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BY SARAH FERGUSON
I first met Nathaniel Hunter III inthe midst of the Tompkins Square riotof 1988. I was writing for the now-defunct Downtown magazine (a spinoff of the East Village Eye), determined touncover all the radical factions of theEast Village and their blistering discon-tents, which had boiled over into thisepic battle with the police.After spending several hours chasingafter protesters and watching friendsand bystanders get clobbered by cops,I sought refuge inside the park itself.The entire perimeter was lined by riotpolice standing shoulder to shoulder,but for some reason as I approached,two officers parted and let me in.Inside the park, I found about 40homeless men and women dozing, ordoing their best to ignore the confla-gration erupting all around us. Amongthem was Hunter. He was sitting apart,with a big sack of blankets and books,thumbing through a copy of Hegel’s“Phenomenology of Mind.”I couldn’t believe it. Who was thisvagabond genius with the presence of mind to peruse one of the most densephilosophical tracts in the middle of a riot? Surely he could elucidate thenature of the “class war” that all theprotesters were shouting about. Orexplain why people were protestingthe eviction of the homeless from thepark, when many of the homeless werestill there.“We’re being manipulated in a sensethat’s beyond our control,” Hunter toldme. “In the midst of all this hoopla,this middle-class expression of self, thehomeless are sleeping. Now isn’t thatironic?” When I pressed further, he replied,“Look, you are looking to define anissue when there really isn’t just oneissue but a simultaneity of events, thetotal reality of which cannot be encom-passed by any news report.”Impressed, I quoted Hunter exten-sively in my account of the riot forDowntown. It didn’t go over very wellwith the radical set, who didn’t muchappreciate having the riot cast as “mid-dle-class self-expressionism” — by oneof the park’s occupants, no less. Iremember one squatter coming up tome on Avenue A and spitting in myface.And as I later learned, Hunter, orJunior, as everyone called him, wasn’treally the learned street scholar I’dimagined. He’d probably picked upthat Hegel book and skimmed througha few pages, enough to riff on the“phenomenology” of the riot and its“dialectical contradictions”But then, that was Hunter’s shtick.During the eight years he lived inTompkins Square from 1984 to 1991,he held court from his park bench,drawing friends and passersby withboisterous stories ripped from theheadlines of the Daily News and NewYork Post. He’d take a simple headlineand work it up into the most ridiculousconspiracy and half convince you itwas true, then sit back and cackle at
BY ALBERT AMATEAU
Small, family-ownedstores are facing a hostof threats in Manhattan,including high rents, nation-al chains overwhelmingneighborhoods, oppressiveenforcement of city regula-tions and, of course, theeconomic downturn.But business and com-munity representativeswho spoke at a Sept. 18hearing on “retail diversity
Small stores key to ’hoods’ health,some tell hearing
Remembering Junior, the ‘Mayorof Tompkins Square,’ 1939-2009
Villager photo by Clayton Patterson
Nathaniel Hunter III, a.k.a. Junior, in Tompkins Square Park in front ofhis tarped-over bench with one of his ground assemblages of detritus andfound art circa 1989.
BY ALBERT AMATEAU
Phase two of the recon-struction of WashingtonSquare Park began Wed.,Sept. 16, when chain-linkfencing was erected aroundthe northeast, southeast andsouthwest quadrants of therenowned park in the centerof Greenwich Village.The construction isexpected to last a year, witha reopening slated for thefall of 2010, said WilliamCastro, Manhattan bor-ough commissioner of theDepartment of Parks andRecreation.However, work on thereconstruction of the play-ground in the northeast cor-ner of the park is beginningimmediately and the play-ground might open earlier in2010, Castro said.The project will includea new version of “themounds” in their currentlocation, slightly lower toblend in with the rest of thepark and with a playgroundincorporated into the featurefor older children. A play-ground was part of the threemounds when they were firstbuilt, Castro noted.The Garibaldi statue willbe moved to a position slight-ly north of its present site toopen sightlines, Castro said.Repositioning Garibaldi willcomplement the reposition-ing of the Holley monumentin the phase-one reconstruc-tion, which was completedin June, he added.The southeast quadrantdesign, approved in April,
Mounds, dog runs,stage… Wash. Sq.phase two begins
Continued on page 3
145 SIXTH AVENUE • NYC 10013 • COPYRIGHT © 2009 COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC
Continued on page 10 Continued on page 6
EDITORIAL,LETTERS
PAGE 12
HUDSON SQUARESPECIAL SECTION
PAGES 15-24
Volume 79, Number 16
$1.00
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side,
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September 23 - 29, 2009
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September 23 - 29, 2009
VILLAGER’S STARRING ROLE:
Well, we now knowfor sure that The Villager made the cut for
Uma Thurman
’snew movie, “Motherhood” — because the newspaper isfeatured in the trailer for the film, which opens Oct. 16.Also starring
Minnie Driver
and
Anthony Edwards
, theflick depicts Thurman’s manic life in Greenwich Village asshe tries to plan her young daughter’s birthday party, whiletrying to keep the passion alive in her marriage. Midwayinto the trailer — currently playing at a movie theater nearyou — Thurman tells hubby Edwards over breakfast thathe should really appreciate what “a consummate multi-tasker” she is, while Edwards nonchalantly leafs throughThe Villager’s 75th anniversary issue from April 23, 2008.Shown on the paper’s front page is
Elisabeth Roberts
’sfantastic photo of Reverend
Lloyd Prator
, of St. John’sChurch in the Village, shpritzing Gyppy, a 17-year-oldAmerican rat terrier — who belongs to
Hector Rosado
—with holy water on Rogation Sunday. Thurman is also seenin a local playground (maybe Bleecker St. Playground)and exiting a supermarket laden with shopping bags(we’re thinking possibly Gourmet Garage on SeventhAve. by the look of the facade). The movie seems to be atleast somewhat inspired by real life, since Thurman livesin Greenwich Village and had two children with ex
EthanHawke
. ... Thanks to another Villager photog,
RobertKreizel
, who gave us the heads up after seeing the trailerat the Union Square movie theater.
