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GAY CITY NEWS 1/18/12
New York City's LGBT newspaper is also America's largest.
BY ALBERT AMATEAU
Comptroller Bill Thompson madea stop in Greenwich Village last weekin his campaign to unseat MayorBloomberg and heard a dozen angryshop owners talk about things thatmake small business a precarious wayto make a living.The list was long and the emotionsran high at the July 29 gathering at Tea& Sympathy on Greenwich Ave. wheremerchants told Thompson about out-rageous increases in commercial rent,real estate taxes, water rates, sanitationand parking tickets, not to mentionbicycle lanes and street fairs.“This is a chance for me to hearfrom you,” said Thompson, addingthat the city has focused on large busi-nesses and neglected small local busi-nesses, which employ half of the city’sworkforce.He heard plenty, including an out-burst from Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett —who with his wife, Nicky Perry, ownsTea & Sympathy — calling CouncilSpeaker Christine Quinn “a whore.”Kavanagh-Dowsett added, “You canquote me on that,” and after the embar-rassed laughter died down, he said hewould “drop my trousers and she cankiss my ass.”Thompson blushed and murmured,“You don’t want to be saying that,”but Kavanagh-Dowsett, persisted, say-ing Quinn was “sold for services ren-dered,” for her support of Bloomberg’smove to overturn term limits.Kavanagh-Dowsett on Friday apolo-gized in an e-mail to Quinn, saying thecomment was a bad joke and “a pathet-ic attempt to get a laugh out of a coupleof people.” His e-mail also recognizedQuinn’s efforts in helping make surethat Village children, including his owndaughter, had kindergarten seats in thedistrict in September.Thompson also called Quinn’s office,and Thompson’s campaign managerMike Murphy issued a statement thatthe comptroller had great respect forQuinn and that Kavanagh-Dowsett’scomments at a public event were “inap-propriate and offensive.”Among the merchants at the forum,Nathaniel Garber Schoen, who runsGarber Hardware, at 710 GreenwichSt., a family business in the Villagefor 125 years, said his share of hislandlord’s latest real-estate tax increaseamounted to an 80 percent to 90 per-cent increase in his annual rent.“I don’t mind running the city likea business,” Schoen said. “But it has to
BY JULIE SHAPIRO
An increasingly belea-guered Alan Gerson facesa new challenge in his bidfor re-election to the CityCouncil after the Board of Elections removed his namefrom the ballot last week.Gerson is already con-fronting four opponents ina Democratic primary racethat appears unusually closefor a two-term incumbent.But those opponents are
Access denied! Gerson gets hit by petition glitch
Tea & Sympathy’s owner teesoff on Quinn while Bill blushes
Villager photo by Tequila Minsky
Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, far left, after having called Council Speaker Christine Quinn “a whore” for her stance on termlimits, then pointed toward a Villager reporter and photographer and shouted, “You can quote me on that.” ComptrollerBill Thompson, far right, looked stunned. Kavanagh-Dowsett’s wife, Nicky Perry, is second from right.
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Bang the drum softly —or better yet, not at all.That’s the message policeand some neighborhoodresidents recently have beensending to drummers in Washington Square Park.An unanticipated effectof the May reopening of thepark renovation’s phase oneis that the number of drum-mers in the world-famouspark has exploded, while thevolume of their albeit unam-plified music has skyrock-eted, according to residents.Meanwhile, one of thedrummers says they’re beingtargeted by a stealth unitof cell phone-camera-wield-ing seniors who are liter-ally recording their everyrim shot. But he and hisband mates say WashingtonSquare is a historicallyimportant public space formusicians and must be pre-served as such.Dancing to the beat of adifferent drummer entirelyis former Mayor Ed Koch,who says drums should bebanned in parks.“I’m against drummingin any local park,” saidHizzoner, who lives on FifthAve. right off the park. “Ithink that disturbs in anunreasonable way peoplewho come to enjoy the park.I am for folk singing. …“You can’t dream whenpeople are drumming,” Kochsaid. “Parks are supposed tobe places where people can
Park neighbors want drummers to just beat it
Continued on page 14
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Continued on page 3 Continued on page 26
EDITORIAL,LETTERS
PAGE 12
HANGING OUTON ‘CRUSTY ROW’
PAGE 6
Volume 79, Number 9
$1.00
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side,
Since 1933
August 5 - 11, 2009
Dalí printspersist,p. 17
2
August 5 - 11, 2009
STRICTLY BID’NESS:
It seems the Meat Market just wasn’t big enough for two improvement districts.That’s apparently the reason why a Meat MarketBusiness Improvement District never got off the ground.Meanwhile, a new High Line Improvement District isbeing proposed to extend all the way down to HoratioSt., taking in the Meat Market. Asking property ownersto pay two annual assessments was getting to be a bitmuch. But one result is that the traffic-calming struc-tures and pedestrian spaces in Gansevoort Plaza andalong Ninth Ave. south of 14th St. don’t have any main-tenance funding stream, with no BID yet in place; so, thetree planters are collecting everything from empty Patrontequila bottles to batteries, old cigarette packs and plas-tic water bottles and cups, while the slab seating struc-tures have been tagged with graffiti, and no one seems tobe cleaning it all up. On the other hand, the plaza areanorth of 14th St. on Ninth Ave. is kept immaculately,with movable seats and chairs, the main difference beingthat it’s maintained with funds from a group called theChelsea Improvement Project, which includes ChelseaMarket and other local businesses.
