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BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
During this past Greenwich VillageLittle League season, Thomas Ellensonalways led his Majors Division Athleticsteam onto J.J. Walker Field, proudlyscooting ahead of them in his motor-ized wheelchair as they entered fromthe center-field gate. On Tuesday after-noon, he again preceded a group of ballplayers onto the artificial-turf field— except this time the players wereYankee superstars Alex Rodriguez,Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain.The three pros — wearing T-shirts, jeans and sneakers — came to J.J. Walker, at Clarkson and Hudson Sts.,to honor Ellenson and his teammates aspart of the Yankees’ first annual HOPE Week, HOPE standing for HelpingOthers Persevere & Excel. Each dayfrom Mon., July 20, through Fri., July24, the Yankees will be reaching outto an individual, family or organizationthat the Yankees deem “worthy of rec-ognition and support.”The Villager’s front-page article onThomas three weeks ago caught the eyeof Yankee officials, and it was decidedthat Thomas and his teammates shouldbe part of HOPE Week.Ellenson, 12, who has cerebralpalsy and uses a device called a Tangoto talk, was an integral part of the A’schampionship season in which they
BY ALBERT AMATEAU
A generation of writ-ers who attended FrankMcCourt’s English classesat Stuyvesant High School— then on E. 15th St were harking back to theiradolescence this week andthinking about McCourt,who died on Sunday at theage of 78.They were remember-ing his stories, his brogueand his way of making them
Former students recall McCourt’s lasting influence 
Yankees salute Little League’sM.V.P. — Most Valuable Person
Villager photo by Elisabeth Robert
At J.J. Walker Field on Tuesday, back row, from left, Joba Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez and KevinLong; front row, from left, Richard Ellenson, Thomas Ellenson and Cameron Breen, Thomas’s cousin.
BY HARRY BARTLE
George Bliss, owner of the Hudson Urban BicycleStation, a.k.a. the HubStation, has a problem withtoday’s dominant perceptionof the bicycle.“There’s something fun-damentally wrong with ourbiking culture,” said Bliss.“Biking doesn’t have to beabout fitness or being ren-egade.”“George’s whole idea,”said Hub employee LindsiSeegmiller, “is that whenyou walk into a bike shop,it shouldn’t feel like you just stepped into a lockerroom.”It certainly doesn’t feellike that at the recentlyreopened Hub, on the cor-ner of Morton and HudsonSts., where bikes line twolevels of a huge, warehouse-style space, women makeup a little more than half of the employees and the bikesare geared more toward thebusiness commuter than theextreme-sports enthusiast.Here, “dignity on a bike”is the reigning philosophy,and Bliss is promoting anentirely different visionof the bicycle’s role in theAmerican urban setting.“It’s not just about hav-ing fun anymore,” said Bliss.“Bikes can’t just be expen-sive toys.” Instead, at a timewhen the Big Three automo-tive companies have virtual-ly collapsed and the “green”movement has taken thepublic by storm, bikes needto be viewed as essential
The wheels are turning in bike pioneer’s head 
Continued on page 14
145 SIXTH AVENUE • NYC 10013 • COPYRIGHT © 2009 COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC
Continued on page 9 Continued on page 26 
EDITORIAL,LETTERS
PAGE 12
STEELY DANLIGHTS UP THE BEACON
PAGE 21
Volume 79, Number 7 
$1.00 
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side,
Since 1933 
July 22 - 28, 2009 
Harey artcollaborations,p. 17
 
2
July 22 - 28, 2009
DOT’S THE WAY I LIKE IT:
 We bumped into
Paul Garrin
on Avenue A the other day and got the latest on his ongoingeffort to have his NAME.SPACE company recognized as thesole rightful owner of .nyc. Garrin also has hundreds of other so-called top-level domain names that he lays claim to, but recentlynarrowed the list down to a “Top 20,” which includes, in alpha-betical order, .art, .blog, .cam, .film, .food, .free, .gallery, .gay,.green, .media, .music, .now, .nyc, .peace, .people, .radio, .shop,.space, .sucks — one of our personal favorites — and, last but notleast, .video. The East Village Internet guru said that since it nowseems that the city is no longer interested in actually running orowning .nyc, he’s forging ahead with his plan to sign up peoplefor .nyc, plus any of these domain names, for the low cost of just$30 a pop. He’ll be tabling at the HOWL! Festival later this sum-mer. In the meantime, Garrin’s looking for neighborhood-based“domain agents” — we know, it sounds a bit “Matrix”-like — tosign up new clients in the East Village, West Village, Soho, etc.Each domain agent will get about one-third of the purchase price,or $10, and will keep raking in this same amount annually if theclient renews. In other words, sign up 100 people per year, andyou pocket a cool $1,000. “I actually offered
Jim Power
to do it,”Garrin said of how he tried to help out the East Village’s “MosaicMan,” though adding that he doesn’t know if Power is “orientedenough” to handle it. Garrin has been crunching the numberson his “Top 20,” and feels that in three years, they would breakeven, while after five years, they would generate $10 million. Of course, Garrin still has to get ICAAN — the mysterious cyberbody that regulates and assigns domain names — to recognizethat he owns .nyc, not to mention the 19 other ones. He doesn’tuse the word “buy” to describe this, rather that NAME.SPACEwill merely pay the “processing fee.” Although the city said itwould cost $180,000 to buy .nyc from ICAAN, Garrin hopes hewon’t have to pay this same amount for each additional T.L.D.,but more along the lines of $5,000 per. Meanwhile, Garrinnotes — in addition to trying to help out “Mosaic Man” — he’spumping money into the local economy in others ways, such asby having Works in Progress on E. Fourth St. produce “I
.nyc”T-shirts and tote bags. These snazzy perks only will be given tothose cool enough to have purchased a NAME.SPACE domainname. For more information, visit http://registerNYC.net .