BAD NEWS FOR BEARS:
It’s been a punishing sev-eral weeks for the S&M leather bears as they’ve been ontenterhooks not knowing whether they would be able tothrow their annual bondage-themed bash in the MeatMarket. On Tuesday,
Robert Valin
, director of the WestVillage Leather and Bear Street Fair, broke the news tous that he planned to call the whole thing off. Valin said,after weeks of being left in limbo, the Mayor’s Office lastweek O.K.’d their annual street fair for Little W. 12thSt. between Washington St. and Tenth Ave. But with just three weeks before the event, slated for ColumbusDay weekend, Valin said — even with the offer of thealternative street — there wasn’t time to whip everythingtogether for a top-notch BDSM bear fair. CommunityBoard 2 initially recommended approval for the leatherfest for W. 13th St., next to
Andre Balazs
’s new StandardHotel, back in May or June; but then Valin heard fromthe Mayor’s Office that the fetish fest clashed with the“image” of the hotel — whose exhibitionistic guestshave been getting naked and flashing folks on the HighLine. But eventually it became clear the real issue wasthat the bears were unwanted by the four-day Wine andFood Festival, which has the Standard as its hotel H.Q.Valin said he’s not looking to blame anyone for the badnews for the bears — not the Mayor’s Office, Balazs or
Annie Washburn
, executive director of the MeatpackingDistrict Initiative, who has been organizing the effortbehind the foodie fest. He said the bears just hope to getLittle W. 12th St. next year. “It really hurts that it’s theMeat Market,” Valin reflected of this year’s snafu. “Thegay leather men put that place on the map.” Washburnsaid of the bear fair’s fate, “I’m really sorry that hap-pened — and I had nothing to do with it.” Asked if thebondage bears can use the street next year, she said,“We’ll definitely be here — [the Wine and Food Festival]is an annual event. But we will welcome [Valin] to behere on Little W. 12th St. — next year, definitely. I hopethat next year we can all work together and coordinate.” Washburn, who is on C.B. 2, said it slipped by her in thespring when the board unanimously approved the leatherfair for W. 13th St. Valin said Leather Weekend won’t bea total wash: There will be a Rooftop Bear Barbecue andBeer Blast at The Delancey, 168 Delancey St. at ClintonSt., Sat., Oct. 10, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
KURLAND’S COURSE?
Will
Yetta Kurland
do whatsome supporters of
Maria Passannante-Derr
would likeher to do and run against
Christine Quinn
as an indepen-dent in November — with, hopefully, the full backing of Passannane-Derr and all her supporters? When reachedlast week, Kurland said she hadn’t yet had discussionswith Passannante-Derr’s camp about a possible run in thegeneral election. “I haven’t spoken to anybody about it,so I don’t know what could and couldn’t happen, whatshould and shouldn’t happen,” she said. “It’s not evensomething I’ve considered or thought about or spoken to
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the thought of it.But even in jest, he had a certain geniusfor cutting to the essential truth of things.He was a touchstone for the neighborhood,which is why people took to calling him the“Mayor” of Tompkins Square Park.Yes, he was homeless, the victim of anillegal co-op conversion that booted himfrom his apartment on E. Fourth St. Yethe didn’t act homeless. His existence in thepark seemed less a matter of desperationand more a kind of self-imposed exile fromthe materialistic trappings of the real-estateworld (and perhaps some effort to recapturethe neighborhood’s bohemian spirit that wasbeing driven out by gentrification.)“I’m not homeless,” he’d say. “I’m house-less. I’m done with indoors.”The park became his living room. Hekept his bench tidy, his belongings neatlystowed underneath, and created fancifulassemblages of found art and detritus onthe ground before it. He tended the nearbytrees, with a rake and shovel that ParksDepartment workers bequeathed him.All sorts of folks stopped by his bench tochat with Junior — artists, musicians, activ-ists, city officials. He was the person youchecked in with to find out what was goingon in the neighborhood — and he becamea source for me and many other journalistscovering the heated struggle over TompkinsSquare and the homeless encampment thatmushroomed there during the late 1980s.