Some cutting words: The day after probably the worst day in Sheldon Silver’s life, what did he do? He stuck to his routine, getting his regular haircut at Astor Place Hairstylists, where rates start at just $16. By chance, we happened to go there for a trim ourselves on Monday and couldn’t help recalling that Valentino Gogu, one of the place’s many speedy, top-quality coiffeurs, had told us a while ago (as we reported here) that Silver was a customer of his, coming there every three of four weeks for a cut — no, not of cash, of his hair! …Just kidding… Anyway, as Gogu was working his scissors magic on a guy’s locks on Monday, we told him we remembered that Silver was his customer, and Gogu eventually let on that, in fact, the Assembly speaker had been there just the other day. As Gogu told us a few years ago, Silver’s now-infamous personal-injury law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, is right around the corner, just two blocks away, at Broadway and E. Fourth St., and he stops in for haircuts at Astor when he works there. “What you want me to tell you about that?” Gogu said with a smile, then dished a little bit, “He was here last Friday. I cut his hair, and that was it.” Then, after a pause, he added, “He tell me, ‘I will beat them.’ ” Well, at least that’s what Silver was thinking last Friday anyway. Look, don’t try telling Gogu that Silver’s not a good guy. “He’s not guilty, man. I don’t think so. Now everybody’s saying he’s guilty,” the barber said. “When Bloomberg wanted to build a stadium, which would bring people, [Silver] said, ‘no.’ He won. When Bloomberg wanted to put a toll at 60th St., take money from the people, [Silver] said, ‘no.’ He won.” They talk about “six degrees of separation,” but at Astor Place Hairstylists, it’s more like two tushes of near-togetherness in the barber chair. “You know who I see today? William.” Wait a second, no…you mean? Yes, Gogu said, “Rashbaum.” When he had previously told us about Silver coming there for his haircuts, Gogu had also mentioned that a couple of top New York Times reporters, including William Rashbaum and Al Baker, also avail themselves of his tonsorial talents. Yes, it was, in fact, Rashbaum who broke the story last Thursday that Silver was facing imminent arrest — sharing a joint byline on the fateful Page One lead article with Thomas Kaplan and Susan Craig — and he and the Times reporters have since written a subsequent series of hard-hitting follow-ups, probing into the various alleged schemes and players. So, we asked, what did Rashbaum have to say about it all? But Gogu responded, “He say nothing.” Astor Place is really the political haircutting hotspot, as Mayor Bill de Blasio also still goes there, a habit he has kept from his student days at New York University. Hey, they talk about “three men in a room.” Maybe they meant Astor Place Hairstylists!
Commuting tension? One local longtime Democratic political operative we spoke to last week was livid that state Senator Brad Hoylman had the audacity to come out early and call for Silver’s resignation. He quipped to us that Hoylman will now no doubt feel an icy chill in the car during his ride back and forth to Albany. That’s because his regular commuting buddy is Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who stressed, in her initial comments to The Villager, that Silver is innocent until proven guilty, and didn’t call for him to step down. But Hoylman told us that’s just plain silly. “Deborah and I are free to agree to disagree,” he said.
Told you so! Former City Council candidate Pete Gleason called to say that we “had it first,” when Scoopy reported in October 2013 that Gleason, if elected Manhattan district attorney, would have investigated Silver. Of course, that was a very big “if.” Gleason, a Democrat running as a Republican, challenged Cy Vance in the general election, and was, not so unpredictably, trounced. “I think there is a lot of conventional wisdom about the cesspool of corruption in our own backyard, i.e. William Rapfogel,” he said back then. In short, Gleason stated, Rapfogel’s wife, Judy, who is Silver’s longtime chief of staff, along with Silver himself should both have been investigated in connection with the $5 million Met Council insurance fraud scheme, for which William Rapfogel was arrested in August 2013 and subsequently found guilty, and for which he is now serving jail time. “If I were the sitting Manhattan district attorney,” Gleason told us back then, “I’d have a full-blown investigation against Sheldon Silver and Judy Rapfogel.” Well, the now-defunct Moreland Commission and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara have more than taken care of the Sheldon Silver investigation. As for Judy Rapfogel, it looks like she might well wind up the only one left standing on her feet — even if her hubby’s insurance-scam skimmed cash was stored in their Grand St. closet next to her shoes!
No ill will: There was a time, in particular before 9/11 — after which Silver seemed to become more present in the neighborhood — when some of his constituents north of Delancey St. were loudly complaining that the powerful speaker, occupied with Albany affairs, was neglecting their neck of the 65th Assembly District. The main critics were Clayton Patterson, the L.E.S. documentarian, and Marcia Lemmon, the late Ludlow St. scourge of bar owners. But this week, Patterson was reluctant to criticize the wounded Silver publicly. “I certainly don’t wish him any harm,” he said. “The biggest criticism I have of him was that he was inaccessible. I would have never thought of him as a criminal. I don’t want to kick him when he’s down.”