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST:
Stop the presses!
Don MacPherson
has cut off his ponytail. At least sowe were told when we stopped in at The Cupping Roomon Broome St. in Soho last week. Our source told us it’spart of MacPherson’s “new image.” It couldn’t hurt, sinceMacPherson’s previous image certainly took a hit fourmonths ago, when he and his wife were charged in an alleged$50 million S&M/Hamptons mortgage scam.
TEFLON STONEWALL?
Following up on last week’sScoopy’s exclusive on the Stonewall Veterans’ Association’sbeing stonewalled thus far in trying to get Community Board 2’sblessing for its Sept. 26 Greenwich Ave. street fair, let’s not forgetthat C.B. 2 nearly put the kibosh on S.V.A. last year. Just like thisyear, C.B. 2’s Street Activities Committee last year was having ahard time determining the “legitimacy of the organization andtheir nexus to the community,” which wasn’t helped by the lackof information forthcoming from S.V.A.
Phil Mouquinho
, thecommittee’s former chairperson, was getting tough on S.V.A.’spresident,
Williamson Henderson
, at one meeting last year, andHenderson stormed out of the room. “This guy did not have anylist of where the money [from the street fair] went,” Mouquinhosaid. “He got up and left the meeting and was shouting and veryindignant.” Right around that time, though, Mouquinho was notreappointed to C.B. 2, which he claims was payback by BoroughPresident
Scott Stringer
for his speaking out against the SpringSt. Sanitation megagarage project. Mouquinho’s replacement ascommittee chairperson,
Amanda Kahn Fried
, was equally hardon S.V.A. — but she, in turn, was pulled off the board over aconflict of interest with her job, though reappointed later on.As a result, as less stringent committee members took charge,S.V.A.’s street fair slipped through and got approved. Could thesame process be repeating this year? In the mold of Mouquinoand Fried, attorney
Evan Lederman
, the current committeechairperson, really had been putting all street-fair applicantsthrough the ringer, demanding that all the committee’s questionsbe answered. But lately he’s been totally tied up with work on theG.M. bailout, missing committee meetings, and in his absence,committee members seemingly more sympathetic to Henderson
Carol Yankay
and
Joe Flahaven
— appear to be running theshow. “At some point, it takes on a distasteful feeling of being sin-gled out,” Flahaven said, regarding the committee’s treatment of S.V.A.’s application. Though off the board now, Mouquinho stillmaintains that Henderson’s application shouldn’t be approved.“I’ll never forget that he said part of the money went to care of his pink Cadillac,” Mouquinho scoffed incredulously. “I think it’sstill yet to be determined,” Lederman said on Tuesday on how thecommittee will vote on S.V.A.’s application. Checking the A.G.’s Web site, he said, “It shows that they filed, but they haven’tfiled since 1999 — that to me means it’s useless. The charitableinformation they sent us hasn’t been updated for a decade.” C.B.2 will consider the matter at its full board meeting on Thursday.Meanwhile, Henderson left us a message saying he originallybecame “famous” because he was “a millionaire” — the inferencebeing that he doesn’t need the funds from the street fair?
