THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN — Volume 19 • Issue 1 | May 26-June 1, 2006

Editorial
Pausing to celebrate
7 W.T.C.
With so much lethargy to be frustrated about in Lower Manhattan, it is easy to overlook an uplifting moment. The last office tower to be destroyed Sept. 11, 2001 – 7 W.T.C. – is now the first to be rebuilt and open. If we’re “lucky,” it’ll be a few years before we see another day like this, so developer Larry Silverstein was right to stage a full-scale celebration Tuesday. We thank and congratulate him and his team and we share his wish to get the building fully occupied quickly.

Letters to the editor

Under Cover

Police blotter

The Penny Post
A return Downtown
By Andrei Codrescu
I rented a room in what used to be one of New York’s sleaziest flophouses, the St. Mark’s Hotel, on St. Mark’s Place. This place used to be so nasty I walked a little faster when I lived in the neighborhood. Wasted drug-addicts used to hang out in the entryway, spewing infections out of open sores.

Talking Point
Growing up with the Tribeca Film Festival
By Juliette Kessler
“What were you like when you were my age?” That’s one of my favorite questions to ask the actors and film directors at the Tribeca Film Festival— not to mention the rock stars, comedians, models, athletes, and even, politicians.

Editorial Picture

Radio daze

Sports
Downtowners show midseason form in wild weekend

Bears win one for the speaker,take L.E.S. Wiffle championship
After a spirited game last Saturday, the Sheldon Silver Bears, top, emerged victorious over the Betances Hurricanes, bottom, by a score of 12-9 in the Sol Lain Wiffle Ball League Championship.

Downtown Express photo by Milo Hess Fleeting peek at the fleet The USS Shreveport, an amphibious transport dock, made its way up the Hudson Wednesday, marking the beginning of Fleet Week — and a sure sign that Memorial Day weekend is coming.		News Rally to crush demolition law By Lincoln Anderson In a united front, a phalanx of local elected officials came together in a City Hall steps press conference last Thursday to denounce “phony demolitions,” which they say unscrupulous landlords are now using to evict tenants from rent-regulated apartments. Residents of 2 Downtown buildings join rally Reporter’s Notebook One opening, one bombshell at the W.T.C. By Josh Rogers Dickens might have called it a “Tale of Two Days.” Thursday, Larry Silverstein and Port Authority officials said World Trade Center office reconstruction — which had been delayed for years and finally began last month — could stop in June.
	Let the beach idea drown, C.B. 1 committee says By Jefferson Siegel The last time a beach made news Downtown was decades ago when landfill from the construction of the World Trade Center created a temporary venue for outdoor performances.

INSIDE

Clean and prosperity top Chinatown group’s platform By Anindita Dasgupta The Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation is planning to clean up the streets and set up programs highlighting Chinatown’s cultural attractions in an effort to attract more New Yorkers to the neighborhood. Fueling the diesel fight with dough Comedian Eric Bogosian and artist Elizabeth Murray joined many of their Tribeca neighbors recently to learn more about Neighbors Against NOISE’s efforts against the illegal amounts of diesel fuel stored at the Western Union building at 60 Hudson St. Sears and Kmart fashion move of studios to Canal By Lincoln Anderson Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki joined Alwyn Lewis, president and C.E.O. of Sears Holding Corporation, in Hudson Square last Thursday to cut the ribbon on 45,000 square feet of new design offices for Sears and Kmart apparel lines.		Hopes for a certain trip to the dentist By Willa Paskin The first 25 years of the World Trade Center Dental Group’s existence were, as is the case with most dental practices, relatively placid. The last five years, as its name would suggest, have been anything but. McCain draws fire at New School graduation By Lincoln Anderson In the face of protest in recent weeks, New School University President Bob Kerrey defiantly said he wouldn’t withdraw his selection of Senator John McCain as commencement speaker. On the contrary, he promised it would be a commencement the graduates would remember. Joe Franklin takes the mic at T.N.C. festival By JERRY TALLMER From poets to puppets, playwrights to pianists, painters to preachers, motion pictures to monologists, dancers to desperados, and even — who woulda thunk it? — to the inventor/progenitor of the TV talk show, the 11th annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts bursts all over E. 10th St. at First Ave., indoors and outdoors, this weekend.

Downtown Arts & Entertainment

Taking a closer look at all that Iraq “stuff” By Melanie Brooks In honor of Asian Pacific American History Month, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and The Asian American Arts Centre hosted a reception this past Monday to kick off a month-long art exhibit in the Borough president’s office at 1 Centre Street. Mario Fratti’s grip on our 15 minutes By JERRY TALLMER In a hospital room in Milan, Italy, a son and a daughter are having an argument over what men want and women want. The son is 20, the daughter is 39. She has been badly beaten up by some man or other with whom she has spent the night, or part of it. Her aggressiveness and casual promiscuity is what drives her young brother crazy.		‘Tribeca PAC tribute to jazz clubs continues By Lee Metcalf For two of the next three Friday evenings (May 26 and June 9), the Tribeca Performing Arts Center pays homage to the Café Bohemia, one of the historic venues in jazz history. Have home, will travel By Nicole Davis “The future is now,” said the design visionary David Shearer on Tuesday, standing in a gallery space turned showroom for the vehicles, homes, and people who have brought the present day up to warp speed. From May 21-23, Soho’s Skylight Studio housed the 24-foot-tall shell of Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye dome.

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