THE VILLAGER, MAY 21, 2015

A Souk-cessful reopening...........page 13

Once Brownies, HiFi Bar tunes into the ‘new vibe’

Police ID a suspect in vicious Dallas BBQ gay bashing in Chelsea

BY LISSA PHILLIPS

I t’s 1999. A line of about 1,000 concertgoers snakes clear across Avenue A.

The rumor is the Beastie Boys will be performing at a benefit show at the East Village’s re-nowned rock club Brownies, known at the time for uncov-ering the music scene’s bud-ding artists.

Brownies’ music booker Mike Stuto emerges outside to deliver disappointing news to anxious fans — the group’s anticipated arrival just as quickly became a departure.

“This apparently hap-pened twice,” Stuto recalled of the Beastie buzz. “Once it might have actually hap-pened, except the word got

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

P olice have identified the suspect sought in connection with an

assault on two gay men at the Dallas BBQ in Chelsea on May 5.

According to multiple me-dia reports, the man named by police is Bayna El-Amin,

41, who has a lengthy rap sheet. He was previously arrested a total of 18 times — including for assault, shoplifting, drug posses-sion, credit-card fraud, forg-ery and possession of stolen property — in New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Al-abama and Michigan, as well

HIFI, continued on p. 24

ASSAULT, continued on p. 6

www.TheVillager.com

Indian Point nuke fears flare again................page 12Dirt Candy — worth the cheddah?.................page 14V.I.D. petitions for small biz bill.......................page 17

The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

May 21, 2015 • $1.00 Volume 84 • Number 51

0 15465 10500 9

BY SARA HENDRICKSON

At a public meeting on Mon., May 11, at the L.G.B.T. Center

to “unveil” the Village’s new middle school at 75 Morton St., the crowd of 150 people had a few anxious questions, but most of all, the mood was gleeful celebration that the school would finally open its doors in fall 2017.

The 75 Morton success sto-ry of community activism is well known by now. It’s been a 10-year slog by parents and

community leaders to pres-sure city and state officials to provide a desperately need-ed middle school in the Vil-lage. The tireless group iden-tified the Morton St. building — which was partially occu-pied by a state agency that was being relocated — and convinced local politicians to champion the cause.

David Gruber, former chairperson of Communi-ty Board 2, offered glowing opening remarks.

“Our challenge was to get the building out of the state’s

grip and to land the plane,” he said. “Mission accom-plished.”

City Councilmember Co-rey Johnson, who represents District 3, applauded the ef-forts of Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Sen-ator Brad Hoylman in push-ing for the school, noting it was “bittersweet that they are fighting the good fight in Albany and cannot be pres-ent tonight.”

Johnson pushed hard for

Glitter danced onto and around the face of a woman as she got ready for the DanceParade and Festival last Saturday. See photos, Pages 8 and 9.

NEW SCHOOL, continued on p. 28

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Parents get their first look at 75 Morton middle school

2 May 21, 2015 TheVillager.com

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LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! It looks like The Vil-lager is going to have yet another movie cameo. The paper’s front page was notably featured in the break-

fast scene for Uma Thurman’s 2009 fi lm “Moth-erhood,” plus, even made it into the trailer. This is just one reason why Thurman is one of our favorite actresses. Now, we hear from a “product placement coordinator” that the plan is to use The Villager in the new indie fi lm “Wolves,” starring Amy Ryan, Michael Shannon and Taylor John Smith. The mov-ie, most of which, like “Motherhood,” takes place in the West Village, begins shooting June 19. The main character is Anthony Keller, 18, a.k.a. “Saint,” a high school basketball star “who does his best to live up to his name.” But he faces big challenges. Mainly, his family life is a mess because his troubled dad has a gambling addiction. Anyway, the plan is to show The Villager with some sports articles (fi ctitious, ob-viously) about young Keller’s exploits on the court. Again, we are hoping it makes the cut for the trailer.

LET’S DO LUNCH: Former Downtown arts icon Lydia Lunch spoke about No Wave and the Lower East Side in the 1970s on Sun., May 17, at the new Howl! Happening gallery on E. First Street. Joining her in a panel discussion were Bob Bert, the ex-Sonic Youth drummer; Bibbe Hansen, ex-Warhol Super-star and alt musician Beck’s mom; cultural critic Car-lo McCormick and Transgressive fi lmmaker Kem-bra Pfahler, with moderator Weasel Walter, who plays with Lunch in the reunited Jesus and the Jerks. An exhibit on Lunch’s career, “So Real It Hurts,” fea-turing posters, photos, vintage magazines, vinyl 45s, and more, is on view through June 5.

CORRECTION: An article in last week’s issue, “Pols, law profs, Sierra Club back N.Y.U. plan antis’ suit,” incorrectly stated that LaGuardia Corner Gar-dens was one of the groups that had fi led an amicus brief on behalf of the community plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the N.Y.U. 2031 mega-project slated for the South Village superblocks. In fact, LaGuardia Corner Gardens is one of the petitioners in the lawsuit.

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Anthony Edwards perused The Villager in “Motherhood” — not giving Uma Thurman his full attention!

Lydia Lunch, who now lives in Barcelona, is back visiting the ’hood.

Bibbe Hansen was on the panel of art luminaries.

May 21, 2015 3TheVillager.com

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BY TINA BENITEZ-EVES

For 20 years, Cafe Pick Me Up has anchored the corner of E. Ninth St. and Avenue A. It

started out as a coffeehouse back in 1995 and, a decade later, had grown into a full-service restaurant. But it will all come to an end in less than two weeks. The restaurant will close its doors for good on Sun., May 31, following a reported rent hike by landlord Icon Realty Management.

Cafe Pick Me Up fi lls adjoining spaces in two different buildings with separate leases. Last April, Icon Re-alty purchased 145 Avenue A, which houses the larger, cafe section of the restaurant, for $10.1 million from pre-vious owner Bethany Realty. Cafe Pick Me Up’s kitchen and addition-al seating are located in a narrower space on the ground fl oor of 147 Ave-nue A, owned by 9300 Realty.

By the end of the month, the main cafe section of Cafe Pick Me Up, on the corner, will close. The fate of the cafe’s smaller space, in No. 147, is still unknown.

For years, Cafe Pick Me Up has been a respite for locals in need of caffeine or a momentary work or peo-ple-watching post. Serving up mostly

java and pastries, Cafe Pick Me Up also offered a medium-sized menu of favorites, from nizzarda, caprese and other salads, gnocchi al pomodoro and more under the cafe’s pasta selec-tions, soups, sandwiches and break-fast dishes, such as farm-fresh eggs and potatoes or the restaurant’s tofu scramble.

Like a restaurant constructed from thrift shop fi nds, Cafe Pick Me Up’s interior sports wobbly wooden ta-bles and chairs, velvet-upholstered banquette and ottoman seating, an-tique gas lanterns and a sprinkling of kitschy wall art. The restaurant culti-vated and retained its artsy coffee bar

feel throughout the years. Now, the popular corner hangout is

on the market. Icon is currently listing the 600-square-foot space, which also includes a 724-square-foot basement, for $15,000 a month.

The Villager was unable to reach the restaurant’s management, but one employee shared the owners’ senti-ment on the restaurant’s closing.

“It’s terrible,” said Connor Peterson, who was worked there for a year and been a Cafe Pick Me Up patron for more than fi ve years. “What they are asking for is ridiculous,” he said of the rent hike.

But Joe Goldsmith, a lawyer for Icon

Realty, said Cafe Pick Me Up’s rent was never raised and that the restau-rant was having diffi culty paying its rent under the previous landlord.

“This was their decision,” said Goldsmith. “They decided to leave. [Icon] would have worked out a re-newal with them, but they weren’t interested.”

Luckily for regulars who need their morning pick-me-up, the cafe will re-portedly live on in some form down the street at Gnocco, on E. 10th St. near Avenue B, which is also run by Cafe Pick Me Up’s owners. The cafe part of the restaurant will reportedly con-tinue serving breakfast at this nearby Italian eatery.

Along E. Ninth St., near Cafe Pick Me Up, other retail spaces are also on the market, including the for-mer Cloak & Dagger location, at 441 E. Ninth St., and 445 E. Ninth St., which used to house Bridal Veil Falls, a wedding-accessories shop that recently closed after 10 years in business. Both retail spaces are also owned by Icon.

“I guess that’s what Manhattan is now,” Peterson said. “It’s about ruin-ing businesses and pushing people out. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in raising the rent in a place like this where people are already struggling.”

