by Yori Yanover
The first East River Housing “Meet the Candidates” night was more like a kibbutz meeting back in the early 1940s than anything you’d expect to find in a posh Manhattan co-op. For some reason, no one had thought to provide the candidates with a microphone, so that much of the night was spent on shouting arguments between the audience and the chair over the importance of hearing the stuff the candidates had to say. There were easily 200 shareholders in the community room, it was hot and uncomfortable, and when someone thought to open a window, the full sound contribution from the FDR Drive made hearing anything of value a serious challenge.

Yours truly brought down a video camera, hoping to put a recording of the meeting online, for the benefit of shareholders who wisely avoided the physically challenging close encounter with the candidates. But my efforts were rejected sternly by both the board president and the debate chair, on the grounds that video was invented only recently and none of the candidates had had a chance to become acquainted with the ramifications of being videotaped. Perhaps this was in line with the fears of some jungle tribes that taking one’s image with a camera can steal one’s soul. Or perhaps the board feels that if you can’t shove it under the door it’s not a reliable record.

The method of taking the questions to be posed to the candidates was as scientific as the approach to miking the event: improvise, improvise, improvise. Basically, if you paid attention when you entered the already crammed room, you could pick up an index card and a pen at the desk, jot down a question and deposit it in an aquarium up near the podium. I swear to you, an aquarium. Then the chair would draw a card at a time and pose the question to all the candidates. It was all done on the fly, as if preparation and editing would have somehow tainted the democratic nature of the event.

The moderator, board member Ellen Gentelviso, appeared much more interested in avoiding a riot a-la Seward Park, than in actually asking the candidates for their views and giving them a chance for a back-and-forth with the audience. The result was a stunted event, as the moderator failed to follow up on even a single question, even when there were glaring inconsistencies - apparent to everyone - between what a candidate said they believed and what they actually did. There were three candidates who were closely associated with a frivolous lawsuit against the co-op, and yet all three came out strongly against… frivolous lawsuits. It was good as comedy, but for the moderator this was a failure to represent adequately the needs of the audience to get good information.

by Jonathan Leeder
This Thursday Rockwood Music Hall, the tiny but incredible little venue that could, is featuring singer/songwriter Bill Deasy. Singer/songwriters come a dime a dozen, especially in this city, but this guy is worth the trip if that’s your cup o’ tea.

Over at Fonatana’s you’ll find Kiss Kiss, a blogger’s wet dream band, watch out for that electric violin. Supporting is Villa Vina, Brooklyn based bad-ass prog rockers. They will be celebrating the release of their new disc on this night.

On Friday night over at The Living Room look for Nervous But Excited, an acoustic indie folky type band from Ann Arbor. This should be a good venue for them to break into the L.E.S. scene.

Over at The Bowery Ballroom is Los Compesinos! , an alternative indie punk rock band from the UK. This is their only stop in NYC, on a world-wide tour,

so expect this show to be a zoo.

Saturday nights alright alright alright, ewwww ewww ewww ewwww! Yeah ok, enough of my Elton John impression. Since Elton only plays Vegas these days, and my karaoke skills leave much to be desired, let’s leave the entertainment in the hands of professionals. At Pianos is Basement Band, another Brooklynite act that some call indie, some call folkie, I’ll call Alt-Country, haha.

Over at The Mercury Lounge is The Teeth, one of the best bands I saw at the CMJ Fest last month. They are from Philly, they have mustaches like the guy on the Pringles can, and their live set is ruckus.

Also, on Saturday night at the Bowery Poetry Club is a sickie group of MC’s. Take special note of Jake Lefco (who is the king of boggle, there is none higher, gets 11 points on the word quagmire), Propaganda Anonymous and Homeboy Sandman. The show is hosted by Dyalekt and kicks off at midnight. For more info head over here.

On Sunday evening, I hear there is snow coming. Not Tony Montana snow you degenerates, the real stuff. Perhaps you like to go out when it’s snowing and remember when you were young and had fun with the stuff. If so, and you get cold, you can pop into the Bowery Ballroom to see Mudhoney and Pissed Jeans. Mudhoney is from Seattle, so they are made of some grunge and some punk. Pissed Jeans are interesting to say the least. They only have 1 MySpace friend, and it’s Tom. That’s kinda rock n’ roll if you ask me. I’ll sign off with some words of wisdom by the late great Frank Zappa: "Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow!"

by Pat Arnow
Have the fall colors ever peaked as late as Thanksgiving? Has an autumn ever looked so spectacular? Even on the Lower East Side, where the trees usually play minor characters among the big concrete, steel and brick structures, the leaves stole every scene Thursday.

