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Scoopy’s Notebook

Good idea, but…:

In a desperate effort to save the Bottom Line, someone submitted an application to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate it a cultural landmark. Allan Pepper, the club’s co-owner, said he didn’t know the individual but hoped it could stay the club’s eviction by N.Y.U. But Diane Jackier, an L.P.C. spokesperson, said while the agency had received the application and would examine it, it wouldn’t stay the eviction; uses, such as a live-music club, can’t be landmarked, she said, though a building’s interior or exterior, of course, can be.

BAMRA battle:

Lois Rakoff, who ran for female Democratic district leader out of Village Reform Democratic Club, is running again, this time for resident co-chairperson of Bleecker Area Merchants’ and Residents’ Association, challenging Charles Wolf, BAMRA’s current co-chairperson. Both were recently nominated from the floor at a BAMRA meeting. No date has been set for the election but it’s likely to take place in February.

Dean team:

Councilmembers Christine Quinn, Eva Moskowitz, Phil Reed and Bill Perkins, as well as Council Speaker Gifford Miller, were among over 20 members of the Council who endorsed Democrat Howard Dean for president at an event on W. 23rd St. on Monday. Two Downtown Councilmembers, Alan Gerson and Margarita Lopez, were not among them. Gerson’s spokesperson, Dirk McCall, said Gerson is friendly with four of the candidates, Dean, Wesley Clark, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman.

Not yet!

According to the Times obituary page, Katharine Sergava, the 90-something legendary Greenwich Village dancer who portrayed the dream-ballet version of Laurey, the heroine, in the original “Oklahoma” production, died on Nov. 11. But the Post in an article last Friday revealed that Sergava, a Jane St. resident who was teaching dance at HB Studio until just a few months ago, is alive and at the Kateri Residence nursing home on Riverside Drive. Jack Anderson, a Times freelance dance writer, told the Post, “My bio about Katharine was accurate. What makes [the obituary] not accurate is that she is presumably still alive in a nursing home on Riverside Drive.” After the Times obituary appeared, many of her dance students reportedly flocked to her Jane St. home to mourn.

Guilty pleasures:

A new Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins franchise is scheduled to open on Thurs., Dec. 11, in Penn South on Eighth Ave. between 23rd and 24th Sts. in Chelsea. The franchise, managed by Raj Kantamneni, will occupy two adjoining spaces, formerly occupied by Chicken Delite and Sprint, at 269 and 271 Eighth Ave.

Disco director:

Michael Haberman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, plans to form a committee of chamber members to discuss the city’s proposed changes to the cabaret law and take an official position. Haberman noted in an e-mail to members, that “most people agree, the cabaret law has become very ineffective…. This proposal could have a major impact on many of our members.”

Jane revealed:

Jane St.’s Warren Allen Smith says that the street, which claims to have more published authors per square foot on its five short blocks than anywhere else in the city, now has another distinction. All the street’s buildings are described, many with photos, on the Web at https://wasm.us/ws_Jane_Street.html. There’s also a picture of Smith, who we found out this week also goes by the pseudonyms of Victoria and Hortense, the former whom Smith fired for responding to The Villager’s return e-mail without his permission, but then rehired.

Coat coverage:

There are 400 drop sites throughout the metropolitan area for the 15th Annual New York Cares Coat Drive, which Mayor Bloomberg kicked off at the Bowery Mission last week by donating a coat of his own. Drop-off sites include any New York City Police Department precinct in the five boroughs day or night; Penn Station, L.I.R.R. and Amtrak concourse, weekdays from 7:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m.; Grand Central Terminal, Graybar passage, weekdays from 7:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m.; participating Washington Mutual branches; participating Walgreens pharmacies; all Janovic Plaza stores in Manhattan; and Time Warner Cable office payment centers. The Coat Drive, which continues through Dec. 31, will collect “gently used” adult and children’s coats and distribute them to needy New Yorkers.