Cafe Pick Me Up’s cup runs dry at Ave. A corner

The new landlord is seeking a new tenant for the larger part of the Cafe Pick Me Up space.

PH

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BY PATR

ICK

J. EVES


Named best weekly newspaper in New York State in 2001, 2004 and 2005by New York Press Association

Editorials, First Place, 2014Overall Design Excellence, First Place, 2013Best Column, First Place, 2012Photographic Excellence, First Place, 2011Spot News Coverage, First Place, 2010Coverage of Environment, First Place, 2009

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The Villager (USPS 578930) ISSN 0042-6202 is published every week by NYC Community Media LLC, One Metrotech North, 10th floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 (212) 229-1890. Periodicals Postage paid at New York, N.Y. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $29 ($35 elsewhere). Single copy price at office and newsstands is $1. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2011 NYC Community Media LLC.

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All marching to one tune: Rent freeze!Hundreds of tenant activists gathered in Foley Square Downtown last Thursday to call for strengthening the rent laws that affect 1 million rent-regulated tenants in the city. Following the rally, they all marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio called for a rent freeze, but the Rent Guidelines Board voted for increases of 1 percent on one-year lease renewals and 2.75 percent for two-year lease renewals. Although hopes for a rent rollback (as in, an actual rent decrease) for rent-regulated tenants have faded, advocates are again calling for a rent freeze when the R.G.B. makes its final vote next month.

A marcher with the “Holy Grail” of reforms that tenants seek.

East Village artist Kelly King, who fought to save Jerry Delakas’s Astor Place newsstand, was marching for rent reform.

Members of Good Old Lowe East Side (GOLES) wouldn’t have missed this march.

A man on a clarinet “blew his horn” in favor of tenants’ rights.

PH

OTO

S BY JEFFER

SON

SIEGEL


© 2015 Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Weeknight Service Changes

LMay 18 – 22Mon to Fri11:30 PM to 5 AM

No L service between 8 Av and Lorimer St

A F J , M14 and free shuttle buses provide alternate service

L service operates between Rockaway Pkwy and Lorimer St only

Travel Alternatives: • M14 buses provide alternate service between 8 Av and 1 Av. • Free shuttle buses operate between Lorimer St and the Marcy Av J station, stopping at Bedford Av. • Transfer between free shuttle buses and J at Marcy Av. • Use out-of-system MetroCard transfer between the Lorimer St J and Broadway G stations. • Consider using the A or J to/from Manhattan, via transfer at Broadway Junction.

Stay InformedCall 511 and say “Current Service Status,” look for informational posters in stations, or visit mta.info where you can access the latest Planned Service Changes information, use TripPlanner+, and sign up for free email and text alerts.


as New York.According to the Daily News, Robert

Boyce, chief of detectives of the New York Police Department, said El-Amin is suspected of having fled the state.

The department’s office of public in-formation did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the information reported in other media.

Police released a photo and video footage of the suspect on May 7, two days after the attack.

The press release described the man sought as a light-skinned black man wearing a black blazer and a white shirt. A photo still in the release appears to be from a security camera, presumably in the restaurant, and is time-stamped at 10:20 p.m. on May 5, roughly 45 minutes before the man was caught on amateur video slamming a chair over the heads of Ethan York-Adams, 25, and his boy-friend, Jonathan Snipes, 32.

That assault occurred at the end of roughly one minute during which Snipes was twice seen on the floor, as the assailant, a large bald and beard-ed man, appeared to be kicking him. The scene was captured in a video that Isaam Sharef, a customer at Dallas BBQ, uploaded to his Instagram and YouTube pages in the hours after the assault.

Snipes sustained bruises and cuts to the right side of his face and head, in-cluding a long gash running from his ear. York-Adams was brought to the ground when hit by the chair, while Snipes sat down and appeared dazed.

As the melee unfolded, others in the restaurant broke it up on two separate occasions, with people holding the at-tacker back and York-Adams trying to steer Snipes away. Screams and cries of “Stop! Stop!” from the crowd can be heard throughout the video.

Snipes and police both said the two men declined medical attention after an ambulance arrived on the scene at 23rd St. on Eighth Ave.

Snipes’s mother, Trish Snipes, was contacted by Gay City News, The Vil-lager’s sister paper, at her home in Al-abama. She said her son was concerned about the cost of emergency room care, which he understood would consist primarily of overnight observation for a concussion. She expressed concern, however, that he might lose some teeth, which she said were loosened in the as-sault.

Jonathan Snipes told DNAinfo.com that the attack began when he acciden-tally knocked over a drink and, “a table near us audibly started making pretty gross comments about the two of us, like, ‘White faggots, spilling drinks.’ ” Snipes said he then confronted the men, and a fight ensued.

Hours after Gay City News posted an initial story about the attack on the evening of May 6, however, Sharef sent a message to the newspaper saying, “Snipes didn’t go to the table to con-front him. He went over and punched the guy in the face. Then the guy got up and attacked him.”

Neither Snipes nor York-Adams re-sponded to online and telephone re-quests for comment. Sharef did not respond to a follow-up question about whether he witnessed anything be-fore what he described as Snipes’s first punch.

Sharon Stapel, the executive direc-tor of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, said the incident was being in-vestigated as bias-related by the Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.

Snipes’s mother told Gay City News that her son told her that a waitress at Dallas BBQ, whom she described as having a ponytail, urged the attacker to “hurry up and leave before the police

arrive.” The man in the video is seen leaving the restaurant immediately after smashing the chair over Snipes’s and York-Adams’s heads.

Eric Levine, whom the restaurant identified as its spokesperson for the in-cident, did not return an e-mail seeking comment on the attack and the allega-tion that an employee may have helped the attacker elude capture.

On May 8, state Senator Brad Hoyl-man and City Councilmember Corey Johnson, both openly gay Democrats who represent the neighborhood, joined a group of activists, including members of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, in front of the Dallas BBQ to hand out fliers about what they termed a hate crime. Asked if they were concerned about the allega-tion that Snipes, in fact, threw the first punch, Johnson noted that the police, who presumably know more about the incident than anyone else, were treating the matter as a bias crime.

“The N.Y.P.D. takes these types of incidents very seriously,” Johnson said. “At this time, they have determined this to be a hate crime… . This was a brutal, out-of-control attack. That’s unaccept-able.”

“The details as we know them have shaken a lot of members of our com-munity,” Hoylman said. “We need to let Chelsea know that we’re standing alongside the victims.”

Anyone with information about the Dallas BBQ attack or knowledge of El-Amin’s whereabouts can call the N.Y.P.D.’s Crime Stoppers hotline at 646-610-6806, visit NYPDCrimeStoppers.com, or text tips to 274637 (CRIMES), and then enter TIP577, or can call A.V.P.’s 24-hour hotline at 212-714-1141.

With reporting by Duncan Osborne

A family run business since 1970—and still running strong!

An authentic Spanish and Mexican restaurantlocated in New York’s West Village. Since 1970,Tio Pepe has been serving up Spanish cuisineat its finest. Their recently revised menushowcases the simple, traditional food flavorsof Spanish culture.

Our Executive Chef Jose Zamora is a native ofTarragona, Spain. Beginning his career at afamily friend’s restaurant, he received twoculinary degrees, one from Cordon Blue in theU.S. and one from the Institution Culinario deCambrils in Spain. His cooking is inspired byboth Spanish and French cuisine. Jose isdevoted to using the best ingredients andimplementing a simplistic stylist techniquewith dynamic presentation. His goal is toprovide a memorable dining experiencethrough passionately created culinary dishes.

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15.PR.3929_1.qxp_Layout 1 4/21/15 11:40 AM Page 1

Police ID suspect in vicious Dallas BBQ assaultASSAULT, continued from p. 1

A photo released by police of a sus-pect, identified as Bayna El-Amin, 41, wanted in connection with the recent assault on two gay men at the Dallas BBQ in Chelsea.

Cy Vance, Jr., the Manhattan dis-trict attorney, said on Monday that he will retry Pedro Her-

nandez for the kidnapping and murder of Etan Patz, 6, following a recent mis-trial that resulted in a hung jury.

Hernandez’s trial ended on May 8 with the jurors deadlocked after 18 days of deliberation. At the end, there was one holdout versus the other 11 jurors who were ready to convict.

