerson ishaving more trouble getting re-elected this time because peoplehad been expecting to get a new councilmember due to termlimits. Citing the dire economy, Gerson voted last year to extendlimits for the Council, the mayor and other ofﬁcials even thoughhe had previously said at various times over the years that hewould not support overturning voter referenda on the matterwithout a new referendum.Townley, who runs Manhattan Youth, a Tribeca-basedchildren’s organization, also thinks Gerson is more vulner-able because there are a lot of new residents who have movedDowntown in the last few years and don’t know Gerson well.“There is a spirit of change,” Townley said as the club ballotswere being counted. “Alan has to work hard — there’s a lot of new people in the community.”Townley said Gerson should be re-elected because of hisexperience helping Downtown, both in the Council and leadingCommunity Board 2 before that.“I think Alan deserves four more years because of his originalcommitment of the last 20 years.”Nadel said she continues to like Gerson personally, but he’s“totally disorganized,” echoing a common criticism of him.“People deserve better. I would try anybody else.”She said she feels Gleason is the strongest opponent rightnow, but she said she ultimately could end up supporting a differ-ent Gerson opponent as she learns more about them.

Margaret Chin

, a former executive with Asian Americans forEquality;

PJ Kim

, a former Community Board 1 member whohas administered anti-poverty programs; and

Arthur Gregory

, arestaurant/bar owner and former C.B. 1 member, are also run-ning for the seat. Chin and Kim lead the fundraising race so far,with $108,000 and $71,000, respectively, followed by Gerson($26,000) and Gleason ($23,000). Gregory has not yet filedfundraising figures.Money is not expected to be an issue because the city’s gener-ous matching fund law makes it relatively easy to raise enoughmoney to run a credible campaign.The opponents point to their individual experience as beingright to lead the Council, and criticize Gerson for not effectivelyusing the bully pulpit to get more for a district that includes the World Trade Center site.Townley and other Gerson supporters say he was a steadyforce after 9/11 and continues to fight hard throughout thedistrict, which includes Battery Park City, the Financial District,the South St. Seaport, Tribeca, Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho andNoho, as well as the South Village, Washington Square and mostof the Lower East Side.Gerson, who insists he is stronger politically than he ever was,said the endorsement loss was “disappointing,” but he said therewere several contributing factors that lessened its significance.He said Gleason “stacked” the club, although Gerson acknowl-edged it was not a violation to get new members to join the clubsix months in advance before the vote as Gleason did.“This club does not represent the district,” Gerson said of D.I.D., adding he had won most of the other political clubs’endorsements.Gerson said there were potential voting irregularities since hisside was denied access to the D.I.D. membership list before thevote, a charge echoed by a few other Gerson supporters.Sweeney, the club’s president, said under the bylaws, mem-bers can view the list with advanced notice, but the Gerson campdid not make such a request before the vote.Gleason’s people had their own criticism for Gerson, namelythat he distributed his own publicly funded Council newsletter ata political event where he sought an endorsement.Gerson said he did not print any extra newsletters for theevent and it was not passed out to all club members as campaignliterature, but merely made available to some who were there.He said he takes “whatever newsletters I have to wherever I go.It was not widely distributed [at the meeting.]”Gleason was surprised by the explanation.“He’s an attorney,” he said of Gerson. “For him to use publicmoney for political purposes is against the law — and that’sexactly what he did. Case closed.”At least 130 people attended the meeting, making it the larg-est one in the club’s 37-year history, according to D.I.D. founder

Jim Stratton

.

Josh Rogers

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