THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN — Volume 18 • Issue 46 | March 31 - April 6, 2006

Editorial
Looking beyond the Albany school deal
The Albany budget agreement to provide $6.5 billion to build schools is a good beginning to ending the historic inequity city children have suffered in education funding. The 21 schools Mayor Bloomberg took out of the budget two months ago – including the P.S. 234 school annex and a new K-8 on Beekman St. – are expected to be put back in once the deal is signed into law, perhaps as soon as the next few days. Although it looks like it is going to end well it won’t mean all is well unless the mayor moves to repair the damage he did in working toward a good result.

The Penny Post
Would a rose, written repeatedly, smell as sweet?
By Andrei Codrescu
I had to sign my name 400 times. It’s great meditation practice. The last time I had to do it was in elementary school as punishment for pulling Rodica’s pigtails. I had to write “I’m sorry, Rodica” and sign my name on the blackboard 100 times.

Talking Point
Artifacts, not abstract art, needed at the memorial
By Michael Burke
Many have claimed that a handful of obstructionists, who are — as one commentator said recently — out of touch with reality, have blocked the redevelopment of ground zero to push their private agenda upon everyone else and make them pay for it.

Under Cover

Police Blotter

In Briefs

Center seeks W.T.C. photos

Free business seminar

Vesey moments

No light at end of Tunnel?

C.B. 1 Meeting

Youth/ Sports

Youth Activities

Downtown Express photo by Jefferson Siegel Not quite barefoot in the park With spring temperatures finally coming to Lower Manhattan this week, people returned to Wagner Park although two cautious strollers were not ready to shed their winter coats just yet as they passed Tony Cragg’s “Resonating Bodies” sculpture Tuesday. Albany school deal likely to save Downtown projects facing the axe By Ronda Kaysen The state Legislature agreed on a budget Tuesday that will deliver $6.5 billion for school construction in the city, all but ensuring that two Lower Manhattan schools will be built.		News Members bite back on Trust’s ‘gag order’ rule By Lincoln Anderson Several members of the Hudson River Park Trust’s board of directors found it hard to swallow a new set of rules the authority is proposing that would effectively ban the 13-member board from speaking to individuals outside the board about pending matters concerning the Hudson River Park. Private school looks to open in Tribeca next year By Ronda Kaysen Downtown, a neighborhood in short supply of elementary schools, might get a new school in 2007. A group of parents and educators plans to build a Waldorf school in Tribeca—the first of its kind in Lower Manhattan. The new school would open as a mixed-aged kindergarten for three to six year olds and eventually grow into a K-5 school with 150 students.

INSIDE

Anchors aweigh! B.P.C. emergency team to get a boat By Jefferson Siegel Battery Park City’s neighborhood response team will soon have what many countries don’t: land and sea capabilities. The neighborhood’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) expects to have a 27-foot Seastrike this spring. Rivington St. synagogue property is not for sale By Lincoln Anderson A real estate posting on the Web purportedly offering the property of the First Roumanian-American Congregation at 89 Rivington St. for sale was bogus, according to the synagogue. Drawing Center shows its Seaport design By Ronda Kaysen and Jefferson SiegelThe Drawing Center unveiled schematic drawings of a new museum it hopes to build in the South Street Seaport at a Community Board 1 meeting Wednesday night. The 29-year-old museum has plans to build a two-story, 25,000 sq. ft. museum on a site currently occupied by the New Market Building in the Seaport.		Tribeca developer opens the door some to negotiations By Ronda Kaysen William Wallerstein is willing to negotiate on plans to develop a swath of the North Tribeca waterfront, the vice president of the Jack Parker Corp. told Downtown Express in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. Tribeca bars hope law won’t be the last call By Ronda Kaysen The Bubble Lounge was bubbling at its 10th anniversary party on Tuesday night. Sleek Manhattanites trickled into the tony Tribeca bar all night, as the champagne flowed and the music pumped. But the champagne might not flow for much longer — Bubble Lounge could be forced to close. Trapeze school hopes to swing to Spring By Ellen Keohane People swinging on trapezes and tumbling through the air has been an unusual, yet familiar sight in the Hudson River Park for the past five years. This fall the New York Trapeze School will need to move from its current location due to construction in the Tribeca portion of the park. Where the school will move to, however, is still up in the air.

Downtown Arts & Entertainment

Paul Zaloom’s puppet of war By Nicole Davis The Muslim Brotherhood hates him, Al Qaeda hates him, and the Israelis are trying to kill him. His name is Karagoz, a.k.a. “Mother of All Enemies,” and he has just taken up residence Downtown—in a puppet show at Collective: Unconscious. When the band doesn’t play on By Jerry Tallmer Gray’s mother is dying, his boyfriend Bri, the lead guitarist, has found some other boyfriend, and now Alex, the girl who plays bass, has disclosed that she’s marrying guitarist Tyler, and they plan on moving to Montclair, New Jersey, to make babies. So no more gigs for Alex and Tyler, but they still want to record with Gray, get his songs down on tape. For dancers, residency restores faith in art By Sara G. Levin For nine years running, the Tribeca Performing Arts Center Work & Show Festival has debuted work by emerging artists who spent nine months in the theater’s year-long residency program.		Superstar me: A cult artist comes to the big screen By Rania Richardson “I’ve cheered up a lot and I’m writing again. I’m having a lot of fun,” said Daniel Johnston from his home in Waller, Texas in a recent phone interview. The underground artist, whose homemade music and cartoon drawings have earned him a cult following, is the subject of a new documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig which opens Friday. Front row seats to punk’s early years By Mike Didovic In meeting with Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong, one thing is glaringly apparent: they love old punk rock music. Loved it then, and still love it now. The two women, now in their 50s, spent half of their 20s filming live performances of the mainstays of the New York music scene from 1975 to 1980, and have condensed the best clips of their old cable show, “Nightclubbing” into a 85-minute video of greatest hits.

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