‘Master’ class canceled: The late tragic actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was among the many Downtown celebrities who contributed their efforts to the community’s ongoing fight against New York University’s 2031 South Village development plan. One of the top items on the block in the N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan’s massive, star-studded auction back in December was a private hour-and-a-half acting lesson with the Academy Award-winning star of “Capote” and “The Master” himself. The auction raised more than $40,000 for the N.Y.U. project opponents’ ongoing legal fight, and the thespian session with Hoffman was won with a very high bid — in fact, it was a good chunk of the overall proceeds, we hear. We were told the figure, however, were asked not to print it, out of respect. We were not told the name of the winning bidder. After Hoffman shockingly died on Bethune St. of an apparent heroin overdose at age 46 on Feb. 2, Linda Gross, a spokesperson for N.Y.U. FASP, told us, “We are so very sad. He was a really nice guy. The lesson was not given. The name of the winner is, indeed, private. Right now, we’re all mourning and respecting his passing. We’ll deal with that lesson at some point in the next week or two.” We subsequently heard it was briefly debated whether to get another local acting luminary to fill in for Hoffman. A name was floated — but we were told, again, not to make it public. In the end, it just didn’t seem right to do it without Hoffman. It was decided the acting class will not be offered, and the money will be returned to the bidder.
Joe Bird’s great chase: If you read our Police Blotter last week, you saw the strange-but-true story of a theft victim who actually chased the perpetrator underground and through a No. 1 train subway tunnel, before eventually resurfacing and flagging down a cop to arrest the guy. Well, it looks like the 52-year-old man who undertook that successful chase — and then recovered his stolen $94 and cigarette lighter — may have been none other than “Joe Bird,” a pigeon-loving Soho local who ruffled feathers last year after repeatedly camping out with a sidekick on the doorstep of Dominique Ansel’s bakery on Spring St., so that they could sell their spots on the cronut line in the morning. (Ansel reportedly was not amused.) A knowledgeable neighborhood source tells us that a female friend of his, who knows Joe, saw the frustrated cronut entrepreneur on the street right after our previous issue was published. Before she had a chance to read The Villager that day, Joe reportedly told the woman all about how he had recently chased some thief on the subway tracks…and when she saw our Police Blotter, she realized it was the same exact story she’d just heard straight from the horse’s, uhh, Bird’s mouth. For now, we’ll be busy investigating this further — but in the meantime, here’s a helpful tip for our readers: Don’t steal Joe Bird’s lighter! You’ll have to take to the air to escape him…and even then, he may have friends in high places… .
Air rights Q&A mayhem: We’re still a long way from the ULURP that will determine how — and how many — air rights will be transferred inland from Hudson River Park. But it’s apparently never too early for a little more drama, as tensions flared around the topic during Community Board 2’s Land Use Committee meeting on Feb. 12. After a presentation outlining some possible sites for the development rights, such as the St. John’s Center building across from Pier 40, Hudson River Park Trust President Madelyn Wils was taking questions, including, of course, some from Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. But out of nowhere, and as a crowd of close to 100 looked on, Berman’s delivery was prefaced rather abruptly by Land Use Committee Chairperson Tobi Bergman, who publicly called out the preservationist for, as Bergman put it, being more than a bit too repetitive. “I just want to say, Andrew, that you’ve asked these questions lots of times, and Madelyn has answered them to the best of her ability, which you’re apparently not satisfied with,” said Bergman. “If these are questions that you know already that you’re not going to be satisfied with the answer, then you’re just making a show.” The problem was…he hadn’t even asked a question yet. “Let him ask!” the crowd shouted, wanting to hear for themselves. Bergman, unfazed, turned to Wils and seemed to prep her for Berman’s line of inquiry. “If he asks you a question you’ve already answered,” Bergman said to the Trust prez, “I’m going to encourage you to say, ‘Andrew, I’ve already given my best answer to that.’ ” But the crowd was still curious: Were they even going to let him ask the question at this point? “We haven’t heard it yet, Tobi!” they shouted, getting a little impatient at this point. “Just let him ask!” So, finally, he did, allowing Berman to ask something he had, of course, inquired about many times before (although not always in such a public forum) — namely, does the new amendment to the Hudson River Park Act allow air rights to be transferred from noncommercial, public piers? But, although we give her points for trying, Wils was at first entirely unable to answer that particular question. Why? Because Bergman didn’t let her! “So, yeah, I’m gonna jump in here for a second,” he said, before she could get a word out (once again drawing groans from the crowd), after which he continued to roadblock Berman’s further attempts at discussion for several minutes by continually turning to the patiently waiting Wils and saying, “No, I’ll answer this one.” At this point, the Villagers were getting somewhat restless — “Oh, come on Tobi!” — and perhaps began wondering who was the one really giving the presentation and Q&A that night. Finally, after several more attempts at completing a sentence, Wils made her voice heard over the furor, as Bergman relented and allowed her to give an answer. And we do have to admit that the following exchange played out pretty much as the committee chairperson had expected. “Andrew, I’ve answered this question to the best of our ability, and because the zoning resolution isn’t written yet, you just don’t accept the answer,” said Wils. “But I will give you the answer once again. Technically, you could probably do it. Could our public piers generate F.A.R.? One could probably make a case for that.” “Well, that’s important to know,” replied Berman. “Well, I’m glad that’s important to know,” Wils shot back, “and it’s also important for you to know that we are not going to propose that. And City Planning will not propose that, so it’s not going to happen! The answer is that, if no one proposes it, it’s not going to happen. My board is not going to propose it, I am not going to propose it, you’re not going to propose it, the community board is not going to propose it, so it’s not going to happen.” Well, that’s that…for now. Later, Berman actually seemed pretty content with the eventual results of the exchange. “I appreciated that answer, which is actually more substantial than I found her answers to be before on that subject,” he said. “The fact is that we’ve all seen ULURPs happen that we’d never imagined would happen, and that we never wanted to happen. So it’s just important to know what the legislation does in fact make possible.” For his part, Bergman later realized that, well, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to hijack the Q&A like that, even if he was doing it for what he thought were good reasons. “I became frustrated with Andrew for his insistent focus on how many square feet are available to transfer from the park, when he knows that none are available until a plan goes through ULURP that will determine how much can be transferred and to where,” Bergman wrote us in an e-mail. “It’s a misleading question that only creates confusion. It takes our focus away from the important question of how we can use air-rights transfers to secure the future of the Hudson River Park in the context of protecting our neighborhoods and the park from inappropriate development. But I regret that I also contributed to the confusion by getting emotional at the meeting.”
Lord of the Village ring: At the same City Hall press conference on Feb. 7 at which Bill de Blasio named Carl Weisbrod chairperson of the City Planning Commission, he was later asked by a reporter why he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. De Blasio said, “It’s just from day to day,” that sometimes he’s rushing and forgets to put it on. “By the way, no one’s asked what it is, and I find that quite amazing,” the mayor said. It’s a Native American Zuni ring, he explained. “It was the day before our wedding, and Chirlaine and I had not been able to find a ring we found interesting enough to wear… . And we went to a store in Greenwich Village and it was about to close, and it was the last store we could get to, and we’re looking around — great planning, here — and this multi-stone — different kinds of stones — Zuni Indian ring screamed out at us at the very last moment. It was meant to be. And I love my ring. And I love my wife.”
Correction: In an article on the planned Meatpacking business improvement district in last week’s issue, Donna Raftery’s name was misspelled. Also, the map we ran wasn’t the latest version. An updated map makes it expressly clear that none of the Hudson River Park or its piers are in the BID’s proposed boundaries.