The trees in East River Park and Corlears Hook Park always show off, but they put on an especially fine show today.

Even a balcony garden with a tiny beech tree and maidenhair fern put on fall colors.

Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side at Slate. Lovely images, some very familiar (old lady in front of Garden cafeteria), some you haven’t seen before. Funny thing: The opener image is on Broadway in the low Seventies. Ah, you can take the boys out for Seattle… At least one under-educated blogger fell for this geographic displacement. "Born on this day in 1902, revered Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer lived in the same Manhattan apartment building as his friend, acclaimed photographer Bruce Davidson." Davidson has made a nice living for years off of this coincidence.

What the @#$% is uptown cuisine? According to Timeout, the long-awaited Allen & Delancey brings uptown cuisine to the LES. Wait for the immigrant and dirty streets metaphor… Wait… Wait… Go! "The Lower East Side, for more than a century the place where immigrants came to start a new life, now hosts yet another foreign refugee seeking a second chance: British chef Neil Ferguson." Ok, this is original. When you see Ferguson you can always say something like, Couldn’t hack it over in Darfur, eh, mate?

Picking Up City’s Vibes to Predict Quake Effects. Since Rudy’s left town you’d think things would get calmer, but no. They’re measuring just how badly buildings would shake during future temblors. Earthquakes? As if Manhattan were like California? The scientists have been taking measurements in Manhattan locales that also include Tompkins Square Park, Chelsea Waterfront Park, East River Park and Columbus Park. (NY Times)

CB 11 blasts congestion pricing. Just thought you’d like to know, some CB’s know a thing or two about representing the needs of their constituencies. The resolution contends that the mayor has failed to explore alternative options, including stepped-up traffic enforcement, mass transit improvements and a rearrangement of the toll structure to prevent New Jersey trucks from filling up Lower Manhattan streets. Couldn’t have put it better ourselves. (Flushing Times Ledger)

Still, there’s no shortage of vultures… In response to its “Request for Expressions of Interest,” the New York City Economic Development Corporation has received proposals from 30 companies interested in implementing New York City’s congestion pricing pilot project. (StreetsBlog)

by Jonathan Leeder
If your Turkey day plans are keeping you into the city, or perhaps bringing you from out of the city into it, and you’re looking for some extracurricular activities…. On Thursday, the venue to be at is your momma’s, or in-laws or what have you. I can’t endorse anything better then kickin’ it with the familia.

Friday night, after some leftover turkey and cranberry sandwiches, go check out the Clipd Beaks at The Cake Shop. These westcoasters are thrashy psychedelic prog rock.

The big show is ….and you will know us by the Trail of the Dead at The Bowery Ballroom. These Austin rockers play some heavy stuff but all with a tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Saturday evening brings Stereo Stormtrooper to Club Midway, all the way from Brooklyn. This is electronica drum/bass style grooves.

Also, over at the Mercury Lounge is Planes Mistaken For Stars. These guys are dark and mean and agro. Don’t forget your eyeliner.

To close out the weekend is Pittsburgh’s The Cosmosonics at The Annex. Another band that doesn’t feel the need to add the word "indie" to their myspace profile. Kudos to you guys. If you want to get your face rocked, bring earplugs ‘cause this venue and this band are both LOUD!

See you next week my faithful loho’ers!

by Yori Yanover
This morning was the kind of post-rain sunny you just hate yourself if you miss out on, so I got up when it was still dark and made it in time to Benny’s 1968 Dodge, together with four other guys, and Benny took us to shul. Together we had easily 450 years of experience inside that Dart, and I was the youngest. Anyway, this is not a shul story, it’s an after-shul special.

I went down to the park and did two miles, then walked over to the promenade and took these shots of the progress on the ground. Honestly, they are making some progress. They even started bringing trees down and they put up the street lights. It’s going to be a gorgeous promenade. Maybe even this summer.

It’s starting to have a Mediterranean feel, this new promenade, like a Venetian plaza, except with seagulls. I know most of us are thinking the new promenade is going to be basically like the old one, the one that was condemned in 2000, except new. Not so. I think it’s going to be breathtaking.

