Saluting the flags: There’s no longer any excuse for not knowing where Hudson Square is, at least not when you’re actually in it. The Hudson Square Connection recently festooned the up-and-coming neighborhood just west of Soho with more than 50 brightly colored light-pole banners that proclaim either “WORK,” “PLAY” or “CONNECT.” Those three concepts “are really the essential parts of our mission,” said Ellen Baer, director of the Hudson Square Connection business improvement district. “This is our first salvo,” she said of the new BID’s efforts to help the district cement its own identity. “We hope those banners will be up there for a couple of years.”
Plan B: L.E.S. Slacktivist John Penley has made a slight change of plans for the finale of his Halloween evening “protest/fiesta” in Tompkins Square Park. Angered by a recent Community Board 3 resolution seeking to regulate amplified punk rock concerts in the park, Penley and others at the rally will ask the question, “Whose park?” except they will insert some choice adjectives in between “whose” and “park.” The protest will start at 7 p.m. Penley had originally announced that at midnight “we will go to the apartment of the person behind this.” (Burning torches were optional.) But he said a female friend who puts on performances in the park dissuaded him from going to the apartment in question because it will be late at night and the person is a woman. “Contrary to public opinion, when people give me advice, I actually listen to it,” Penley said. Instead, Vlad Teichberg will do another “culture jam” projection, beaming images onto a nonresidential building located somewhere around the park’s perimeter. Doing projections onto a residential building could technically be construed as harassment, Penley said. The images will be a history of the neighborhood, he said, including shots of Tompkins Square Park, housing issues, squatters and the 1988 park riot.
Fig(uring) Newton:
So, we were asking ourselves, why WAS Jeremiah Newton evicted from his office at New York University with the indignity of having the school’s security guards watching over him? Scoopy reported last month how Newton, an executive board member of the Stonewall Veterans Association and a producer of the new film about Warhol superstar Candy Darling, had so rudely received the boot. John Beckman, N.Y.U.’s spokesperson, provided an answer, sort of. “Because it is a personnel matter, I can’t really go into the specifics,” he said. “I will try to speak about this in general terms. We did recently have some reorganization in the film program at the Tisch School of the Arts that led to the elimination of one individual’s job. The loss of employment in this case was a consequence of budget and reorganization issues, it was not disciplinary in nature. It can be very upsetting to receive such news; in some instances, we think it is wise for there to be a presence from our Public Safety Department.”
Ed Gold memorial: A memorial for the late Community Board 2 member and early V.I.D. stalwart Ed Gold will be held on Sun., Nov. 14, starting at 1 p.m., at N.Y.U. Law School’s Greenberg Lounge in Vanderbilt Hall, on Washington Square South, between MacDougal and Sullivan Sts. Council Speaker Christine Quinn will present a Council proclamation to representatives of N.Y.U. and Columbia Journalism School at the service, which are major beneficiaries of scholarship bequests. Speakers will start at 1:30 p.m.