FRANKLY SPEAKING:
By chance we happened to tuneinto
Malachy McCourt
’s radio show on WBAI on Saturdaymorning, when his guests were brother
Alphie
— who haswritten for The Villager — and
Mike
, from San Francisco.The talk, of course, was all about the death of “the brotherFrank.” Malachy noted that a move is afoot — “afoot, afoot,afoot!” chimed in Mike — to rename one of the schools inthe reorganized Brandeis High School on the Upper WestSide after Frank. That would be unusual, Malachy said,since no New York City public schools are named after anactual teacher, which Frank was, at Stuyvesant High Schooland before that on Staten Island, before he shot to famewith the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Angela’s Ashes.” A biggerchallenge, though, will be the brothers’ desire to rename theschool they all attended in Limerick, Ireland, after their old-est sibling. There are still many in Limerick who will neverforgive McCourt for what he wrote about them — plus therealways were a bunch of jealous sorts in positions of powerthere, Malachy said.
FADING PICTURE?
Superstar photographer
AnnieLeibovitz
is in deep financial distress, and is being suedfor repayment of a $24 million loan, according to an articlein The New York Times. The picture is so bleak that shemay lose her three Village townhouses on Greenwich St.Leibovitz originally had only purchased two of the buildingsfor $4.15 million, but ended up buying the third for $1.87million after the owner sued because she had damaged aparty wall during renovations.
DODGE PARKS IT:
Dodge Landesman
recently droppedout of the Democratic primary race against incumbent
RosieMendez
in the Second City Council District, meaning that,well, Mendez no longer has a primary race. According to hiscampaign life coach,
Gil Horowitz
, Landesman’s bid for theEast Village seat was always about setting the stage for amore meaningful run four years from now. After all, by thenhe’ll at least be out of high school — in fact, even almost outof college. Horowitz said Landesman’s mom also supportedhis decision to fold his campaign tent — for now, that is. Inthe meantime, as Scoopy reported two months ago, Dodge’sdad, Broadway theater producer
Rocco
, is making newsafter President
Obama
tapped him to head the NationalEndowment for the Arts.
THE ‘CHICKENHAWK’ HAS LANDED:
After oneof the Tompkins Square Park red-tailed hawks surpris-ingly dropped in last month at nearby Birdie’s restaurantand landed on a local blogger’s chicken lunch, the bird wascaught by a cook and, according to news reports, sent to theA.S.P.C.A. But
Pharaoh Masters
, the restaurant’s co-owner,said the daily newspapers didn’t get it quite right. The bird,which had a broken wing, was first taken by his ex-partner,
Pnina Peled
, to the Bird Rescue Foundation at 87th St. andColumbus Ave., and from there was transferred to a rap-tor preserve in New Jersey. Yeah, but there’s no barbecuedchicken out there. ...
THE LATEST ‘GOSSIP’:
The hottest show on TV, or sowe take it from the local gossip pages, “Gossip Girl” — aboutprep school kids who are never seen in school — was filmingMonday on the western edge of Soho around MacDougaland Prince Sts.
Hillary Duff
was said to be a special gueststar. The filming was centering around Hundred Acres res-taurant on MacDougal St. when we walked by. It seemedthere were more production assistants than we’ve ever seenat one of these affairs. One of them warned us, “Don’t watchthe show — they say it lowers your I.Q. by 5 points.”
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A COOK’S BEST RESOURCE
Villager file photo
In October 2003, West Village neighbors and membersof the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservationdemonstrated outside Annie Leibovitz’s three buildings,charging her with “demolition by neglect.” Leibovitz dideventually make the necessary repairs.