Hernandez, 54, a former Soho bo-dega worker, was arrested in 2012 in New Jersey, where, after a six-hour interrogation, he confessed to cops that he killed Patz, who was walking to the P.S. 3 school-bus stop by him-self for the first time. But his defense team argued that his confession was coerced and that he has a low I.Q. and

various mental problems.Speaking on MSNBC’s “The Cy-

cle,” Vance told the show’s host, Abby Huntsman, “The Etan Patz case, cer-tainly. I intend to retry the case. And I think the evidence put in by our prosecutors was compelling, and it was clear. And, it is a challenging case — I’ve never said otherwise — but it’s a case that we believe should be pros-ecuted, that’s why we did [it]. In our system, it happens from time to time that jurors cannot be unanimous, and this was one of those cases.”

Vance said that prosecutors will announce at a court date on June 10 that they will retry Hernandez.

Lincoln Anderson

Etan Patz retrial is planned


Take Charge of Your Health Today!

Forum: “Listen to Your Heart”4th Annual Community Health

Free and open to the public.

Wednesday, June 3, 201511:00 am to 2:00 pm

NYU Kimmel Center Rosenthal Pavilion

* Understanding how the heart affects our physical and mental health

* Preventing, recognizing, and learning ways to reduce stress

* Incorporating nutrition and exercise into your daily life to reduce your risk for heart disease

* Learning practical ways to develop your own program of heart healthiness

60 Washington Sq. South, 10th Floor

Sponsored by New York University

A panel of expert health careprofessionals will address:

Moderated by Dr. Max Gomez CBS Emmy award-winning TV medical reporter

www.thevillager.com

Closed Captioning Available

RSVP at (212) 992-7323NYU Office of Civic Engagement

and VillageCare

Public Notice The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has received a Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP) application from 540 Hudson Street, LLC for a site known as 538-‐544 Hudson Street, site ID #C231097. This site is located in New York City, within the County of New York, and is located at 538-‐544 Hudson Street. Comments regarding this application must be submitted no later than June 26, 2015. Information regarding the site, the application, and how to submit comments can be found at http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/60058.html or send comments to Shaun Bollers, Project Manager, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation – Region 2, One Hunter’s Point Plaza, 1st Floor, 47-‐40 21st Street, Long Island City, NY 11101; [email protected]; or call 718-‐482-‐4096. To have information such as this notice sent right to your email, sign up with county email listservs available at www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/61092.html.

Avenue C shootingA man was shot in the leg on Ave-

nue C near E. Fifth St. on Sat., May 16, around 10 p.m., police said.

According to a police spokesper-son, two men, both 18, were walk-ing southbound on Avenue C when they were approached by a group of unknown males. One member of the larger group stole a gold chain from one of the two men, after which there was an altercation.

A silver handgun was pulled out and four shots were fi red. One of the two men was hit once in the upper left thigh, and the other suffered a broken left hand in the scuffl e. Both victims were treated at Bellevue Hos-pital and released.

An investigation is ongoing.

Kicked while he’s downThe walk of shame got a little row-

dy on Thurs., May 14, at Employees Only bar, at 510 Hudson St. A resi-dent of Singapore committed some type of party foul, resulting in his ejection from the premises at about 10:40 p.m. that night. As the 37-year-old expatriate made his way toward the door, Robert Fisher, 35, and Milos Zica, 33, allegedly shoved him to the ground. A third man, Mitar Prentic, 30, then kicked him, causing bruis-ing and contusions to his chest, po-lice say. The attacking trio was arrest-ed for misdemeanor assault.

Senior bounces burglarA young burglar met his match

when a senior Villager found him trying to loot his apartment at 1 Bank

St. The older man, 67, was sleeping when the burglar, 23, allegedly en-tered the dwelling after failing to open another unit’s front door just before 5 a.m. on Thurs., May 14. Once inside, the prospective thief was purportedly contemplating where to start with the aid of a fl ashlight. The other man awoke, reportedly con-fronted the intruder, then physically removed him from the apartment. Police arrived soon after and arrest-ed Orlando Whitfi eld, 23, for felony burglary.

Village throw downPort Authority police came to the

aid of a woman, 61, on Tues., May 12, in front of 502 Hudson St., at Chris-topher St. The woman told them that at about 4 p.m. she had been thrown to the ground by another woman while talking to a neighbor. When confronted by police for her alleged role in the incident, Tenine Massey, 44, reportedly told them that the vic-tim “has chased me since the 1920s,” police said. Massey was arrested for misdemeanor assault.

‘Broken Windows’ bustPolice arrested a man on Mon.,

May 18, at 1:30 p.m. as he allegedly walked between subway cars, a vio-lation, in the L train station at Eighth Ave. A background search had re-vealed that he had an open warrant for an undisclosed crime, according to a police report.

Zach Williams and Lincoln Anderson

POLICE BLOTTER


DanceParade whirls its way to Tompkins SquareSaturday’s Ninth Annual DanceParade and Festival saw 10,000 hoofers high-kick and “Do the Hustle” from 21st St. down Broadway to Tompkins Square Park. They dazzled with more than 75 unique dance styles, everything from ballet to break dancing. The post-parade dance party in Tompkins featured four stages, aerial performances and free dance lessons.

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05993_CON_8p75x5p5_m1b.indd5-13-2015 4:57 PM Charlie Katz / Charlie Katz

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Smell gas. Act fast. Don’t assume someone else will call 911 or 1-800-75-CONED (26633). Leave the area immediately and make the call yourself. You can report a gas-related emergency anonymously, and not even be there when help arrives. For more gas safety information, visit conEd.com and take safety into your own hands.

BY ZACH WILLIAMS

The Landmark Sunshine Cinema on E. Hous-ton St. could become the latest victim of dual forces threatening movie theaters both local-

ly and across the country.All seemed normal on a Monday night earlier this

month when the theater featured a closed screening for an HBO documentary. But behind the scenes, the owner of the building, which the theater leases, is looking to sell the property to real estate devel-opers who are all too eager to find another spot for luxury redevelopment in the East Village and Low-er East Side, The Real Deal reported on May 8.

Sources told that publication that the owner, Ste-ven Goldman of S & G Houston Realty, wants $35 million for the property at 139-143 E. Houston St.

Efforts are currently underway to redevelop his-toric theaters in other boroughs. Files have been planned to convert Brooklyn’s Pavilion Theater, in Park Slope, into residences. Attempts have also been made to redevelop the landmarked RKO Keith’s Theater in Queens.

Goldman could not be reached for comment on the reported effort to sell the E. Houston St. build-ing. While the building is historic, the site of an early movie theater, it is not a designated city landmark.

“We’re not privy to any of that,” Lauren Kleiman — a spokesperson for California-based Landmark Theatres, which owns the Sunshine Cinema — said in a telephone interview. She declined to provide de-tails about whether the Lower East Side venue has struggled financially or whether it has been subject to steep rent increases like those experienced by

other local businesses in recent years. The cinema previously tried to boost revenues

by obtaining a full liquor license but Community Board 3 only offered its support for a beer-and-wine license. Kleiman said, whether or not the building is sold, Landmark Theatres remains committed to keeping a presence in the neighborhood.

“We love the East Village,” she said. “We love be-ing there and our customers, and we feel they feel the same way about us.”

The theater, which opened in 2001 and special-izes in independent films, has cultivated a devoted clientele, according to reviews on Yelp.com, where it enjoys a 4.5 out of five stars from 274 reviews. Some reviewers noted the impressive refreshments menu while others said the comfy ambience, film offer-

ings and general funkiness make the place partic-ularly inviting.

Whether the theater survives current real estate pressures is not the only challenge it faces. Seung-Hoon Jeong, an assistant professor of Cinema Stud-ies at New York University, said that the future is not particularly optimistic for Lower Manhattan movie theaters.

“If theaters can’t make enough money to survive in New York City,” he said, “they may disappear from Downtown and wander around the edge of the city like nomadic phantoms.”

The role of movie theaters in American culture has changed in recent decades, especially with the increase in home-entertainment options, including streaming video. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, while movie ticket prices have gone up, the number of tickets sold in the U.S. fell 11 percent between 2004 and 2013.

Movies once were made of physical material, but film in the future will be more of an information flow than an actual object, Jeong said. This further disperses the community of movie watchers from their previous places right next to each other in a physical space, he added.

There is hope, however, for true movie lovers who desire to return to the old ways in the future, ac-cording to Jeong.

“Though reduced in number, there are always cinephiles and people who just like to go to movie theaters, even alone, even occasionally,” he said. “I guess if the cinema as community is still wanted or needed, the city community would figure out how to protect it. If not, that’s the life of cinema.”

