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BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
The head of a volunteer anti-crime group is demanding a strict 10p.m. curfew on the Christopher St.Pier and a complete lockdown of theChristopher St. PATH station on week-ends. Meanwhile, a leading transgenderactivist is saying all of the ChristopherSt. area’s quality-of-life issues stemfrom one thing, drugs — and that she’sready and willing to assist in solvingthe problem any way she can.As for the Sixth Precinct’s DeputyInspector Raymond Caroli, he saidpolice are going to continue the planthey unveiled last month; plus, they’verecently begun locking ChristopherPark, a source of bad behavior andcrime, earlier on Friday and Saturdayevenings.More than 100 people filled thebasement of Our Lady of PompeiChurch at Bleecker and Carmine Sts.last Wednesday evening at the SixthPrecinct Community Council’s monthlymeeting.After a spate of assaults a monthago, including two stabbings and agay-bashing incident, Caroli put intoplace a series of new measures. Theseincluded light towers at two key inter-sections, a mobile command post atGreenwich and Christopher Sts. and aunit of mounted police on weekends toprovide “omnipresence.” The precinctalso recently received 18 new officers.Although neighborhood residentssaid they’re seeing — and hearing — adifference, some think even strongermeasures are needed to control crime,noise and crowding.David Poster, president of theChristopher St. Patrol, said that whilemuch talk is made of providing a “safespace” for gay and lesbian youth, localmerchants and residents need a safespace, too.“Close the Christopher St. Pier at10 p.m.,” Poster declared, as most of the audience applauded. “Close thePATH station on the weekends — youeliminate 50 percent of the problem.”The pier and the Hudson River Parkcurrently have a 1 a.m. curfew.As of now, police are starting withclosing something significantly smaller,but which is said to have a big impacton neighborhood conditions, namelyChristopher Park in Sheridan Square.Caroli said police recently obtained thekey to the little triangular park and are
BY ALBERT AMATEAUAND JULIE SHAPIRO
The city Department of Education last week offeredVillage parents anoth-er possible venue for theGreenwich Village MiddleSchool.The site, however, is at 26Broadway in the FinancialDistrict where the SportsMuseum of America closedearlier this year. Parentsare eager to find space for
A middle school at Sports Museum is not a big hit
Gay bars and neighbors say,‘Anything goes’ has got to go
Villager photo by Q. Sakamaki
Christopher Park in Sheridan Square around 10 p.m. on a recent Saturday night.
BY ALBERT AMATEAU
The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors (BAN) last weekpresented a plan to limitthe size of new buildingsand preserve traditionalcommercial uses on the eastside of the Bowery betweenCanal and E. Ninth Sts.The alliance, whichincludes artists, loft dwell-ers and local merchants, hasbeen calling for preserva-tion of the east side of thethoroughfare for the pastthree years as new high-riseresidential and hotel tow-ers have been threateningto overwhelm the low-risecharacter of Bowery.“This is the first step ingathering support for theplan,” said Anna Sawaryn,president of BAN, who ledthe group’s June 16 forum.“We intend to present iteventually to CommunityBoard 3 and ultimately toCity Planning.”The preservation plandeveloped for BAN byDoris Diether, a neighbor-hood zoning consultant andCommunity Board 2 mem-ber, calls for an 85-footheight limit on new build-ings in a 100-foot-wide cor-ridor on the east side of Bowery. The plan includeslot-coverage rules for resi-dential and commercialdevelopment and a ban ondemolition of specific build-ings of special significance.To protect commercial uses,there would be restrictionson residential conversion of commercial space.
BAN plans to keep the building boom on Bowery at bay
Continued on page 6
145 SIXTH AVENUE • NYC 10013 • COPYRIGHT © 2009 COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC
Continued on page 4Continued on page 42
EDITORIAL,LETTERS
PAGE 12
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HEY LESLIE, LET’S TALK!
Did
Leslie Crocker Snyder
really turn down an interview with
Don MacPherson
,owner of Soho Journal magazine and, as of three monthsago, a defendant in a bizarre $50 million Hamptons S&Mmortgage-scam ring? That’s what
Azi Paybarah
recentlyreported about the district attorney candidate in hisPoliticker column. “A campaign source confirmed that heradvisers did not want Crocker Snyder to do the interview,citing legal troubles of the monthly magazine’s owner,Donald MacPherson,” Paybarah wrote. Paybarah, of course, was recently in the news after Mayor
Bloomberg
called him “a disgrace” for questioning the mayor’s justi-fication for extending term limits now that the economyis rebounding. MacPherson, for his part, said he “nevermade a direct request to them [Snyder’s campaign], soI think that came about from someone inquiring if shewould be interested.” He said he hadn’t seen the Politickeritem, and asked us to read it to him over the phone. Sinceit only cites a “campaign source,” MacPherson said, hedoesn’t hold anything against Snyder, and would be happyto interview her if she’s willing. He did say that for anyD.A. candidate, “I would hope that the standard wouldbe innocent until proven guilty.” MacPherson has alreadyinterviewed
Cy Vance
, another Manhattan D.A. contend-er.