The Lower East Side, Where the Women are Whores and the Men Wear Shiny Buckles. When a liquor brand wants to market to a downtown art crowd instead of the suited-up bottle service set, whom do they call? Flannel shirt-clad lensman Terry Richardson. Belvedere Vodka, along with its agency, Berlin Cameron, hired the photographer, known for his randy, sexually charged images, to direct Belvedere’s 2008 campaign. The glossy images evoke an average Saturday night on the Lower East Side — late-night dinner, a woman applying blood-red lipstick using a man’s belt buckle as a mirror. (Women’s Wear Daily)

Bloomberg Announces City’s Successful Census Bureau Challenge. As a result of the City’s fourth consecutive successful challenge of the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual population estimates, the Bureau upwardly revised New York City’s July 2006 population by more than 36,100 persons, and combined with previous challenges the population has been raised by nearly 200,000 persons over the past four years. New York State will receive an additional estimated $77 million in federal funding by 2010 as a result of these Census challenges. We should get all of it, because we cared. (All American Patriots)

West 72nd Street has the best garbage. There’s an LES segue, honest – Isaac Bashevis Singer used to eat at the Garden Cafeteria on E.Bway before he moved to Famous on 72^nd Street. Anyway, so it’s not much of a segue, the story is still great: A stolen painting found in a pile of Manhattan garbage sold for $1 million at Sotheby’s in New York yesterday, hitting its top estimate with fees and enriching its rightful owners. The painting was stolen 20 years ago, then dumped on New York’s West 72nd Street in 2003 and was found by Upper West Side resident Elizabeth Gibson, who traced its owner. (Bloomberg)

More Hunger in New York. Maybe this should be read alongside the new apartment building news. Demand at New York City food pantries and soup kitchens jumped 20 percent this year, according to an annual survey released yesterday by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. The demand, along with dwindling federal resources, has forced about half of the food providers surveyed to ration their supplies. The increase continues from 2006, when demand jumped 11 percent over the previous year. (NY Times)

Also, in case you’re not completely terrified yet: Foreclosure wave heading for NYC. he wave of foreclosures crashing over the rest of the country in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis hasn’t hit New York. Yet. The foreclosure rate has remained fairly constant over the last few years, but housing Commissioner Shaun Donovan presented some sobering stats yesterday to the City Council. They showed a dramatic rise in pre-foreclosure filings. "We expect in the neighborhood of 14,000 [pre-]foreclosure filings in the five boroughs this year," Donovan said. That’s more than double the roughly 6,870 filings in 2004 and in 2005. (Metro)

Dale Hemmerdinger

by Tibi Z. Singer
Gov. Eliot Spitzer abruptly announced yesterday that he was shelving a plan to raise the base subway fare, saying that an unexpected increase in ridership and other revenues have made it unnecessary. This coincided with a statement from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Speaker we received today:

“Governor Spitzer and I, along with my Assembly Majority colleagues from the metropolitan area, agree that the $2 fare should be saved. The Governor this morning also acknowledged something that I have been saying all along – that there is a need for additional state resources for the MTA. I will continue to fight for those additional resources, so that there is no added burden on straphangers.”

In a November 19 letter to MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger, Silver urged the MTA “not to take action so that New York’s elected representatives can determine if our straphangers can be spared the burden of additional transportation costs.”

Over here on the web we think the buses and subways should be free and the costs born by flash animation, but who listens to bloggers nowadays.

by Jonathan Slaff
Dario D’Ambrosi, the Italian actor/playwright and founder of “Pathological Theater,” has, for 27 years, held a mirror up to our nature with plays about society’s treatment of the insane. To refashion one of his formative early plays and share it with a wider audience, Mr. D’Ambrosi will direct a new version of his “Days of Antonio” (I Giorni di Antonio, 1981) at La MaMa E.T.C. from December 20 to 30, 2007 in its First Floor Theater. There is a cast of four. Celeste Moratti, an Italian actress now living in NY, will appear as Antonio, in the role first created by D’Ambrosi for himself.