Will sun set on E. Houston indie movie theater?

The landlord of the Sunshine Cinema hopes to sell the property to developers.

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BY TEQUILA MINSKY

For 34 years, Frank Modica served as director for Hamil-ton-Madison House, a nonprof-

it settlement house, now more than 100 years old, dedicated to improving the quality of life of individuals and families primarily in the Chinatown and Two Bridges neighborhoods.

Modica died in 2013 at age 81. Im-mediately after his funeral, those who knew and worked with him brainstormed on how they could honor this man who so complete-ly took the Lower East Side into his heart and made it his life’s work.

On a picture-perfect day last week, at the far reaches of the Lower East Side, between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, family, friends and colleagues of the late community activist gathered at Rutgers Slip and South St. to co-name the street Frank T. Modica Way.

Victor Papa, a board member of the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, beamed with pride talking about the history of the neighborhood. Ges-turing to the East River just north of Brooklyn Bridge, he said, “Immi-grants — mostly English and Irish — disembarked here in the early 1800s.”

Pointing to an expanse of housing along South St., he said, “This is the Two Bridges Urban Renewal District — 1,500 units of affordable housing. It’s a flagship project that houses 60 formerly homeless families and a building for seniors only.”

Tenant leader Elaine Hoffman ex-pressed how much she loved Modica.

“He was a former priest,” she not-ed. “As director of Hamilton-Madi-son House, he grew it for the people and the services they needed.”

Modica was the settlement house’s director from 1976 to 2010, and was also board chairperson of the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council.

During the street ceremony, Papa said that the L.E.S. leader had also worked in Europe and lived else-where. However, he said, “Frank Modica was one of us. He was a Low-er East Sider and we got to have him.”

Also among those at the event were seniors and other Two Bridges tenants, former co-workers of Modica’s, rep-resentatives of local politicians and a slew of kids from after-school pro-grams.

“This is your first foray into civic action,” Papa told the younger gen-eration.

“He did a lot for us and I am so proud and so happy. He was my family, too,” he said of Modica. Then, looking up at the sign, he said, “Keep on shining on us.”

City Councilmember Margaret Chin mentioned a number of local

initiatives that Modica was respon-sible for setting up, including Head Start and mental health programs.

With Modica’s widow, Kathleen, looking on, his son, Sean, also paid tribute.

“This was his city and his people,” he said. “He was dedicated to serving this community and worked to make it a better and safer place. Maybe peo-ple will see the sign, Google his name, get inspired and follow in his foot-steps.”

Victor Papa, right, received a proclamation from state Senator Daniel Squadron’s representative that honored the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council on the street co-naming.

At the dedication, Frank Modica’s son, Sean, and Frank’s wife, Kathleen, held a copy of the sign that was given to them to keep. Also among those at the event were, from right, Judy Rapfogel, chief of staff for Assemblymember Sheldon Silver; Mark Handelman, executive director of Hamilton-Madison House; Councilmember Margaret Chin, and Elaine Hoffman, with flowers.

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L.E.S. leader Modica honored in street co-naming


BY PAUL DERIENZO

A fire that knocked out one of two reactors at the Indian Point plant over Mother’s

Day weekend caused oil and fire-re-tardant foam to spill into the Hudson River. The oily sheen was observed by local fishermen and activists with Hudson Riverkeeper, an environ-mental watchdog group, which post-ed video of the slick’s deceptively beautiful rainbow on its Web site.

The nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., about 40 miles north of the city, usually provides 2,000 megawatts of electrical power for the city and West-chester County.

The fire began at a transformer roughly 300 feet from the reactor building, and the reactors were not directly affected. Witnesses reported hearing a loud blast, then seeing a huge black ball of smoke rising over the plant, the latter which was also documented on video. Alarms were heard throughout the town and an ominous voice announced, “This is not a drill” from surrounding loud-speakers. Fire trucks rushed in from surrounding communities.

The plant’s owner, Entergy, tweet-ed, “Indian Point is in safe, stable con-dition following transformer fire. No

danger to community or employees at any time.”

The company said the incident at the plant fell into its lowest of four emergency levels. However, the fire was difficult to fight and the trans-former reignited after fire crews had extinguished the initial blaze.

“The history of fire safety at Indi-an Point is one of mistakes, illegality and failure by both Entergy and the N.R.C.,” said Paul Gallay, a spokes-person for Riverkeeper. The feder-al Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees and licenses nuclear power plants.

At least one of the Indian Point pow-er plants has operated past its original 40-year license period and has had its license temporarily extended. A sim-ilar aging plant at Oyster Creek, N.J., about 100 south of New York City on the Jersey Shore, has had its licensed extended, but after public outcry an agreement was made to shut the plant by 2019.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has long pressed for a shutdown of Indian Point and appeared there on the Sat-urday night of the fire and again the next day. He said there was no threat from the fire to surrounding commu-nities, but he said it was “inherently problematic” to have a nuclear power

plant near the nation’s most densely populated region.

“This was a relatively minor situ-ation,” the governor said, “but when you’re talking about a nuclear power plant, there are no minor situations.”

The state Department of Environ-mental Conservation said “the ver-dict is not really in yet” on how much escaped oil was in the river. The oil tank that served the transformer that exploded held 20,000 gallons, but just 900 gallons were found after the fire was put out. According to the state of-ficial, most “went up in smoke” or was collected by cleanup crews.

The transformer explosion was the third transformer failure at Indian Point in eight years. In 2000 a more serious “stage 2” event occurred when a pipe ruptured, spilling 20,000 gallons of radioactive water into the Hudson. In 2007, after another fire, The New Times reported the plant’s “history of transformer problems.” And in 2010 Energy paid the state a $1.2 million fine after a transformer explosion dumped thousands of gal-lons of PCB-contaminated oil into the river. In the same year, 600,000 gallons of radioactive steam was released into the atmosphere when a valve was left open in error.

During peak summer months, Indi-an Point provides about 15 percent of the electricity used by New York City. Its two reactors have been operating since the 1970s. Another plant at the site, Indian Point 1, was built in 1962 but shut down after a decade because it no longer met safety standards.

New York was once among the friendliest states to nuclear power. In the 1960s former Governor Nelson Rockefeller set up the New York State Atomic and Space Authority to bring in more investment for the industry. However, the intractable problems with the disposal of nuclear waste ended Rockefeller’s nuclear experi-ment. Now the New York State Energy

Research and Development authority, created in 1975, divides its efforts be-tween advocating alternative energy and managing the state’s considerable nuclear waste problems, which date back to the Cold War.

New York State now has six nucle-ar plants producing 30 percent of the state’s power, making us the fifth-larg-est nuclear state in the nation.

Indian Point 3 had completed its biannual refueling in March, and had been offline for nearly a month, before going back on line last month. Spent fuel from Indian Point and every com-mercial nuclear plant in the U.S. must be kept on site until Congress decides on the location for a permanent waste repository, a political debate that has been going on for decades.

Indian Point’s spent fuel is kept in deep pools of water for at least five years as its intense radioactivity cools, then moved to dry casks. The pools are substantially built but are not protect-ed by the thick concrete domes that en-case the reactors. Since the Fukushima accident in Japan, in which spent-fuel storage areas were compromised by a massive earthquake, there has been growing concern that a newly discov-ered earthquake fault line beneath Westchester County might put Indian Point at a similar risk. There has also been ongoing debate over the plant’s vulnerability to a terrorist attack sim-ilar to the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

Environmentalists had been asking for a summertime shutdown of Indi-an Point to spare millions of baby fish that are sucked from the river into its cooling pipes and killed every year. Entergy had refused the changes be-cause summer is the time of peak en-ergy demand. But this year the shut-down due to the transformer fire will apparently spare many young fish and reportedly improve the ecological health of the river. The plant is expect-ed to be out for a few weeks.

Fire is latest flashpoint at nuclear power plant

The Indian Point nuclear power plant is less than 40 miles from New York City.


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A Souk-cessful reopeningAfter being closed for a couple of months after an electrical fire, Le Souk reopened last Thursday. One of the “neighborly” neighborhood restau-rants, the LaGuardia Place hot spot hosts many political and community events — including an annual free Thanksgiving dinner for community members who don’t have a family dinner to attend. The reopening night featured belly dancing, a horse, an Aladdin’s lamp, a snake charmer and many of the eats for which the restaurant is known.

