THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN — Volume 18 • Issue 47 | April 6 - 13, 2006

Editorial
Community board appointments the way they ought to be
Community board appointments — in Manhattan, at least — rarely seemed to be made on time. The process would drag for a month past the April 1 deadline, if not longer. On top of that, vacancies on local boards often went unfilled the rest of the year — seeming to be left intentionally vacant in order to effect board dynamics and elections.

The Penny Post
Meetings for the 21st century
By Andrei Codrescu
We love meetings in this country. On any given day there are hundreds of meetings unfolding in every city. Professionals meet to exchange ideas, hobbyists meet to trade items, companies meet to unveil products, scholars meet to present papers, even criminals meet to share the latest in cracking safes.

Downtown Notebook
Racist moment in Tribeca proves struggle isn’t over
By Wickham Boyle
I am still shaking. I, perhaps naively, thought the blatant racism, which I know exists elsewhere, had ceased to flourish in the enclave where I live. Tribeca has become a haven to those of us who formed it in our wild, youthful artist days and to those who cherish what we created and now have the bucks to buy in. Either way I believed we were a community of Blue State beliefs. I am wrong.

Downtown Express photo by Jefferson Siegel
Rhythm underground
Passengers on an Uptown express 4 train heard the United Drummers of Israel as they left the Brooklyn Bridge station Tuesday night.

Under Cover

Police Blotter

In Briefs
Chinatown fire

Hallmark recovers from illness

Murtha forum in N.Y.C.

Immigration protest Downtown

In Pictures

When snow came to town

Youth/ Sports

Youth Activities

Downtown Express photo by Elisabeth Robert Marine Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, a Battery Park City resident and an assistant district attorney in Lower Manhattan, led the effort to recover over 5,400 missing artifacts while stationed in Iraq.		News This Downtowner got back stolen treasures from the ‘thieves of Baghdad’ By Ronda Kaysen Matthew Bogdanos went to Iraq to fight a war. He did not expect to fight for some of the world’s oldest artifacts, looted from the National Museum in Baghdad — a battle he’s continuing here in New York.

INSIDE

Lights, or lipstick on a pig? By Josh Rogers Is it art or are they just lights? Some Downtowners lately have been wondering about the zigzag pattern of lights on the damaged Deutsche Bank building across from the World Trade Center. The black-netted building was struck by 2 W.T.C. on 9/11 and has often been described as a “shrouded” reminder of the lack of rebuilding progress at the site. Trying to save bit that’s left at end of the Tunnel By Alex Schmidt Although their efforts to save the historic Tunnel Garage in Soho have failed, preservationists are now focusing on keeping the terracotta medallion that sits high atop the front corner of the garage from being destroyed. Citing changes, E.P.A. withholds O.K. on Deutsche demo By Ronda Kaysen The Environmental Protection Agency has asked to see more detailed plans about the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building, potentially delaying the demolition of the 9/11-contaminated tower once again.		Stringer finds five to fill C.B. 1 on time By Ronda Kaysen New Borough President Scott Stringer appointed five new members to Community Board 1 this week, making good on a promise to infuse Manhattan’s 12 community boards with new blood and leave no vacancies. W.T.C. fight buried briefly as society awards Downtown projects By Josh Rogers The Municipal Art Society of New York gave three of it’s five awards to Lower Manhattan projects at a ceremony Tuesday night held inside one of the winners: 7 World Trade Center. A new approach to the art of energizing schools By Lawrence Lerner It’s 3 o’clock on a balmy Wednesday afternoon in late March, and most New York City high school students will rush out of their building after the last bell of the day, high on life and delirious with spring fever. But the 120 teens crammed into the library at New Design High School on the Lower East Side are giddy for another reason.

Downtown Arts & Entertainment

Two Muslim cultures linked through art By Sara G. Levin In “Aoudah (recurrences),” a digitally enhanced photo by artist Wafaa Bilal, a man screams beneath the weight of a mosque, strapped to his back. Having grown up during the Iran-Iraq War, Bilal knows firsthand the anguish emanating from his artwork, arguably the most powerful in the “Detained” exhibition now on view at the Asian American Arts Centre Downtown. The heat is on By Bonnie Rosenstock I caught Karen Coshof at a bad time. A friend had just phoned the filmmaker to say that Newsweek slammed her documentary, “The Great Warming.” The most offensive line from the review: “[It] shows exactly what’s wrong with turning complex issues over to Hollywood.” Coshof, the producer, was livid. “We’re from Montreal. You think they would get their facts right. Nobody from the magazine called me.”		Songs in the key of one couple’s life By Rachel Fershleiser Don’t hate Jason Hammel because he’s happy. “Every article is like ‘hey, they’re so happy,” he complained to me recently over the phone. “It becomes a problem — always ‘aw, this happy-go-lucky couple with a kid plays rock music.’ I wouldn’t want the stigma of that to stop people from giving us a chance.” For love of a country — and of poet Elizabeth Bishop By Jerry Tallmer Five takes from the life (lives) of a woman (two women) who fell in love with Brazil. 1. Elizabeth Bishop, a traveler from the north, is staying for a few days by invitation in the otherwise unoccupied Rio de Janeiro apartment of Lota Macedo Soares, a Brazilian whom Miss Bishop has met in New York. In that pied-à-terre the visitor has been made to feel like a movie star. The year is 1952.

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