August 5 - 11, 2009
3
now the least of his worries as he scrambles just to be on the ballot.On July 29, one day after he was deniedaccess to the ballot, Gerson said the Boardof Elections was acting incorrectly based ona technicality and he would be restored tothe ballot soon.“The short story is, this time next weekit’ll be history,” Gerson said. “I’m confidentthis will be corrected in the next few days.”Gerson’s optimism didn’t quite pan out,and this week he remained off the ballotwith no chance of getting on until Aug. 12,when Judge Edward Lehner will hear a ref-eree’s opinion on the case.The trouble started when Gerson submit-ted the stacks of petitions he had collectedfrom supporters. He submitted about 7,000signatures, far more than the 900 required.But in at least one volume of signatures, col-lected by the Harry S. Truman DemocraticClub, the printer made an error in Gerson’saddress, Gerson said. Rather than listing theaddress as 505 LaGuardia Place, on someof the pages the printer listed it as 1505LaGuardia Place. When the Board of Elections wrote Gersonabout the mistake, he sent one of his cam-paign volunteers down to fix the error. Thevolunteer, who is an elections lawyer, crossedoff the extra “1”s but forgot one key thing: Atthe bottom of the amended cover sheet, hewas supposed to write, “This is to certify thatI am authorized to file this amended coversheet” and then sign and date it, said ValerieVazquez, a Board of Elections spokesperson.Gerson said the volunteer realized hismistake while he was still in the building andtried to correct it, but the Board of Electionswould not allow the volunteer to do so.“You only have one opportunity to cure adefect,” Vazquez said, adding that the coversheet “was not presented to the board inaccordance with the rules.”As a result, the Board of Elections did notallow Gerson on the ballot on Tues., July 28.Gerson’s lawyers are now arguing his casebefore Leslie Lowenstein, a referee that JudgeLehner appointed to hear the matter. Gersontestified before Lowenstein on Tues., Aug.4, and Lowenstein will hear additional testi-mony on Aug. 6.Lawrence A. Mandelker, an election lawyerGerson hired, said the Board of Elections waswrong to ask Gerson to submit an amendedcover sheet in the first place, since there wasno problem with the original cover sheet.The board could have just discounted thepetitions with the incorrect address, whichwould have left more than enough signaturesto qualify the councilmember for the ballot,Mandelker said.The goal of election law is to prevent fraud,“and here, there was no fraud,” Mandelkersaid. “It’s an outrageous thing, and I don’tthink the court would stand for it for onesecond.” While Gerson also blamed New York’snotoriously arcane and complicated electionlaws, some of his opponents in the FirstCouncil District race said the problem typi-fied what they called Gerson’s disorganiza-tion, which has been a frequent complaint of many during his tenure.Pete Gleason, one of the opponents,released a statement slamming “Gerson’s his-tory of sloppy work, lateness and passing-the-buck behavior.” Gleason’s press release notedthat Gerson unsuccessfully filed objectionsto Gleason’s petitions when he ran againstGerson in 2003.Raymond Dowd, Gleason’s lawyer, fileda court action to keep Gerson off the ballot,a case that referee Lowenstein is also weigh-ing. At a hearing Tuesday, Dowd said Gersonpurposely misstated his address, with “cleardeception and intent to confuse the Board of Elections.” He accused Gerson of fraud, anissue Lowenstein will take up in more detailat another hearing Thursday.Gerson spent about an hour on the wit-ness stand at Tuesday’s hearing but offeredlittle new information. He frequently saidhe could not recall the dates and contents of conversations.Gerson isn’t the only candidate to havetrouble getting on the ballot in the FirstDistrict. Challenger Arthur Gregory is alsooff after Gleason objected to Gregory’s peti-tion signatures. The Board of Elections foundthat of the 1,100 signatures Gregory submit-ted, only 830 were valid, which is fewer thanthe 900 required.“I’m going to try to find 75 more,” Gregorysaid, adding that some of the disqualifiedsignatures were from people who lived justoutside the district.The Board of Elections will hear Gregory’scase on Wed., Aug. 5. If they decide to keephim off the ballot, he said he won’t appealbut will run for the Council seat as an inde-pendent instead.“It might even be more fun that way,”Gregory said.The two additional candidates for Gerson’sseat — Margaret Chin and PJ Kim — are alsolocked in a battle over petition signatures,with Chin claiming that 5,000 of Kim’s 5,500signatures are invalid. Lowenstein, the refer-ee, is also hearing this matter and will submitan opinion to Judge Lehner for a hearing onAug. 12. Unlike Gerson and Gregory, Kimremains on the ballot despite the challenge,at least for now.A. Joshua Ehrlich, Chin’s lawyer, accusedKim of fraud on the petitions, saying somesignatures appeared forged. In response, JerryGoldfeder, Kim’s lawyer, said Ehrlich’s accu-sations amounted to nothing more than “afishing expedition.”In addition to challenging Kim’s petitions,Chin released a statement saying she was notsurprised to learn Gerson failed to get on theballot.“He shouldn’t be on the ballot anyway,”she said, “because in any other year he wouldbe term-limited.”Gerson voted in favor of a Council billlast year that extended term limits for cityofficials, including the mayor, the boroughpresidents and city councilmembers, such ashimself.Gerson, who is a lawyer, defended hisdecision not to go down to the Board of Elections himself when the issue with thepetitions first came to light last week.“I’m not an election lawyer, I didn’tthink it was necessary, and my first priorityremains the business of my district,” Gersonsaid.
Access denied! Gerson ballot petition flub
Villager photos by Milo Hess
Councilmember Alan Gerson got drenched with a water gun over the weekend at aBurmese Water Festival in Chinatown, above. Below, some of the possible super-soaker suspects?
‘I’m confident this will becorrected in the next fewdays.’
Alan Gerson on July 29
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August 5, 2009 The Villager
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