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BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC

Expectations are funny.This thought kept running

through my head while eat-ing at Dirt Candy, which recently re-opened in February in a larger space at 86 Allen St.

I enlisted the help of two compan-ions, my sister and a good friend, to dine with me after finally scoring a 5:30 p.m. slot on a Wednesday.

Chef Amanda Cohen is the wom-an behind Dirt Candy and she had lamented that every review of her previous smaller location on E. Ninth St. began with reservation woes. The new digs were supposed to amelio-rate this, but I saw no evidence of that. It took months of seeing 10:30 p.m. slots on Open Table for me to call and secure the early dining time.

(Indeed, when we ran into my sis-ter’s friend at the restaurant, the first thing she asked was how long it took us to get our reservation. Her answer: two months.)

On a warm spring day, other res-ervation holders and foodie hopefuls waited outside the restaurant, as the late-afternoon sunlight played on the restaurant’s bold sign. The eatery itself is a happy, beautiful spot — clean and modern white, with red banquettes

that had plants and vegetation danc-ing above them.

The host was inviting — which can-not be said for all restaurants — and our server was friendly, attentive and answered all food queries informa-tively.

The meal started off well with com-plimentary bread, with colors like deep green and beet red. The bread was displayed like flowers in a pot — an irresistible bouquet, albeit slath-

ered with delicious garlic butter, that was ready to be plucked and gobbled.

So far, so good — Dirt Candy has been praised up and down for its in-novation.

We tried to order as much as we could eat — and afford. This amount-ed to about a third of the menu. Next up were two dishes that were deemed snacks: the Korean fried broccoli and jalapeno hushpuppies. You always have me at spicy, but the puppies lacked any kick. They were filling, in that deep-breaded way. The fried broccoli seemed as if it was at war with itself, not meshing the vegetable with its outside flavors. This duo did not feel imaginative at all.

But there was more to come, so we bucked up and drank some crisp rosé. For our next course, we ordered a dish called spinach, described on the menu as “spinach mille-feuille with grape-fruit ricotta and smoked pistachios.” It was presented beautifully, though just a tiny portion at $15. I was not a fan at all, and felt it was overwhelmed by bitterness, but my companions liked it better.

Last but not least, we had the Brus-sels sprout tacos — the photo you’re likely to see accompanying an article

about the restaurant. Again, it got marks for presentation. But the taste... The tacos come with several condi-ments, such as salsa verde, pickled red onions, tortilla chips and jalape-nos. I was prepared to love this dish, but just felt meh — I had had better Brussels sprouts elsewhere.

Along with the $30 tacos, we had broccoli, which, the menu explains, is “grilled and smoked broccoli dogs with broccoli kraut and mustard bar-becue sauce.” That description may be a bit of a reach for broccoli on a bun. Ultimately, it was disappointing. The bun and mustard were good, but the star — the broccoli — lacked any burst of flavor.

We had the curried fries and they were smashing — I could have eaten another bowl.

Dirt Candy should have been my jam, but mostly I was let down. Had I expected too much? My sister and my friend also felt that the food lacked originality and that for a restaurant that only serves vegetables, the veg-gies did not shine. All three of us love vegetables and maybe that was the problem — maybe the restaurant is for people who don’t eat or like vege-tables, who need them hidden.

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Dirt Candy is beet, doesn’t live up to the hype

Dirt Candy’s distinctive sign on Allen St.

The broccoli hot dog was underwhelming.

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Just not getting this ‘joke’

To The Editor:“Pols, law profs, Sierra Club back N.Y.U. plan

antis’ suit” (news article, May 14): “A reversal of the Appellate Division’s deci-sion would confront New York City [and] the state with a dilemma: Give up much-cherished temporary uses of municipal land — such as community gardens or recreational use of empty lots — or give up using the land in the future for other important municipal needs, like low-income

housing or building healthcare facilities.” Does Beckman intentionally go for laughs, or do you think this was inadvertent?

John Malecki

Closer look at N.Y.U. ‘friends’

To The Editor:Re “Pols, law profs, Sierra Club back N.Y.U.

plan antis’ suit” (news article, May 14):

“Beckman noted that N.Y.U. has some amici, too, namely amicus briefs in support of the university and the city in their legal fight for the mega-devel-opment plan.” Interesting bedfellows. The affordable housing groups made it clear they were not in “support or opposition” to N.Y.U.’s plan. They just don’t want a precedent set that might preclude building affordable housing on spaces that are under the city’s jurisdiction. Fair enough. An amicus brief from New Yorkers for Parks is a bit more problematic. The organization — I read elsewhere — “warmed to N.Y.U.’s promise that its expansion will ultimately result in more green areas in the neighborhood.” Neighborhoods, however, don’t work like that. It takes decades to build a community, and gar-dens are often the hubs that make that possi-ble. People aren’t widgets: They like the places they’ve cared for, and aren’t going to be made happier because you offer something “larger.” Gardens exist in the tradition of local steward-ship. They are hotbeds of civic unrest and inde-pendent thought. Gardeners and “parkies” aren’t volunteers in that passive sense. We tend to see ourselves as caretakers of our community and its spaces. These aren’t “amenities” for us — they are our living, breathing homes.

EVAN FORSCH

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

LETTERS, continued on p. 18

It looks like Colin Huggins, “That Crazy Piano Guy,” has some competition. Former Brit Michael Cullen was in Washington Square Park last weekend twin-kling the ivories on clas-sic tunes like “Midnight in Vermont,” “Tea for Two” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Unlike Huggins, he uses an upright not a grand piano.

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Keyed up for playing sweet music in the park


BY SHARON WOOLUMS

Since the forum “A Community Call to Action: A Solution for Saving Small Businesses,” held

at Judson Church on March 5 after a heavy snowstorm, so much excite-ment and activity has been generat-ed, it’s been hard to keep up with all the developments.

Numerous newspapers have subse-quently run front-page articles about the crisis of small businesses and calls to save them. The Villager, which led the city with the first published arti-cle, starting in June 2013 — continu-ing with my half-dozen other articles through January 2015 — was the first New York City community newspa-per to call for a vote on the Small Busi-ness Jobs Survival Act.

The Villager’s March 12, 2015, edito-rial calling for democracy and a vote on the S.B.J.S.A. brought the first pub-lic outcry from the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, Steven Spinola.

Spinola’s statements in The Villag-

er’s March 26, 2015, issue explained why REBNY is so concerned about blocking a vote on the S.B.J.S.A.

As The Villager then explained: “In general, as REBNY members see it, the S.B.J.S.A. would put way too much power in the hands of retail tenants.”

Meanwhile, the spiraling-out-of-con-trol rents are spreading citywide and the public is “mad as hell” that noth-ing is being done. This public outcry recently produced not one but two pro-posed bills, one introduced in Albany, plus Borough President Gale Brewer’s proposal for voluntary mediation and a one-year extension, to be introduced

in the City Council. Regrettably, both of these bills were

written by the real estate lobby, both give no rights to the small business owners and both ensure the status quo.

Now the public must make their voices heard even more loudly and call for a vote on the S.B.J.S.A., and a stop to the landlords’ bills. Many new city councilmembers have signed onto the S.B.J.S.A. since the recent push for it ramped up in The Villager and elsewhere.

In the meantime, activist groups have sprung into action and start-

ed to get the word out. Block asso-ciations and community boards are discussing the bills, and bloggers are now taking on the issue, as well. Other forums are being planned, one in Brooklyn on June 4. Several polit-ical clubs in Lower Manhattan have written resolutions in support of the S.B.J.S.A.

But it was the Village Independent Democrats, which co-sponsored the first community forum with The Vil-lager, that has taken the lead in fight-ing for the passage of the S.B.J.S.A. and saving the businesses in the Vil-lage. V.I.D. kicked off its two-weekend petition drive to save our businesses this past Saturday at the Bedford-Bar-row-Commerce Fair.

With small businesses closing each month, this may be the last opportu-nity for citizens to take action to save them. This is the last round of a 30-year fight where mom-and-pops have been knocked down many times and got back up. But to survive this final round, embattled local merchants need the public’s help on their side.

To help volunteer, contact Sharon Woolums at [email protected] or visit www.villageindependentdemo-crats.org .

Woolums is a member, Village Inde-pendent Democrats

BY LENORE SKENAZY

Not everyone shares my hob-by, but let me put it out there. It is grocery shopping.

Nothing I enjoy more. And since we live in the city, I’m shopping all the time, because who has space for those container ports of Country Crock the folks in the suburbs stock up on?

