Purple haze of praise: Time’s Up Director Bill Di Paola gave us an update on the Adam Purple memorial, which is set for this Sat., Sept. 26, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Purple, the gardens godfather of the Lower East Side, died Mon., Sept. 14, while biking over the Williamsburg Bridge. Saturday’s East Village memorial will be happening both outdoors and indoors simultaneously. There will be speakers at La Plaza Cultural community garden, at the southwest corner of E. Ninth St. and Avenue C, including Chris Flash of The SHADOW and Bill Weinberg. Anyone else who wants to speak is invited to briefly share memories of the Purple Man and his legendary Garden of Eden. Everyone is encouraged to wear purple and bring a white T-shirt to tie-dye in La Plaza. But won’t the shirts need to dry? we asked. “I think we’re going to hang them up for a while,” Di Paola said. There will be a corresponding indoor exhibit at the nearby Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS), at E. 10th St. and Avenue C, remembering Purple with photos from the community, video by Harvey Wang, articles about Purple’s life and work, his own books and writing, and some of his famous purple garments, as well as George Bliss’s barrel-drum contraption that he used to plaster Manhattan’s pavement with looping purple footprints leading back to the besieged garden. MoRUS will keep its Adam Purple Memorial Show up for two weeks through Oct. 10. … Di Paola said they have cleaned out Purple’s room at the Time’s Up space in Williamsburg, and made a shocking discovery — beans! Lots and lots of beans. (Hey, he was a vegetarian, after all.) The copious cans have been duly added to his memorial at the Time’s Up space in South Williamsburg. … Finally, although we reported that Purple apparently died while crossing the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan, it sounds like he actually may have been headed back the other way, returning to Time’s Up, after doing some shopping at Commodities, perhaps, in the East Village. A couple of people have posted on thevillager.com that they saw Purple on the Lower East Side the day he died. In addition, Di Paola told us that he spoke to someone on the phone this week who reported to have seen Purple at 1:30 p.m. that day at the corner of Allen and Rivington Sts. “So he was definitely in Manhattan,” Di Paola said. “It looks like he was heading back to Brooklyn.” Last exit to Brooklyn. … R.I.P., Adam Purple. … On one more note, former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe tweeted out his memory — one shared by many others, it seems — of seeing Purple “harvesting horse manure” in Central Park for his Forsyth St. garden. Benepe also tweeted out an image of Purple on his bike along with one of R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural with a long white beard on a kick scooter, with the text “separated at birth.”
Cooking on a higher level: We got a tip that a Downtown restaurant owner / chef will be cooking for Pope Francis on Thursday. However, when we called the restaurateur, he said he strictly couldn’t comment until after the meal. As we spoke to the chef on the phone on Monday, a police officer who would be escorting him up to cook for his eminence had come by to touch base with him. The chef said to call him after the meal and we would get the scoop.
Equinox — the tipping point ? With hopes fading that a much-needed Trader Joe’s will occupy the ground ground-floor retail space of Ben Shaoul’s new building on Avenue A between E. Sixth and Seventh Sts., word is that a pricey Equinox gym has outbid everyone for the space. Oh, well…get ready for more hard bodies flexing and flaunting along the avenue.
Comic relief (from the comical candidates): You think Donald Trump is outrageously ridiculous? Well, check out the new Campaign Comedy Countdown at the William Barnacle Tavern, at Theatre 80 St. Mark’s, at 80 St. Mark’s Place, at 8 p.m. on Sundays, for more political insanity. The hosts are Randy Credico and John McDonagh. Forget all those G.O.P. clowns. Here’s a lineup that’s really scary: Dan Vitale, Scott Blakeman, Barry Weintraub, Rhonda Hansome and Chilean guitarist Andres Rieloff. We asked Credico what he thinks of Bernie Sanders, and he immediately broke into a convincing, slightly stuttering impression of him. “He’s the best of the worst,” he conceded of Sanders. O.K., can you do Trump, we asked? “I’m working on it,” he said. How about Hillary Clinton? Does he do women? Apparently not. “Hopefully, I’ll get someone to do that,” he said. Sun., Sept. 27, is the kickoff date.
