THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN — Volume 18 • Issue 52 | May 12 - 18, 2006

Editorial
Scaling back the memorial and improving the plan
Cutting the skyrocketing costs of the World Trade Center memorial can also solve many other problems in the current redevelopment plan. The changes will meet several demands of 9/11 family leaders who have criticized the design, restore the cultural center that has been virtually cut out of the site and will make the government subsidies needed to build the Freedom Tower less onerous.

The Penny Post
Just another New Orleans day
By Andrei Codrescu
I’ve been slinking around like a cat (with glasses) to see what’s what in New Orleans. In the morning, the Mexican workmen in the courtyard started work with good cheer, talking to each other in normal but happy voices. Happy about what? Happy that they had jobs, that they were a team, that the sky was clear and it wasn’t too hot, that they had gotten a good night’s sleep, that their consciences were clear.

Talking Point
The people who really need to be deported
By Wickham Boyle
These past few weeks we have seen throngs of immigrants take to the streets, parks and avenues protesting their rights to remain hard working contributors to the American dream. Even conservative estimates put the figure at upwards of a million for those who demonstrated in L.A., N.Y.C., Chicago and cities in between.

Editorial Picture

Cycling for the wounded

Under Cover

Police Blotter

Letters to the Editor

In Briefs

Spring youth fair

Legal awards

Deutsche demo demonstration

Pot pulp

Youth/ Sports

Look ma, no tee — youngest Downtowners swing at moving ball
This season, the Downtown Little League’s youngest players have thrown away the tees and are facing live pitching so they have changed their division’s name from T-Ball to Rookie Ball. They along with the rest of the Downtowners enjoyed last weekend’s great weather.

Youth Activities

Downtown Express photo by Elisabeth Robert Ready for my close-up, Mr. De Niro Stencil-faced Payton Tymeck, 8, was all smiles Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival’s family fair on Greenwich St. – one of the festival events still in Tribeca. Many screenings at this year’s fest were in Midtown and the East Village.		News More Downtowners would flee under city’s hurricane plan By Ronda Kaysen New York City unveiled the most comprehensive hurricane evacuation plan in the United States this week, creating a framework to evacuate 2.5 million people from flood-risk neighborhoods in the city, including Lower Manhattan.

	Call to crack down on liquor licenses By Albert Amateau Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver held a five-hour public hearing last Friday about a bill to drastically limit the number of new liquor licenses in neighborhoods oversaturated by bars and lounges.

INSIDE

Memorial pedestrians won’t be stalled, officials say By Ronda Kaysen The World Trade Center memorial might be going nowhere fast, but the pedestrians milling about the memorial plaza at lunchtime in 2015 will have no trouble going anywhere, a study shows. Women’s Museum optimistic before a skeptical C.B. 1 By Jefferson Siegel Officials with the proposed Museum of Women’s History said last week that construction will not begin at the south end of Battery Park City for three years, which will be 11 years after the museum was first proposed. They also told members of Community Board 1’s B.P.C. committee that fundraising for the $150 million cost hasn’t yet begun. Maya Lin speaks on her Chinatown museum project Famed architect Maya Lin said her design for the Museum of Chinese in the Americas new location will expose more of a century-old building in Chinatown while adding modern elements to the structure at 150 Lafayette St.		Tribecans try to block project on environmental grounds By Ronda Kaysen Local residents and elected officials asked the city to halt the demolition of a stand of North Tribeca buildings, fearing they might be contaminated with World Trade Center dust. World-class sailors drop anchor in B.P.C. By Janel Bladow Fighting head winds, rough seas and lobster pots, the seven sailing ships in the round-the-world sailing endurance known as the Volvo Ocean Race, slipped into Battery Park City’s North Cove Marina Tuesday morning just as most New Yorkers were getting off to work. Long-overdue Soho library may open at summer’s end By Alex Schmidt Nearly two years after ground was broken for the first Soho library branch, opening day is on the horizon. Workers are refacing masonry, painting walls and welding metal awnings in preparation for the big day, which the New York Public Library has said will be in late summer.

Downtown Arts & Entertainment

‘Audio Ballerinas’ strike a noisy pose By Sara G. Levin If you think nails on a chalkboard makes your teeth cringe, try amplifying a metal rake screeching across a concrete floor. Even watching five graceful dancers perform such a task atop the 55 Water Street courtyard Monday afternoon was a bit of a painful experience. A film of few words and one Keaton By Jerry Tallmer Except for the very end, you only see him from the back. And yet, from the stance, the squared-off body, the walk, the structure of head and half-glimpsed cheekbones, but most especially by the flattened pork-pie hat cocked askew over what, even from the rear, has to be one eyebrow, you immediately know that this is one of the two greatest actors ever to glorify motion pictures, the other being Chaplin. Candid Camera Passersby on Canal Street at the corner of Bowery may be unaware that they’re being filmed, but “Chinatown WORK, 2006,” an installation by Eric Schuldenfrei and Marisa Yiu, does just that.		Artist-run Manhattan Graphics Center celebrates 20 years By Lorne Colon The day of the artist-run gallery/co-op has passed its prime in the New York art world. Gallery-heavy areas like Chelsea, overrun with “for-profit” spaces, have made it hard for working artists to find ways to make prints, but the Manhattan Graphics Center, located just above Tribeca, sets a shining example of what a true artist-run organization can and should be. Dreadlocked violinist strikes new chords By Steven Snyder Daniel Bernard Roumain — better known in music circles as DBR — is a violinist and composer who works like a chef, decorating a main course of classical music with a dose of hip-hop, a dash of rock-and-roll, and just a pinch of R&B. The genre-bending musician is equally at home in a classical recital in Chicago one week and a head-banging rock crowd at the Knitting Factory the next. And he sees the blurring of these musical definitions — the ease with which any musical genre can be accessed in the digital age — as a wonderful thing.

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