But if I’m tingling every time I wan-der down the cereal aisle hoping that Kellogg’s just might have scored an-other home run like Kraves (basically, wafer cookie meets molten chocolate cake meets “breakfast”), I can’t help wondering who’s yanking our collec-tive chain when it comes to the items on sale.

I realize this is the dictionary defi-nition of First World problem, but when the sign in the supermarket window screams, “Oreos, $2.99!” I expect to find Oreos for $2.99. And

by “Oreos” I mean the most popular cookie in America, consisting of two chocolate cookies separated yet also bound together (talk about your exis-tential metaphor!) by “cream.”

On sale weeks at my local grocery, these are harder to find than a “Jeb for President” button in George Stepha-nopoulos’s accessory drawer.

Oh, there are piles and piles of Oreo options, all right: Double Stuf, Mint, Fudge Coated. There are “Heads or Tails Oreos,” which have a vanilla cookie on one side and a chocolate

one on the other. (I tried to describe these to a friend as “black and white Oreos,” to which she replied, “Aren’t all Oreos black and white?”)

Actually, missy, they aren’t. Be-cause now there are “Golden Oreos,” which are albino.

And then there’s always the near-ly pristine stash of “Birthday Cake Oreos” — Oreos with sprinkles em-bedded in the cream, sought after by the same demographic that demands M&M’s in its brownies.

I left that demographic about four decades and 17 cavities ago.

My frustration on finding a sea of Oreos and not one sleeve of the Pla-tonic Oreo ideal is matched only by my fury at the Friendly’s ice cream se-lection at sale time. Drawn in by that same promise of a $2.99 treat (never $3, of course), I make my way to the freezer case and scorn all the other ice creams that are not on sale that week. Turkey Hill for $5.69. Doesn’t it realize how ridiculous it looks? Who would buy that? (Until next week when it goes on sale, I mean.) And the store brand, at $3.99? Don’t make me laugh.

Then look! There’s Ben & Jerry (& Unilver)’s, the megalithic corporation that pretends to dream up its flavors

lying on its back in the haze of a Grateful Dead concert. One pint-sized container of Ben/Jerry/Uni costs more than the entire carton of delicious va-nilla Friendly’s I am about to grab — except, of course, there is no vanilla!

Oh, there’s Moose Track galore. Rum Raisin by the barrel. If you’re looking for Rocky Road ice cream with Raw Cookie Dough Chunks, my friend, you are in luck. But if you want vanilla ice cream without a swirl? Va-nilla on its own, unflanked by straw-berry and chocolate flunkies so short on self-esteem they are excited to be purchased, even though they’re rid-ing vanilla’s coat tails?

But wait...behind the mint chip...could it be? Yes! There’s one bashed carton of vanilla with a sticky trickle down its side. I can see the little crys-tals formed where a piece of the lid was ripped off.

Oh wait — it is low fat.And sugar free.And actually, it is yogurt.Who cares? I grab it and head home,

ecstatic. It’ll taste fine, once I crumble some Birthday Cake Oreos on top.

Skenazy is a public speaker and found-er of the book and blog “Free-Range Kids”

Sign V.I.D.’s petition! Help save small businesses

What a rush: The sweet science of grocery shopping

TALKINGPOINT

At the recent V.I.D. gala, Sharon Woolums, left, and Ed Yutkowitz held one of the club’s petition sheets in support of the S.B.J.S.A.

RHYMESWITH CRAZY


New Yorkers for Parks has made dubi-ous contributions of late to the entire discussion on privatization and parks. Their white paper (produced in con-junction with the New York League of Conservation Voters and presented with N.Y.U. Wagner’s Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems) suggested ways to “creatively” fund parks. Some are useful. But if I read this white paper correctly, it supports a dangerous erosion of citizen input into decision-making about pub-lic parkland. Invoking eminent domain, greater authority for conservancies over public agencies or the sale of mitigation credits to developers to solve parkland problems costs the public its right of self-governance. N.Y.U. was begged to build in Community Board 1, for the good of that community, after 9/11. Instead it has chosen overreach again and again into the Village, to the destruction of much of what makes this community unique. Many of us understand the political realities that force our hand at times. For instance, truly affordable housing

in real quantity usually trumps, for me — especially if a neighborhood’s gen-trifi cation generated the removal of its poorer members, and the green space does not have decades of public usage. But gardens and public spaces that have sustained a community are vital for the civic life of a city — and, yes, after 35 years, can be safely deemed parkland. They are the hubs of an active populace. And they are worthy of protection.

K Webster

Staff deserve better

To The Editor:Re “Printing House staff strike

after doorman fi red” (news article, May 14): What this article doesn’t mention is that these gentlemen have all been reliable and dedicated to the building and its residents for years. Yet, the board of this condo has refused to provide them with raises or any reason why they shouldn’t get raises, for over seven

years for most of them. The unit owners have implored and repeatedly petitioned, in writing, the board to provide raises and treat these good folks respectfully, to no avail. Planned Companies, an outsourcing fi rm, was retained by the board only 18 months or so ago, without a doubt for the purpose of preventing unionization. Previous to that, the staff was direct-ly employed by the Printing House Condominium, and could have become unionized easily. Unionization would run the unit owners (most of whom do not object) an average of $40 per month total, not per employee. The condo board’s obvi-ous goal: To keep common charges as artifi cially low as possible until all the newly refurbished units and $14 million townhouses are sold. Welcome to the new Greenwich Village.

Frank Nervo

Thanks for a great read

To The Editor:Re “Morton neighbors celebrate

preservation champion” (news arti-cle, May 14):

Thanks for another insightful arti-cle, Albert Amateau.

Micaela Amato

Living Theatre vs. death

To The Editor:Re “Living Theatre lives on in

those Malina touched” (news article,

May 14): Glad to see you did the follow-up article to Judith Malina’s obituary that I suggested to Lincoln Anderson. For the story, I spoke to your writer Al Amateau about the anti-death penalty street theater actions that the Living Theatre did in Times Square, as a fair-ly recent example of Judith and the others’ commitment to social justice and opposition to capital punishment. But, unfortunately, Al didn’t mention it in the article. So I wanted to write this letter, so people know about it.

John Penley

Cude’s a cut above!

To The Editor:Re “A water-shred moment for

identity protection” (news article, May 14): Not a shred of doubt about it — no one is more committed to the community than C.B. 2 First Vice Chairperson Terri Cude. Thanks, Villager, for the winning write-up and the fab photo of this event.

Susan M. Silver

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to [email protected] or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 Metrotech North, 10th fl oor, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confi rmation pur-poses. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.

LETTERS, continued from p. 16

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

With fired doorman Arturo Vergara, far left, striking Printing House building staff picketed outside the tony residence last week, continuing from left, Kevin Samuel, Michael Suggs, Wendell Campbell, Omardath Rooplal and Jose Rios.



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E. Seventh St. was in bloom for Ukrainian Festival

out, so it didn’t. They never showed up.” It wasn’t a fluke that Brownies regulars believed

one of the most notorious rap groups could be drop-ping in at the local neighborhood club. First opened in 1989, Brownies consistently hosted up-and-com-ing bands — like Spoon, Interpol, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Death Cab for Cutie and My Morning Jacket, to name a few — in the 1990s and early 2000s. The place was a quintessential neighborhood music sta-ple in an era when any indie band with a guitar and a cheap band T-shirt to sell could get a record deal.

Fast-forward 16 years and in its place is The HiFi Bar, which serves as a completely modified Brown-ies. Stuto is still there, but he’s now the bar owner instead of the music booker. You may not find the Beastie Boys there anymore, but as a bar that has outlived most of its local counterparts, HiFi has suc-cessfully capitalized on the East Village’s evolution while simultaneously remaining true to its roots as a music-infused neighborhood hangout.

Stuto’s involvement in the rock club-turned-bar began when he took over as Brownies’ full-time mu-sic booker in 1994 — a fitting position given his rock credentials, including involvement in A&R (talent scouting and artist development), marketing, artist management and radio promotion. The combina-tion of Stuto’s connections and the steady rise of the club’s live-music scene established its status as one of the East Side’s most talked-about A&R hangouts.

Beginning in the early 2000s when Brownies was at its music-booking peak, Stuto began to envision a turning point for the club.

“I just started to get tired of booking bands, and it was very hard to make money because the stage and the bar were in the same room. So if someone came to see the 10 o’clock band, they’d cross the street to have a drink before the band went on,” he said. “It was just hard to maximize the bar income when you had a show in the same room.”