“Days of Antonio” is based on a true story that took place in 1916 in Veredo, a small town near Milan, Italy. Antonio, a disabled boy, born with one leg shorter than the other in a poor peasant’s family, is locked by his parents in a roost to live with the chickens and to be shown off from time to time like a circus attraction. He grows up with the hens, identifying himself with the king of the henhouse, the rooster. At the age of fifteen, he starts satisfying his natural instincts with the hens, but one day his parents catch him with a prostitute and decide to lock him in an insane asylum. “Days of Antonio” starts the day the unlucky boy is admitted into the asylum, where he finds out the truth: he’s not an animal and will never be a human being. The story swings between tragedy and comedy like life in a madhouse from the point of view of the insane.

Dario D’Ambrosi discovered the historical case of Antonio in 1979, during a three-month period when he voluntarily locked himself into the Paolo Pini psychiatric hospital of Milan. It was the aftermath of the Basaglia law, which closed the madhouses in Italy. The relationship between the mentally ill and society were a burning social issue in the Italy of his youth. So at age 19, in the midst of a promising professional soccer career, D’Ambrosi decided to immerse himself in the lives of the insane to learn about these extreme states.

December 20 to 30, 2007
La MaMa E.T.C., (First Floor Theater), 74A East Fourth Street
(presented by La MaMa E.T.C.)
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 2:30 pm and 8:00 pm
$18/$13 students and seniors; box office (212) 475-7710, www.lamama.org

These Pizza Slice Maps reveal pizzerias in all five boroughs, with special symbols for favorites and coal ovens. Pop-ups give the name/address/URL, plus a link to a SeriousEats review, which sometimes skews foodie, or, as with Chelsea Piers’ Bowling Alley: “Was this pizza as bad as it looked? Let me tell you something, pendejo: It was worse.”

[ November 22, 2007; 9:30 am; ]

The Bialystoker Synagogue

 

Rabbi Mordechai Willig

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This shiur will be given by Rabbi Mordechai Willig, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshiva University and Rabbi, Young Israel of Riverdale on the topic of Shmitta (Sabbatical Year) Laws for the Consumer.
A light breakfast will be served.

The shiur is dedicated to the blessed memory of our late Corresponding Secretary, Dr. Jerry Nagel of blessed […]

Police Search for Two Suspects in East Village Bank, Pharmacy Robberies. This is the kind of headline that makes us spend long minutes trying to figure out what was going on there, really. What happened at the bank which required a visit to the pharmacy immediately afterwards? Did the robbers get hurt? Forget to take a pill? Meet a member of the opposite sex? Inquiring minds want to know! (NY1)

Hail to the chef in the offal office. Okay, our inclination is to give this headline minus three bialys, which is impossible unless they go buy them first. It kinda’ makes you wanna’ do violence to "Reastaurant Girl," no? She says Allen & Delancey is "a warm, nearly wintry lower East Side haunt, reminiscent of a gentlemen’s library. The black bar top is as glossy as the creamy pearls of paddlefish caviar that crown the caramelized marrow. It’s a luscious appetizer that can be indulged on a bar stool or at a dimly lit banquette in the main dining quarters." Oh, Restaurant Girl, eat something and shut up already…

Danyelle Freeman Sucks. Same review, except this Gawker writer has had it with "Crumplefaced spry" Daily News’ restaurant writer Danyelle Freeman, who "stops by Lower East Side’s Allen and Delancey in today’s review, quotes from Walden, misinterprets Thoreau and in general cuts a broad swath of self-indulgent nonsense across the meanness of life." (the quote, if you must, was “Live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”) But, you know, almost everybody misinterprets Thoreau. "Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes" Oh, really?

61% of city voters opposed to congestion pricing. Opposition to Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan is growing among city voters - even those in Manhattan who would expect to gain the most from having less traffic. A Quinnipiac University poll of city voters found 61% opposed to congestion pricing, up from 57% in July. Although voters in the other boroughs have always been solidly against the mayor’s plan, 47% of Manhattan voters are against it - up from 36% in August. (NY Daily News)

Is Manhattan Turning Against Congestion Pricing? When were we for it? We all liked it down here as long as we thought it was those good-fer-nothing outsiders going to pay 8 bucks every time they drove in to visit. But the whole thing lost its charm when we discovered we were expected to pay as well. Foggedaboudid. (NY Times)

Second Avenue subway gulps another $1.3 bil. The head of the Department of Transportation was in town to announce a $1.3 billion guarantee to help complete phase one. The project is expected to cost $4 billion and eventually carry more than 200,000 riders daily from 63rd to 105th streets on Second Avenue. We’d like to take the same line from 63^rd down to, say Houston, in our lifetime. (WNYC)

NY Post finds the black cloud in every silver line. Here’s what they say about the Fed contribution to the new subway line: Should the $3.8 billion plan run substantially over budget or behind schedule, the Federal Transit Administration reserves the right to back out of its agreement. Fun guys.