“When the Parks commissioners camedown to Tompkins Square, they alwayschecked in with Junior first,” recalled thepark’s manager, Harry Greenberg. “Theywent to him to find out what was going on.They used him as their liaison to try andcommunicate with the rest of the homelesspopulation what Parks was doing.”Of course, not everyone agreed withHunter’s perspective. As the struggle aroundthe park intensified, many of the home-less became radicalized by all the squatterbattles and street protests and began resist-ing police sweeps of the park. At one point,some of the hardcore homeless set theirtents ablaze rather than allow police to seizethem. Later, a group known as Tent Citystaged a takeover of then-Deputy Mayor BillLynch’s office in City Hall to try and forcethe Dinkins administration to grant themhousing or a building to squat.Hunter stayed aloof from all that rabble-rousing. His decision to try and work withcity officials rather than fight them, and hisrefusal to tow the party line in the media,led some of the park radicals to accuse himof being an “Uncle Tom.” I later wonderedif Hunter cut some kind of deal with Lynchwhen he came down to the park to tryand placate all the homeless “brothers.”Because when the Dinkins administrationfinally closed the park in 1991, casting outall the homeless and protesters, and string-ing up a 10-foot chain-link fence to enforce ayearlong renovation, Junior was the only oneto walk away with a job with the city ParksDepartment.(Greenberg suspects it was for-mer Manhattan Borough CommissionerPat Pomposello who got Hunter the gig.“Pomposello really liked Junior,” he said.)Mind you, it wasn’t much of a job. Hunterstarted out as a seasonal maintenance work-er at the Dry Dock pool on E. 10th St., thenmoved on to Columbus Park in Chinatown,and later Washington Square, where heworked about a decade until shortly beforehis death this May due to complicationsfrom diabetes.Although I’d run into Hunter occasion-ally on the streets, he kept mum about hiswhereabouts, always going on about thecurrent events of the day.So it was a revelation to attend a recentmemorial for Hunter at Judson MemorialChurch in the West Village and learn justwhat a quintessential New York characterhe’d been. Who knew that Junior had shown artat the Whitney Museum, that he’d lived inIstanbul, or that he’d once sold a woodcarv-ing of a cat to Jimi Hendrix?The memorial was organized by interna-tionally renowned artist David Hammons— a close friend of Hunter since the ’80s— as well as Steve Cannon, who runs AGathering of the Tribes gallery on E. ThirdSt. The event drew about 100 people, rang-ing from poets, painters and jazz musiciansto members of Hunter’s extended foster fam-ily Upstate, his daughter from Connecticutand even a godson from Turkey.One by one, people stepped to the micto reminisce — each offering a differentpiece of the confounding puzzle that wasNathaniel Hunter III.He was born in 1939, and his motherdied when he was about 2. His father senthim to live with relatives, then put him infoster care. He spent most of his childhoodin the home of Pearl and Arthur Dilworth inOssining, N.Y., where he was one of 46 chil-dren who cycled through their household.By all accounts he thrived there.“Back then, we called him Hippo,”recalled his foster brother Tom Dilworth.“Someone said he got that name because hetalked a lot and had a big mouth.“He was full of passion — a caring, sensi-tive and beautiful soul,” Dilworth added. When Hunter turned 18, his fatherbrought him to live with him in Hartford,Conn. Alienated from his dad, whom hefelt had abandoned him, he fell in with thebeatnik crowd. He began sleeping (with lotsof others) at a crash pad rented by a youngwhite woman named Susan, who happenedto be the daughter of one of the country’smost famous molecular biologists, OliverLowry.“She was like many of the kids then,rebelling against her upbringing,” saidHunter’s daughter, Siobhan Trotman. WhenSusan got pregnant with Siobhan, her disap-proving family convinced her to put the littlegirl up for adoption.“I think even my father realized they werein no position to raise a baby,” said Trotman,who did not meet Hunter until she was 29.“It was the early ’60s, and I think her familyfelt it would be really hard for this youngmixed-race couple to deal with having achild.”Torn up by the affair, Hunter moved toNew York City around 1964, and quicklybecame enmeshed in the Downtown artworld.“He used to nude model at art schools,so he met a lot of young women and wehad a great time,” laughed his brother Tom.“He had a great physique and he becamefriends with all the artists, so he’d travelround to schools like RISD [Rhode IslandSchool of Design] or different schools inNew York and Connecticut and model fortheir classes.”Hunter befriended Venezuelan sculptorMarisol and her dealer, Leo Castelli, andhung out with Color Field artists like PeterBradley and Kenneth Noland at local hauntssuch as the Broadway Central Hotel andMax’s Kansas City. He met Jimi Hendrix, andaccording to Cannon, for a short time servedas his roadie.He also began making art of his own.“He did these satirical paintings, andwoodcarvings that were very metaphysical,”
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Continued from page 1Continued on page 33
Remembering Junior, the ‘Mayor of Tompkins Square’
Photo by David Hammons
Junior in a recent photo in the Soho lofthe shared with a friend for the last 17years.
He held court from hisbench, drawing one andall with boisterous storiesripped from the headlinesof the dailies.
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