In 2002, Brownies was replaced with The HiFi Bar. Despite some resentment from the Brownies faithful, who still longed for four-band bills and Marshall max-amped sound, HiFi was a quick suc-cess, especially among bands who had previously performed there — transforming the bar from a place they used to gig into a place in which they hung out.

Meanwhile, rents kept going up and the East Vil-

lage continued to gentrify, and so the neighborhood clientele changed.

According to Stuto, the area went from bohemia and blue collar to something he never imagined would occur at his doorstep.

“You never saw someone with a jacket and a briefcase and tie coming out of an apartment in the morning when you were going to work. There were none of those,” Stuto said. “I still remember the first time I saw one of those people in the neighborhood.

“The people who use the East Village as a des-tination today versus the people who used this neighborhood as a destination 20 years ago or more, they’re just different people,” he said.

And so, with the area’s change, so came the bar’s second evolution. After three months of construc-tion in late 2013, HiFi now houses an intimate back room perfectly suited for the private parties, acous-tic sets, amateur standup comedy shows, reading series and trivia nights that the bar now hosts.

Record covers now line the dimly lit bar’s refur-bished exposed-brick walls, along with a collection of local artists’ work. Beyond the back-room acous-

tic sets, the place has recently started hosting bigger concerts in the main room where Brownies’ stage once stood.

Despite the bar’s transformation, longtime HiFi-goers can breathe easy. The place is still home to the vintage photo booth that utilizes real film and the digital jukebox (“El D.J.”) that holds more than 4,000 records, plus a return of Brownies lovers.

Singer/songwriter Matt Keating is one of those former Brownies fans. On an evening in April, Keating and his band set up for their first perfor-mance at HiFi since the Brownies era.

“I’m having flashbacks!” Keating joked as Stuto detailed the bar’s overhaul to him.

At the front of the place, twentysomethings came in from an intramural softball game, wearing matching gray team T-shirts trimmed in red. They were quick to celebrate with shots, beer and loud laughter, unaware and seemingly uninterested in the show that was about to begin.

As Keating’s band began to play, the group halted their conversation, if only for a few minutes, to turn their attention to the sounds of past and present.

Once Brownies, HiFi Bar tunes into the new vibe

Indie rock musicians Bob Mould, right, and Ted Leo performing at Mike Stuto’s 20-year anniversary party in May 2014.

Women sold paper flowers to wear in hair or on a blouse at the Ukrainian Festival on E. Seventh St. between Second and Third Aves. last weekend. Ten percent of the festival’s proceeds will go toward helping the survi-vors of the March 26 gas-explosion fire on Second Ave.

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Hardcore bands and fans thrash at Webster HallThe Black ’N’ Blue Ball at Webster Hall was nothing less than a two-day all-out aural assault of extreme agony and ecstasy. The annual hardcore music festival this year featured the likes of The Regulators (with mem-bers of the Bad Brains and Cro-Mags), plus Madball, Earth Crisis, Mizery, Sick of It All, Leeway (with Eddie Sutton, who did a surprise takeover of the mic, right), Booze & Glory, Everybody Gets Hurt (below left), Wisdom in Chains, Heavy Chains and Suburban Scum (below right), to name just a few. “To me, hardcore kind of represents working-class culture,” said L.E.S. photographer Clayton Patterson. “Plumbers, workers, it’s kind of the voice of these kinds of people. It’s about brotherhood, camaraderie. Rock ’n’ roll is about drugs, it’s kind of about privilege. This is working class. All these guys end up being soldiers, thugs, police, plumbers, electricians — you know, blue-collar stuff. It’s a place you would see black-and-blue beads rather than gold chains.”

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the school to have a student health center, which will be located on the basement level. Primary care, dental, vision and mental health services will be offered to students.

Melanie La Rocca, chief of staff to School Construction Authority C.E.O. Lorraine Grillo, presented a series of poster boards showing floor-by-floor architectural render-ings for the school.

For starters, all of the seven-sto-ry building’s windows — which are now on the small side — will be en-larged to allow in lots of natural light.

The first floor will feature a large lobby and a very spacious cafeteria with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The second floor will be dedicated to the 100 or so District 75 students with special needs, such as autistic spectrum disorder. The fourth floor will house a spacious library with oversized windows to allow natural light to stream in. Multiple specialty rooms dedicated to music, art and science labs will fill the fifth and sixth floors.

Adjacent to the “L”-shaped build-ing will be a street-level outdoor play area on Greenwich St.

There will also be a “gymatorium” — a regulation-sized gym convert-ible to an auditorium / theater. The space will feature retractable tiered and floor seating for an audience in “the low 500’s” according to La Roc-ca.

Advocates are hoping there will also be a “green” rooftop area for gardening and hands-on science projects, although parent fundrais-ing would be needed to build out this area. This perhaps could also be a future project to vote for under par-ticipatory budgeting.

The DeMatteis Construction Cor-poration is the contractor for the am-bitious renovation project.

Following the presentation, during the Q&A some parents pined for a separate gym and auditorium. La Rocca said that, in recent years, all schools built by the S.C.A. for the Department of Education have had gymatoriums, since D.O.E. believes these provide maximum flexibility for a variety of events, from basket-ball games, to black-box theater, to full-scale theater productions. The gymatorium can also be divided in two with a temporary partition at half-court.

Before the presentation, Jeannine Kiely, chairperson of the Community Board 2 Schools and Education Com-mittee, made a recruiting push for parents to join the 75 Morton Com-munity Alliance, to provide input on the new school process before the middle school admissions season be-

gins in fall 2016. The alliance is a coalition of par-

ents from School District 2 elementa-ry schools and has been a key player in the school’s planning, working in tandem with C.B. 2 and Communi-ty Education Council District 2. Be-tween now and next fall, the alliance will host two or three “envisioning meetings” — as it has done during the last two years of planning for the school. The goal will be to gather par-ent input on critical issues, such as admissions criteria, desired qualities of the principal, and programming for both the middle school and Dis-trict 75 school.

“We need representatives from every District 2 elementary school to participate,” Kiely said. “We don’t want just the loudest voices to be heard.”

One of the key items for the school’s successful launch is hiring a princi-pal before the fall 2016 admissions season. That’s when parents want to meet principals face to face and learn first-hand about academics, ed-ucational philosophy, programming, extra-curriculars, teaching styles and the ethos of the school. D.O.E.’s cur-rent plan has a principal starting date of January 2017, which local parents feel is too late.

Tours of the 75 Morton building won’t be possible, since a temporary certificate of occupancy allowing vis-

itors is not issued until about three months prior to opening day. So, parents and school advocates feel, it is important for a principal to be in place to embody the school’s mission for prospective families. In place of an on-site school tour, the hope is that, with the help of a tech-savvy parent volunteer, a virtual building tour could be created online to tout

the new school’s state-of-the-art fa-cilities.

One of the hot topics parents will want input on is admissions criteria. As C.E.C. 2 President Shino Tanikawa explained, there are several middle school admissions processes. These range from “unscreened,” in which

NEW SCHOOL, continued from p. 1

With 75 Morton school designs unveiled, focus

Shino Tanikawa held up a design rendering of the exterior of 75 Morton St., showing how its windows will be enlarged.

Melanie La Rocca pointed to the design rendering for the sun-filled fourth-floor library.

NEW SCHOOL, continued on p. 29

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any student can apply without be-ing evaluated; to “screened,” where a variety of metrics, such as grades, writing samples, interviews and test scores, are used to make admissions decisions — although many middle schools do not take standardized test scores into consideration. There are even a handful of “zoned” middle schools in District 2, such as Baruch and Wagner, for which admission is simply based on home address.

According to Tanikawa, D.O.E. has historically controlled admissions policies for new schools — not al-lowing parental input into the pro-cess. But C.E.C. 2 has been studying various approaches to middle school admissions and is pushing D.O.E. to allow it to have an advisory role to institute changes. Given the shortage of school seats in District 2, the maze of middle school admissions has only exacerbated the stress felt by families of fifth graders.

The number of students that will attend the 75 Morton school is also up in the air. Although the S.C.A. says it designed a school with a 900-student capacity, D.O.E., not the S.C.A. will dictate enrollment. But that won’t be without input from C.B. 2, C.E.C. 2 and parents, insisted Kiely.

“The D.O.E. knows where we stand,” she said. “We don’t want a sardine model. We want a ‘right-sized school’ of 600 to 700 students.”

