Site specific: Karen and Carmen DeMarco e-mailed us regarding last week’s Villager article on the Bottom Line to point out that the savethebottomline.com Web site was designed by them and that they maintain it as well. Allan Pepper, the club’s co-owner, said it’s true, the club has nothing to do with the site, but that he appreciates the help. The Web site was set up when it became clear that N.Y.U. was moving to evict the club. But it was only after the court date on Oct. 23 when the Bottom Line found itself short of the required renovation funds that the site started accepting small cash donations. Over $5,500 had been raised as of Tuesday night, Pepper said. “Nice people,” he said of the DeMarcos who operate the site from their home somewhere in New Jersey.
Park plaint: Al Butzel, executive director of Friends of Hudson River Park, was giving a presentation about the park to the Tribeca Organization last week, when an audience member interjected. “The irony is the community that opposed the park for so long got it first,” said Albert Capsouto, of Capsouto Freres restaurant and chairperson of Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee, clearly referring to the Village. Butzel didn’t disagree with him. “That’s true,” he said.
Double D: We were talking to Jim Smith, Community Board 2’s chairperson, about the ice-skating rink dilemma in Hudson River Park, when we told him we had one more question. “Don’t ask me about Doris Diether, or I’m going to hang up!” Smith warned. “One – two – three…” We hadn’t been planning to mention the “D” word. Honest. Of course, Diether, the board’s acknowledged zoning maven, remains in purgatory, after having been booted from the board’s Zoning Committee. Oops, sorry, we just mentioned her name again.
Bucks ahoy! We hear from a reliable source that the Hudson River Park Trust recently settled with the owner of the Flying Neutrinos houseboat, which the Trust towed away three years ago from the park’s waters south of Pier 25 in Tribeca, charging it was illegally moored. The settlement is reportedly in excess of $100,000, though a confidentiality agreement reportedly prevents the recipient from discussing the amount. The houseboat’s owner had charged the vessel was seized without due process after he had gone ashore. His cat was also lost in the incident.
Picture perfect: Villager photographer Lorenzo Ciniglio married Jennifer Weisbord at the Yale Club on Oct. 12. Weisbord, a New York Post photographer, and Cingilio are both Tribeca residents.
Correction: Regarding last week’s article on the commemorative book on the history of the Village’s P.S. 41, editor Laurie Fried contacted us to point out that the school opened in February 1958, not 1957, also that, “The P.S. 41 children and parents did not save the Jefferson Market Courthouse from the wrecking ball in the ’60s. (That distinction goes to Ruth Wittenberg and other activists.) The P.S. 41 children and their families protested the impending closing of the Jefferson Market Library in October 1974 with a march and rally.” Fried said she’s looking forward to finishing up the book by the end of the year and sharing it with the Greenwich Village community and friends of P.S. 41.
Hill of an idea: In last week’s article on the renaming of La Plaza Cultural for the late Lower East Side activist Armando Perez, we failed to mention an interesting historical item. Chino Garcia, who co-founded CHARAS/El Bohio with Perez, down the block from the garden at E. Ninth St. and Avenue C, recalled how they had the idea to cart some of the massive quantity of garbage that had been dumped in La Plaza’s lot to Tompkins Sq. Park to create a hill. Garbage was also taken from empty lots on E. Sixth and Eighth Sts. — where low-rise Housing Authority projects were to be built — for the pile, which was then covered by hundreds of pounds of soil donated by the Parks Dept., and which became a sledding hotspot. “It’s probably the only hill on the Lower East Side,” Garcia boasted, adding he was glad that when the park was renovated in 1991, the city didn’t completely remove the hill. “That hill became a symbol for the community.”
