Under Cover

Volume 20 Issue 15 | August 24 -30, 2007

Under Cover

Kiss seals the deal
It seems the Bloomberg administration ended its dispute with 9/11 families over this year’s Sept. 11 ceremonies more than amicably – in fact it was kissably. Sally Regenhard, one of the leaders in the successful fight to allow some access to bedrock, had a warm greeting for Dep. Mayor Ed Skylar before Tuesday’s meeting on the fatal Deutsche fire.

“My new best friend! Hi, Ed Skylar,” Regenhard, whose son was killed in the attack, said just before the meeting. The lanky Skylar went over to her and leaned down for a peck on the cheek as Regenhard pulled him closer.

For those who may worry if she is starting to pull her punches, fear not. She called the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s safety planning “despicable.”

Tribeca wrap deadline
The Tribeca Film Festival may have just ended three months ago, but organizers are already gearing up for next year’s fest with a call for submissions that will be accepted beginning Sept. 10. The seventh annual festival will run from Apr. 23 – May 4, and the first deadline is coming up Nov. 16. All aspiring filmmakers can submit their work at www.tribecafilmfestival.org.

The festival was founded in 2002 by Robert DeNiro, lord of the name “Tribeca,” and colleagues Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff.

Back to work
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told us that word out of Albany — as reported Tuesday in the Albany Times Union — is that Albany County District Attorney David Soares is going to report there was no criminality in the Troopergate scandal in Governor Eliot Spitzer’s administration. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s earlier finding was the same. Now, Silver says, the matter should be left to the State Ethics Commission and D.A. to “investigate what needs to be investigated. … The state Senate has to stop this harangue [for a separate State Senate-led investigation],” Silver said. “We can’t be so political. I think the Assembly and state Senate should get back to the job that we were elected to do.”

Blowing Liberty’s horn
Taking a page from the Brooklyn Dodgers’ script, the National Park Service is saying “wait ‘til next year” to Lady Liberty.

Hornblower Yachts, Inc., which also runs boats to Alcatraz, is going to take over the Statue of Liberty ferry routes Jan. 1, 2008, not in October as originally planned. The firm promises to reduce some of the line clutter in Battery Park by allowing people to print online tickets. Hornblower is taking over the route from Circle Line. Tourists around the world have been in limbo for the last two months because neither firm was taking reservations after Oct. 1. Parks has just extended its contract with Circle Line to shuttle visitors to the French gift. Tres bien.

A coincidence, we trust
What’s in a name, Shakespeare-loving waterfront activists might be asking after reading last week’s New York Times article about the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries.

Beacon is a non-profit organization that was created by former Gov. George Pataki and has been mostly funded by New York State. As we reported last year, Trip Dorkey, whom Pataki appointed to be chairperson of the Hudson River Park Trust, is also on Beacon’s board, and the Trust was negotiating a no-bid deal with Beacon to open on Tribeca’s Pier 26. This despite the Trust’s previous statement that there would be an open bidding process for an operator for the river study center, and the bidding would begin long after the time Pataki left office.

So why the rehash, particularly since the deal never was finalized? In the Times story about the institute getting ready to open its first facility in Beacon, N.Y., the Gray Lady reported that the name of the organization’s boat is Trust. Hmmm.

Bridge to the 20th century
Only hours after we posted Geraldine Lipschutz’s column on her classroom memories in Brockton Mass. on our Web site last week, the features editor of Brockton’s Enterprise newspaper asked us for permission to reprint it.

Lipschutz, a Southbridge Towers resident, recalled the year 1921, when she had a racist teacher who ostracized the only black girl in the class, and when one of her other classmates was Ines Sacco, daughter of Nicola Sacco of Sacco & Vanzetti fame.

Of course, we said yes to John Murphy, The Enterprise editor. He plans to put it in the “By Our Readers” section of the paper where writers reflect on the “old days.”

Lipschutz, who followed the Sacco & Vanzetti case in the Brockton Enterprise, said her memories from 86 years ago came flooding back when she read a New York Times article about teacher shortages in Brockton.