Kiely anticipated that the school will open with a sixth grade and add a grade each year, although D.O.E. approval of the rollout has not yet been finalized.

The successful collaboration be-tween the community and D.O.E. is expected to continue, as the agency has committed to bimonthly phone calls with representatives from C.B. 2, C.E.C. 2 and the 75 Morton Commu-nity Alliance. Thankfully, the S.C.A. has a stellar track record of build-ing best-in-class new schools and meeting scheduled opening dates, so these deliberations can focus less on construction progress and more on the next big questions. Who will lead the school as principal? What kinds of academic and enrichment programs will be offered? How best to fill the school with a diverse mix of students from across District 2?

P.S. 3 parent David Colby, who has a daughter in third grade who would join the inaugural 75 Morton class of sixth graders, said he is “really mo-tivated.”

“At P.S. 3, parents helped design our school’s unique curriculum and didn’t have to answer much to the Board of Ed,” he said. “So if we mobilize for 75 Morton, maybe we can avoid the morass of testing and

flawed admissions and create an amazing school.”

At one point during the meeting, it was asked how many in the room were the parents of current third graders, and about half of those pres-ent raised their hands.

Advocates stressed that now is the time for parents to step up and have a voice in shaping 75 Morton into a top-notch middle school. Parents can get involved by contacting the 75 Morton Community Alliance at [email protected] .

The kickoff to plan the envision-ing meetings during the next school year will take place on Mon., June 1, at 6:30 p.m. at P.S. 33, 281 Ninth Ave. (between W. 26th and 28th Sts.).

“The incredible designs we’ve seen today came from unprecedented communication between the D.O.E., parents, community and elected of-ficials,” Kiely told the crowd. “If we work together and continue to give the D.O.E. our input on admissions, programming, partnerships and more, just think of what we can cre-ate!”

Looking at the design renderings after the meeting, Nadine Hoffmann, president of the Village Independent Democrats, remarked, “I wish I had a young kid to go to this school. My kid went to LAB School. It was a wonder-ful school — but the physical plant, it looked like a jail from the outside.”

Terri Cude, first vice chairperson

of C.B. 2 said, “Of all the issues we deal with on the community board — all the victories, the defeats — this is a win.”

Tony Hoffmann, Nadine’s hus-band, said, “They fought so hard and so long for this. It’s such an example of community action. What I love

about it, is that only in the Village can they fight for these details — and get them.”

With reporting by Lincoln Anderson

NEW SCHOOL, continued from p. 28

turns to admissions, programming, principal

Jeannine Kiely displayed a poster board with a design of the school’s spacious cafeteria.

The “gymatorium” will have retractable seating on its northern and east-ern sides, windows on its southern (Morton St.) side and a stage on its western side.



BY JAYSON CAMACHO

One of the weekend’s most anticipated games of G.V.L.L.’s Majors American Di-vision was Sunday’s battle between the

Orioles and the Athletics at James J. Walker Field.There were few clouds in sight as the teams ea-

gerly warmed up on opposite sides of the field. But there was lots of excitement in the air as the A’s were set to put a stop to the O’s five-game win streak.

Orioles Manager John Economou was warming up his pitcher in the right-field corner when this re-porter asked him about their strategy.

“We need to play errorless baseball,” the manag-er said. “We also need to make sure that we limit walks; there’s no secret there.”

The team’s starting pitcher, Michael M., 12, at-tends City and Country School in the Village.

Asked about his game plan, he said, “Throw strikes and get outs.”

And that’s what he would go on to do.Michael started off the game by striking out the

leadoff batter and then getting the next batter to ground out to first. He gave up a single to heavy hitter Brett, who would get injured trying to steal second base and was unable to return to the game. This would prove to be a blow to the A’s.

Max D. took the mound for the A’s, and started off hot with a 1-2-3 inning, including two strikeouts.

Both pitchers continued to pound the strike zone and get outs.

The A’s started to gain momentum in the fourth inning following a leadoff double and a bunch of infield errors.

O’s Head Coach Josh Levine decided it was time for a pitching change and turned the ball over to the lefty Noah C. Noah struggled to get outs and gave up three runs before getting out of a chaotic inning.

The A’s seemed to have all the momentum in the game, with a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth, but the O’s didn’t give up.

Noah helped his own cause by rapping a leadoff single and then stealing second base. Elijah M. hit a shot to left center for a double. Noah stole home following a walk that loaded the bases.

Max D. continued to struggle for the A’s, allowing three more runs before being replaced by Daniel T. Daniel gave up another four runs before striking out two batters and getting a groundout to first.

Noah tossed a quick fifth inning. Sixty-four per-cent of his pitches were strikes in his two innings pitched. He struck out four, allowed three hits, and walked two batters. Both walks came in the sixth inning, leading to a bases-loaded no-outs jam for Noah.

The O’s went to the bullpen, calling in Caleb T. to get them out of the inning and secure the win. The O’s were able to play solid defense and turn a double play, sacrificing a run. The next batter hit a grounder to Caleb to end the game. The Orioles won, 9-4, ex-tending their win streak to six games.

After the game, Economou said, “I think we made some errors in the beginning. But then they came around and played some really good ball. The difference today was our hitting. The hitting was huge. The pitchers did their job. And we even had a little luck.”

The Orioles finished the game with six hits and six walks. Their pitches were also did a good job, with a combined 71 percent strikes thrown and striking out 10 batters.

The win moved the Orioles to 7-3, giving them a two-game lead on the Astros. They have two more games remaining before the start of the playoffs.

BY ROBERT ELKIN

In terms of athletics, Xavier High School is known for its rugby, basketball, football and track

teams.Like many Manhattan schools, for

outdoor sports, there is usually trav-el involved to get to fields, court and running courses.

For instance, Xavier’s tennis team practices in Astoria Par, in Queens.

Xavier is in Division A of the Cath-olic High School Athletic Association, along with such powerhouses as St. Francis Prep of Queens, Fordham Prep of the Bronx, and Iona Prep of New Rochelle, in Westchester.

Tennis is a small program at Xavier, with only 10 players on the team.

“We have a lot of guys at Xavier who are a Lower East Side and Stuyvesant Town guys,” said Michael Mulé, the team’s head coach. “Their dads and uncles are a lot of LaSalle High School guys. It would be nice if LaSalle had a tennis team, but it doesn’t.”

Last year Xavier’s tennis team post-ed a 2-7 record. Their won-lost record has been like this for a number of years.

Similarly, the team general carries a small roster of 10 players each year, said Mulé, who is a Xavier alumnus.

“For the most part, there are guys who do it as their only sport,” Mulé noted. “Even though tennis at Xavi-er feels like it’s a minor sport, it is a high-level commitment sport for the guys who do it.

“We are drawing from a pool of kids who have tennis backgrounds

or whose families have been playing tennis,” he said.

At the same time, he noted, in the end, academics are, and should be, the priority.

“We tend to have a very, very good record with the grades our guys have and colleges they are getting into,”

he said.One of Xavier’s tennis players is

Vin Tozzi, who will be attending New York University-Stern School of Busi-ness come September. However, he hasn’t decided if he will continue to play the net sport in college.

“I’ll talk to the N.Y.U. coach,” said Tozzi, who is completing his fourth year playing high school tennis. “I’ll see what college tennis is like. I was given a full academic ride, but did not get anything for tennis.”

After the current season, Tozzi’s first concern is to focus on his studies in college.

“Tennis is a great sport but it is more of a hobby for me,” he said.

“Last year he got a few wins for us at first singles,” the coach added. “It was tough for him because he played against a lot of first singles players.”

This season, Xavier’s tennis team has gotten off to a slow start and so has Tozzi. As of this article’s writing, the team had not won a match in five outings.

“He’ll end up with some wins,” Mulé assured of his top player.

Tozzi has only captured one sin-gles match this season, a victory over a player from Iona Prep. He hopes to enter into the Mayor’s Cup to close out his high school career.

Orioles soar from behind to beat the Athletics

Xavier racket men are hoping to make a net gain

SPORTS

An A’s batter went mano a mano with an O’s pitcher in Sunday’s battle between the two pow-erhouse G.V.L.L. teams.

The Xavier High School tennis team, from left, Vincent Tozzi, Gianluca Milea, Liam Cooney, Jose Agregado, Owen Sterling, Peter McKee, Andrew Arabian, Brando Cristofoli, Coach Michael Mulé, Hank Michels and Xavier President John Raslowsky.

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THE VILLAGER, MAY 21, 2015