Just a Naderite (and Kucinichite):
You knew Ed Gold had to respond to Keith Crandell’s talking point in last week’s Villager. Crandell had chided Gold, whom he called a “gray Democrat,” for Gold’s urging in a previous talking point that local Democratic clubs could really make a difference in helping beat Bush if they united. “Nothing from a [Ralph] Nader supporter surprises me,” said Gold. “Now he’s going with another winner,” Gold cracked. “[Dennis] Kucinich wants Keith to run as a delegate.” Crandell, who did support Nader for president in 2000, told The Villager he was invited to be a delegate for Kucinich and plans to accept. “I like him,” he said. “ I don’t think he’s going to win.”
Preservation talk:
Space is still available for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s Thurs., Dec. 4, presentation and question-and-answer session with architect Stephen Gottlieb of Wank Adams Slavin Associates/WASA on the award-winning restoration of Louis Sullivan’s Bayard Condict Building on Bleecker St. — the only building in New York designed by Sullivan, who was Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor and is considered the father of skyscraper architecture. Under Gottlieb’s direction, the firm designed the unusual restoration method for the all-terra cotta street facade by removing, repairing and re-installing 1,300 of the 7,000 pieces of terra cotta. The event will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Third Street Music School, 235 E. 11th St., between Second and Third Aves. Reservations required; free for members, $5 nonmembers. Call 212-475-9585 x 39 to R.S.V.P.
Thanks strangers:
Esperia Dessi, 94, and her daughter Silvana want to thank the two Village Samaritans who helped them out a few weeks ago. The elder Dessi tripped over a sidewalk in Washington Sq. Village near Bleecker and Mercer Sts. on Nov. 2. She broke a bone in her hand and her nose was bleeding. Silvana said one man holding a baby gave Esperia a baby’s garment to stop the bleeding and another called an ambulance that took her mother to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Silvana, who lives in the Village, said her mom has returned to Florida and is doing well.
Heads up!
Tom Ellett, New York University’s executive director of Residential Education (i.e., housing), will take over as president of the Greenwich Village Little League next year, when Barry Lafer steps down, Lafer tells us. Ellett is currently G.V.L.L.’s vice president of baseball operations.
Freed fleeing Tribeca?
We hear former City Councilmember and new Civil Court Judge Kathryn Freed is thinking of leaving Tribeca and buying in the Grand St. co-ops. Freed recently got a splint taken off her finger, the one Sean Sweeney broke when he jumped on the couch while they were watching TV — so she’s ready to bang the gavel. Freed told us, however, pertaining to a prior Scoopy item on the finger incident, that she and Sweeney haven’t been a couple for several years. Maybe it’s safer for Freed that way.
Hey! Ho! — Oh, no!
Arturo Vega, the Ramones’ longtime artistic director, says the Department of Transportation almost botched the “Joey Ramone Place” sign ceremony by installing the sign on the wrong corner on the day before the event. Vega said he got a call from CBGB saying that a still-covered street sign had been placed on the corner of Bleecker St. and the Bowery. He immediately went out and climbed the lamppost to check it out, and was at least happy to find it said “Joey Ramone Place,” not “Joey Ramone Way,” as he had been told four days earlier, which had caused him to go back to the drawing board to start redesigning posters, T-shirts, party decorations and the like. After three hours on the phone with city bureaucrats getting nowhere, Vega bought a pair of steel cutters and got the sign down in under two minutes, then was going to put it up on the right pole at Bowery and Second St. — and extra-high, since, with punks being punks, the sign might not otherwise last long. But D.O.T. workers finally showed up, though at first refused to put the sign up that high. However, quickly realizing Vega would probably just raise the sign later, they relented…. Hey, maybe Vega could take down that Chelsea Historic District street sign that’s still on a lightpole at Bleecker and Sullivan St. You’d think after half a year, D.O.T. would have gotten around to it by now.