Fare deal just in time for the holidays. The governor is morphing into Santa Spitzer. Andrew Tangel reports on today’s breaking news: "At a news conference this morning, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he was directing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reduce its proposed subway and bus fare increase and hold the base fare at $2 per ride. But his plan would still allow the agency to increase the cost of other fares, including the cost of unlimited-ride MetroCards. (NY1)

Manhattan’s Wages Lead The Country – but where to? The city’s financial sector is lifting the average weekly wages of Manhattan residents, who earned more during the first quarter of 2007 than residents of any large county in America. New figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show Manhattan residents earned $2,821 a week on average, nearly $1,000 more than the second highest earning region, Fairfield County, Conn. It is an increase of 16.7% from the same time last year. (NY Sun)

Velazquez

by Yori Yanover
Last night the Lower East side Business Improvement District held its 15th annual meeting at the Delancey Bar. The place was packed, mostly with local business owners who gathered to hear what their BID had in store for them, so to speak, for 2008, and to sample the free food donated by a slew of local restaurants.

Barbara Tindel, the BID treasurer and secretary, who introduced the keynote speaker, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, reminded her audience that in 1992, the year that the Lower East Side Business Improvement District was created, Velazquez became the first Puerto Rican woman who was elected to the US House of Representatives. “She continues to be a pioneer for Latino women in Congress,” said Tindel. “In 2006 she was appointed Chairwoman of the Small Business Committee of the House, making her the first Latino to ever chair a full congressional committee.”

A thin and wiry woman, Nydia Velazquez opts for a severe, pulled back hairdo that accents her high cheekbones to create the impression that she is always ready for a challenge. In a light business jacket and dark skirt she looks almost impossibly no nonsense. When asked a question, she grabs it practically in midsentence and comes back at you with the answer. She commands the room comfortably, has no trouble touting her own achievements — her small business committee has produced 16 bills in nine months, compared to one bill in six years under her Republican predecessor. And she’s happy to share anecdotes about her conversations with Nancy (Pelosi).

“If small businesses do not do well, our economy will not do well,” the Congresswoman told this group of more than 50 small-business owners. “In times when this country faced a recession, it was small businesses that got us out of those recessions.” She pointed to the housing, healthcare, and energy crisis, as well as the US economic hemorrhaging in Iraq, as the obvious sources for the looming recession. Although Velazquez is engaged in creating legislation to ease the impact of those negative market forces, she did not express high hopes for an effective solution under the current administration. But today’s vetoed bills under this president may be tomorrow’s new laws under a different president, possibly one in a business suit much like Velazquez’s.

The BID president, Howard Slonim, next gave his report. He complained about the city’s plan to use the BID’s middle lot for the “Chinatown buses” which offer stunningly cut-rate rides to Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston. Slonim is angry at the loss of some 150 parking spots which would result in loss of business for BID stores. The revenue from the parking lot is enough to pay for the BID’s staff and office expenses, but even if the city compensate the BID, it would not change the inconvenience the move would cause business owners and shoppers.

Slonim next attacked the downgrading of the area’s zoning, complaining that the new rules would reduce commercial floor-area-ratio and limit the number of businesses in newly constructed buildings. He was also critical of plans for mass preservation of local buildings, promoted most eagerly by the Tenemant Museum, which is at the heart of the BID.

Interestingly, to the best of my knowledge, there was no representative of Community Board 3 at the event, possibly because CB3 opposes Slonim’s view on all three issues.

BID Executive Director Roberto Ragone and Marketing Director Noelle Richards Frieson led a two-part PowerPoint presentation on the history of the organization and their plans for 2008. “The Lower East Side BID is the envy of all the other BIDs in the city,” said Ragone, who continued to detail his expansion plan which would “annex” the area from Clinton to an Allen Streets. His strategy will include offering sidewalk cleaning and other benefits to prospective businesses outside his current area. Richards detailed a pact calendar of events planned for the year ahead.