Eric Pugatch
, a Snyder spokesperson, said it’s untruethe candidate refused to sit down with MacPherson. “TheSnyder campaign denies the alleged unsourced report— Leslie never said this,” Pugatch said. “Leslie wouldbe happy to conduct an interview with the Soho Journalin the future.” Getting back to the kinky mortgage-scamcase, we asked MacPherson if his Arena Studios really wasa dominatrix den and if, as the Suffolk County D.A. charg-es, its clients were used as “straw buyers” in the elaboratereal-estate ruse. MacPherson said he already answeredthat question for us before and didn’t want to “rehashit.” “It was a fetish photography studio — it had nothingto do with sex,” he reiterated. He said he didn’t read TheVillager’s article on his case, either, but did hear fromothers that it was “balanced.” As for all the unflatteringnewspaper articles about him, he noted that his landlord,who he said holds a grudge against him, plastered all thehallways and apartment doors in his 80 Varick St. apart-ment building with them. The landlord “obviously haspsychiatric problems,” MacPherson said. His apartment isone of about 10 rent-regulated ones left in the building,while the landlord has succeeded in converting the other60 to market-rate rentals. MacPherson said he’s been inlitigation with the landlord for 10 years.
WHERE THERE’S A WILL...?
Legendary CooperSquare housing activist and literary agent
Frances Goldin
,85, has had a really rough time lately. First, she suffereda heart attack at her East Village home — on May Day,ironically. “I should have been marching,” she said. Always“strong as a horse” her entire life, she said, it was a shockto be stricken. She received two stents at Beth Israel, and isnow on the mend back at her place. Making matters worse,though, a lawyer she asked to draft her will in Septemberwho said it would take just a month, still hasn’t producedanything, won’t return her materials and refuses even to takeher phone calls. Goldin said she saw the attorney,
DanielMillstone
, at a couple of Coalition for a District Alternativemeetings and thought he was “a really hot leftist,” as in hetalked a good progressive game. Plus, he came highly rec-ommended by her yoga teacher. But Millstone has turnedout to be a total bust, despite having cashed her $250 firstpayment, she said. “I’m 85 years old. I had a heart attack.I need a will,” Goldin fumed. “I have threatened him withgoing to The Villager. The guy is a menace, and I don’twant anyone else to get rooked.” We called Millstone andhe wouldn’t answer whether he planned to write the will orreturn Goldin’s paperwork. In fact, citing “confidentiality,”he wouldn’t even say if Goldin is his client. Did he evenknow who Frances Goldin was? “I can’t tell you a thing,”he replied. Losing our patience, we said forcefully that, inour view, he should either do the darn will already or giveback Goldin’s stuff A.S.A.P., considering her age and healthcondition. Millstone went silent and was unable to speakfor a minute or two; we heard him breathing heavily intothe phone. Asked if he was O.K., he responded, “I’m fine.... I’m sure there are answers to this, but they haven’t comeright to me. ...” Millstone said he would only talk to us if we had Goldin’s written authorization in an e-mail. Goldindid so, and we called Millstone again, twice, but he didn’tcall back.
TREE FOR TOM:
Warren Allen Smith
of Jane St.,who has a Stonewall exposé in our Gay Pride section thisweek, said the planting of a tree down by the courts onJune 8 to mark the 200th anniversary of Thomas Paine’sdeath received no media coverage. Smith, a writer andoutspoken atheist, wielded a shovel at the planting forPaine, who practiced deism — the belief in human reasonover the concept of God. Known as the “Father of theAmerican Revolution” for his pro-independence pamphlet“Common Sense,” Paine died in Greenwich Village at 59Grove St. Because of his unpopular religious views, only sixpeople attended his funeral. After they planted the saplingDowntown earlier this month, the commemorators sang“Tom Paine’s Bones.”
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June 24 - 30, 2009
3
BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL
A group of 75 people marched through the West VillageFriday night to protest a regulation requiring groups of 50 ormore people to obtain a permit before gathering.The “Parade Without A Permit” was organized by theRadical Homosexual Agenda, which organized a similarprotest in 2007.“Nothing’s changed, that’s part of the problem,” saidJessica Rechtschaffer, an R.H.A. member since the group’sfounding in 2006. “It’s really a failure on the part of the city’sleadership to protect basic civil rights.”Benjamin Shepard held the lead banner as the marchproceeded through West Village streets filled with Fridaynight revelers.“Forty years after Stonewall, we’re still out here,” hesaid. “If we don’t have freedom of assembly, we don’t havedemocracy.”Toward the end of the hour-long protest, which saw themarch proceed down the middle of several streets, a smallnumber of police appeared. They walked alongside themarch until it ended at the Christopher St. Pier. There wereno arrests.The regulation, first issued in 2006 with a cap of 30participants, was modified to 50 after an outcry fromactivists and several city councilmembers. Many in themarch criticized Council Speaker Christine Quinn, thefirst openly gay City Council speaker, for agreeing to theregulation.As a result of the rule, originally intended to controlthe monthly Critical Mass bike ride, the 5 Boro Bike Cluband several other parties filed a lawsuit challenging theregulation in Federal Court. There were four days of hear-ings last month. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has not yet ruledon the suit.
“I want to build a District Attorney’s office that’s definednot by how we handle the big,high profile cases, but by how wehandle the tens of thousands of cases each month that won’t everget written about—cases that don’t involve infamous acts or famouspeople, but whose outcomes mat-ter every bit as much.“I’ll never forget that as yournext DA.”— Cy Vance
A passion for justice.
The experience to deliver it.
‘Spirit of Stonewall’ lives on in protest over permits
Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel
The protesters circled the Washington Square fountain Friday night before marching out of the park and throughthe streets of the West Village.
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