Burger: Don’t grill me! West Village writer Otis Kidwell Burger called to say she was recently rubbed the wrong way when a caller from Mrs. Green’s, the new Hudson St. natural market, rang her up and peppered her with personal questions. Despite her irritation, Burger stayed on the line out of curiosity. “It was some survey,” she said. “They wanted to know how old I was, my marital status, income, all sorts of private matter, all these things about me. We need to find out more about them!” Burger retorted. “The place was boarded up for a year while they settled their union problems. If they’re going to be calling around about us, I think we should know more about them.” In a statement, Mrs. Green’s Pat Brown, C.E.O. of Natural Markets Food Group, said: “Mrs. Green’s is proud to have opened its first New York City store in the West Village. While the response has been incredibly positive — with customers enjoying our sustainable seafood, humanely raised meat and farm-fresh, organic produce — we always want to learn more about what residents want from their local grocery store. This community outreach gives the West Village another opportunity to share their ideas and help us serve them better.” The store also sent residents a coupon / mailer when it opened. As for the union issue, Brown responded: “Our associates are part of our Mrs. Green’s family, and I’m extremely proud of how we care for them — providing industry-leading wages and benefits.” A spokesperson added, “The union has withdrawn or settled all complaints. There are currently no issues pending at any Mrs. Green’s stores.”
Return to ‘Diller Island’: A community meeting about the planned Pier55 project in Hudson River Park will be held Mon., Oct. 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the Clinton School for Artists and Writers gym, 10 E. 15th St. The meeting, which is open to the public, is being hosted by Pier55, Inc., the nonprofit group that plans to oversee programming for the new pier. According to the organizers: “The community meeting will be a roundtable discussion with folks from the Pier55 team, focusing on the future of local arts and educational programming at the new park. Community attendees will have the opportunity to share their ideas for the kinds of local arts, educational and community programming they would like to see at Pier55.”
Stuy Town squatters? Following last week’s Villager article on the city’s plan to have Donald Capoccia’s BFC Partners renovate two former East Village squats as affordable housing, we got a concerned phone call from a P.R. rep for Stuyvesant Town, saying they had subsequently received calls from other media inquiring about this, but that they don’t know anything about squatters being offered temporary housing for two years in the complex at a steeply discounted rent. A former squatter had told us that they were being given that option, and a representative of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development did not contradict that when we inquired about it for last week’s article. Told of the P.R. rep’s call, the H.P.D. spokesperson this week told us, “Our understanding from the developer is that Stuy Town was an option, but we aren’t sure if any of the residents chose to take that option and are actually going there.” She told us she would “check and see if anyone knows why their P.R. folks would be disputing that,” but as of press time, we hadn’t heard anything back. Meanwhile, we had heard the residents of the two former squats — 544 E. 13th St. and 377 E. 10th St. — have been dispersing all over in search of somewhere affordable to hunker down for the next two years, from Brooklyn to Boston and Philadelphia. After the renovation, they can return and buy their spiffed-up units for $2,500. But Janet Nash, a resident at No. 544, called us in dismay, saying that she spent a decade of hard work, and her own money, fixing up her apartment. So the article was unfair, she said, to state that the tenants — including Isabel Celeste Dawson, the mom of famous actress Rosario Dawson, who will be starring in the upcoming “Clerks III” and the TV series “Luke Cage” — have made scant progress in bringing the buildings up to city code. All that work of hers is now going to go down the drain, she lamented.
Students strut their stuff: The models at the recent Givenchy fashion show at Pier 26 in Hudson River Park have nothing on the kids at P.S. 110! The parking garage next to the Florence Nightingale School, at 285 Delancey St., was used for the Fall Fashion Week event’s star-studded after-party. The school is miffed that the fashionistas didn’t think to cough up some cash for them. “Rumor has it the fashion label paid a lot of money to rent out the space,” said a release from the P.T.A. and its president, Kathleen Keene. “If they could pay a lot of money to empty a parking lot and close our sidewalk for three days to create a ‘favela’ atmosphere for their celebrity clientele, then maybe they could make a healthy donation to the public school next door to support art enrichment.” The P.T.A. has sent letters and a donation packet to the appropriate people. But in the meantime they had another idea: “Why not shoot a video showcasing the talented students and thanking Givenchy for the donation they are going to make!” In short, on Tuesday afternoon, the kids shared their personality on camera in a “faux fashion show” to the song “Power of Love,” by Deee-Lite — which was the after-party’s theme. The kids were styled by the “Law & Order” wardrobe department. Keene tells us the final cut of the video should be ready by Monday, and that she’s rustling up some photos taken by the “stage moms and dads” that were there.
There goes the ’hood: A panel discussion on gentrification, “This Land Is Not For Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures,” will be held at Jonathan Levine Gallery, 557C W. 23rd St., on Tues., Oct. 20, starting at 6:30 p.m. Writer Alan Kaufman will moderate the panel, which will include L.E.S. documentarian Clayton Patterson, artist Brett Amory, Jose “Cochise” Quiles — the former leader of the notorious Satan’s Sinner Nomads gang — and Lincoln Anderson, The Villager’s editor in chief. The panel discussion ties in with Oakland-based Amory’s art show, which will be his third at the gallery. Amory’s landscape painting style has been likened to Edward Hopper. The show’s opening reception is Thurs., Oct. 15, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
