THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN | Volume 17 • Issue 6 | July 2-8, 2004

Inside

Editorial
Police arrogance on Park Row
In the weeks and months that followed Sept. 11, 2001, the sight of automatic weapons, police checkpoints and military personnel became as familiar to Downtown as views of the Statue of Liberty, the Hudson River — and before the attack, the Twin Towers. Now almost three years later, we have much more freedom of movement and many of us also have a feeling that we are better protected from a terrorist attack because no American police force spends as much time, effort and money on anti-terror measures as the N.Y.P.D.

Penny Post
The rain in Spain…
By Andrei Codrescu
… I don’t know about, but the rain in the U.S has been something else lately: in the Midwest it set whole towns floating down swollen river.

Downtown Notebook
Tickets, taxes, trash and Mayor Bloomberg
BBy Wendy Fried
On a night not long ago, sometime between the dog’s last walk and the morning newspaper delivery, Mayor Bloomberg paid me a visit to ask for help. He didn’t wake me, but tacked a note to the door.

Letters to the Editor

Downtown Local

Boy oh buoy

Ship day

Historic stations

New Jersey’s 9/11 memorial will be visible Downtown

Garlic Run caused a stink in Little Italy, some say

Police Blotter

Picture Story

Clinton-mania in Lower Manhattan
Thousands came to the Wall St Borders Books Wednesday to get a glimpse of former President Bill Clinton, who signed copies of his new 900-page book, “My Life.” Daryl Mattson, spokesperson for Borders, said it was the biggest turnout for a book signing they have had at that branch with more than 1,800 people joining the line.

Youth/Children's
Summer’s here – the facts about Lyme
By Dr. Michel Cohen
Tick bites, especially from deer ticks, are of special concern in the northeastern United States, because deer ticks are known carriers of Lyme disease. This malady starts with a rash on the skin that appears, on average, ten days after the tick bite. If unnoticed and untreated, the illness can progress into a wide range of other symptoms, such as fever and joint pain.

Manhattan Youth closes center, and moves into offices

YOUTH ACTIVITIES

Sports

Downtowners close with a bang on new fields
By David H. Ellis
Summer may have just started, but some ball players have already packed up their bats and gloves, as last weekend signaled the end of the season for the Downtown Little League.

Downtown Express photo by Ramin Talaie

Summer warm-up
Summer doesn’t quite start in Lower Manhattan until the Downtown Day Camp opens with its first day of calisthenics. Bob Townley, right, executive director of Manhattan Youth, which runs the camp, got things started Tuesday at the P.S. 234 schoolyard. There will be fireworks, free concerts and parades all over Downtown this Independence Day, article

From last pick to City Hall
By Erica Stein
Ed Koch never would have become mayor if he hadn’t been so lousy at baseball. At least that’s the way Koch and his sister Pat Koch Thaler tell the story in their children’s book, “Eddie: Harold’s Little Brother.”.

Freedom Tower opponents ready for a fight
By Josh Rogers
It’ll either be the beginning of the beginning or the beginning of the end when a cornerstone is laid for the Freedom Tower on Independence Day.

Downtown fireworks and free concerts for July 4
By Erica Stein
Independence Day is being celebrated with a variety of traditions old and new in Lower Manhattan. It is after all the place where George Washington bid farewell to his troops and later took the nation’s first presidential oath and where British troops began their final evacuation after losing the Revolutionary War.

Falun Gong tries to join Chinatown Independence parade
By David H. Ellis
As neighborhoods across the city are lining the streets with Old Glory and making final arrangements for the holiday, Chinatown’s Independence Day festivities have become mired in controversy, with members of a spiritual group asserting that discrimination has stalled their efforts to enter the annual neighborhood parade.

Turf battle in Chinatown’s Columbus Park
By David H. Ellis
There’s a turf war going on in Chinatown — literally. With the city’s Parks Department opting to replace the asphalt surface of the Columbus Park ball field with artificial turf, neighborhood opponents of the decision won a minor victory on June 22, as Community Board 3 recommended the Parks Department consider concerns of residents.

Looking at the Friends of Community Board 1
By Elizabeth O’Brien
Many Downtowners recognize they have a strong ally in Community Board 1, the city agency that advocates for residents in all matters of life below Canal St. What some may not know is that C.B. 1 itself has a powerful ally, a nonprofit arm called Friends of Community Board 1, which had revenues of nearly half a million dollars in its inaugural year of 2001, according to its 2002 tax forms.

Parking garage plan divides Chatham Green
By David H. Ellis
With the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation considering the Chatham Green Houses complex as a potential site for an underground parking garage, the building’s shareholders and board members are already split as to whether the project would be a blessing or a boondoggle.

Fantasy cars park in Winter Garden for a day
By Deborah Lynn Blumberg
In starched blue dress shirts and khaki slacks, Downtown businessmen flocked from their offices Wednesday in droves to relive a childhood fantasy — playing with sports cars.

Muslim chaplain saw prison bars from both sides
BY HEATHER HARLAN
Marking his first pubic appearance since claims of espionage against him were dropped, Army Captain James Yee thanked members of the Asian American community for their support at a benefit dinner in his honor held in Chinatown.

On the hunt for pictures of stolen statue
By Erica Stein
Sometimes optimism has to take a back seat to reality.
The Battery Conservancy has plans to take a bust of John Wolfe Ambrose – the man responsible for the modern dimensions of the New York Harbor – and move it to a more prominent location in Battery Park. There’s just one problem: the bust has been missing since 1990, when it was stolen from the Ambrose memorial.

Downtown threatened by stadium plan, opponents say
By Albert Amateau
The city and state drive to build a 75,000-seat stadium over the West Side rail yards stalled last week when a State Assembly committee refused to back a financing bill for the Javits Convention Center expansion unless it dropped all possible references to the stadium.

Assistant principal Weiner memorialized at P.S. 20
By Melanie Wallis
Guest speakers, parents and P.S. 20 students came together last Thursday to pay tribute to the late Stewart Weiner, assistant principal of the Lower East Side elementary school.

Insider’s guide to Lower Manhattan
By Erica Stein
“So this place is really fabulous,” said Hillary Davis, standing outside of Bazzini’s on Greenwich St. “The guy behind the counter’s name is Eddie. He’s been here forever.” Davis, 52, is scouting out new additions for the next edition of her book “Follow Me! Guide to Lower Manhattan.”

Two by Thornton Wilder at the Connelly
By Jerry Tallmer
A young woman, a young wife, is dying, has died. Soon, soon, she will be out of touch, carried away, but now for a moment she turns and says: “Do let me stop a minute. I want to say good-bye . . . Good-bye, Philip. I begged him not to marry me, but he would . . . I just hoped . . .

‘Whizbang’ revival of Stoppard play
By Jerry Tallmer
The study of moral philosophy is an attempt to determine what we mean when we say something is good and that something else is bad. Not all value judgments, however, are the proper study of the

Westbeth Gallery opens new exhibit by ‘SuZen’
by Ellison Walcott
Visiting any artist’s studio can be a treat. The Westbeth artist community on Washington and West Streets in the West Village is a lock for an adventure since over three hundred artists, authors and performers reside in this former Bell Labs building.

Koch on Film
By, Ed Koch
“
Soho Gallery offers special summer exhibit