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July 22 - 28, 2009
3
BY WILL GLOVINSKY
For Lorcan Otway, a local balladeer,archivist and activist, it was the catch of alifetime.On July 1, Otway’s friend Julie M. Finchwas walking on W. 26th St. when shenoticed some furniture in a dumpster. Shepeered closer to find the venerable curve of a harp piled amid the rubbish. Finch exca-vated the grimy and blackened instrument,brought it home and sponged it down.“The sponge was black,” she recalled,“but I thought, ‘What a beautiful shape!’ ” Within a week she had contacted herfriend Otway, an Irish-music enthusiastwhom she knows through her Quaker meet-ing, and he bought the historic instrumentfor a “small price.”“If this hadn’t come to me, then I wouldbe sitting in a pub talking about it,” Otwaysaid.Upon inspection by Finch and Otway, theharp, which will require restoration, provedto be a John Egan original, built in Dublinin the early 19th century. Egan combinedthe traditional Irish harp shape with greatertonal versatility to produce a model thatwould foment a resurgence in the harp’spopularity around the time the last bardicIrish harpers — who played harps capableof only a single tuning — were dying out.Egan’s harps, and those like them, have sincegained international usage and acclaim.“Egan essentially created the modernIrish folk harp,” Otway said.According to Nancy Hurrell, a harp his-torian currently writing a book on Egan,there are only about 70 Egan harps extant,almost all of which reside in the collectionsof museums and universities.This harp, which presently resides inOtway’s living room, appears to be an earlyexample of Egan’s work. Egan receiveda royal warrant for his harps from KingGeorge IV, who reigned from 1820-’30,after which Egan inscribed the monarch’sendorsement on a plate affixed to his harps,or Royal Portables, as the specific model washenceforth known.Otway’s harp, however, bears no royalmark, so the owner thinks the found harpwas built sometime before Egan receivedthat recognition.Hurrell estimated that the instrumentdates from between 1810 and 1820. Whilenoting that a harp from the 18th centurywould be an “extremely rare find,” she judi-ciously classified Otway’s harp as “rare.”“I’ve only known of three Egan harpsfrom that period,” she said.Since the harp came into his possession,Otway has been investigating the curiousinstrument. In particular, he is intriguedby the presence of parts from two differ-ent kinds of key-shifting mechanisms. Thisincongruity is only one of the many ques-tions he has.“There are many little mysteries,” saidOtway. “It’s one of those things where thestory gets bigger as it goes on.”Indeed, the harp’s recent history is equal-ly colorful. Through Finch, who origi-nally found the harp, Otway learned thatthe instrument had been in the estate of Rose Augustine, who along with her hus-band, Arthur, invented the first successfulnylon guitar string. It so happened that theAugustines were friends and neighbors of classical guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia,who eventually championed the use of theirnylon strings.Rose Augustine, who died in 2003, col-lected rare musical instruments, one of which was the harp in question. How exactlythe Egan harp ended up in a dumpsterremains a mystery, although Otway surmisesthat the executor of Augustine’s will tried tosell the harp but was unsuccessful and finallydiscarded it.Otway hopes that the next stage of theharp’s life will return it to the world of musi-cians and recitals. He foresees a semiannualconcert series with “gifted musicians fromappropriate traditions,” with proceeds goingto both pressing world hunger crises andto benefit elderly members of his Friendsmeeting.For now, though, he seeks a masterrestorer who will balance the instrument’smusical potential with its historical impor-tance. The project will be no mean feat.Hurrell, the harp expert, explained thatunless the original sound box is replaced, itwill probably be delicate and even liable to“explode” if not properly handled. However,a new sound box would decrease the overallauthenticity of the instrument.At any rate, the restoration of the harp,whose historical and sentimental value faroutstrips any monetary value it may have,will certainly be costly and lengthy.“I may have to sell a set of my uilleannpipes,” said Otway, referring to the signa-ture Irish reed instrument. But he said hewouldn’t mind the sacrifice. “I’m just hon-ored to accompany this harp into its thirdcentury.”
 Judy Collins
SUNDAY, JULY 26 · 2PM
FREE ADMISSION AND FERRY SERVICE
Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, and folk legendJudy Collins performs on Governors Island.
Folks on the Island 
is made possible by Trinity Wall Street, presenting music forthe community.
HOW TO GET THERE
Free ferry service starting at 10am from Slip 7, the BatteryMaritime Building on South Street between Whitehall andBroad Streets, adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry.
FOR INFORMATION AND DIRECTIONS, VISITFOLKSONTHEISLAND.COM
IN COLLABORATION WITH
FREE CONCERT
 
on GOVERNORS ISLAND
PRESENTED BY TRINITY WALL STREET
Rescued from trash, ancient harp will trill again
Villager photo by Lorcan Otway
The salvaged, rare John Egan-made Irishharp now sits in Lorcan Otway’s EastVillage apartment.
Villager photo by J.B. Nicholas
 Speaker reports for duty
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn reported for jury duty on Monday at CountyCriminal Court, with what looked to be an iced coffee in hand. According to aspokesperson, Quinn had “made it clear that she didn’t want special treatment andwas happy to serve.” But the speaker, along with others in her part, was releasedfrom jury duty later that afternoon, since there wasn’t a need to empanel them on anyjuries at that particular moment.
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