Go dogs go — all night long!
New York famously has 24-hour diners and delis, overnight pharmacies and numerous other round-the-clock spots. Now, for the New York dog that has everything, there will also be a 24-hour dog run — at Washington Square Park. We were tipped off by Margie Rubin, a disabled activist from Westbeth, who sent us a letter last week complaining that while an alcove she used to enjoy sitting in in her wheelchair is being reduced in size in the park’s renovation, the new dog run for large dogs is going to be going, in the words of Lionel Ritchie, “all night long” from now on. Philip Abramson, a Parks Department spokesperson, confirmed to us in an e-mail: “There will be an entrance to the large dog run on Washington Square South which will allow the dog run to be open overnight while the rest of the park is closed. It was requested by the local dog owners who would use the run. This is part of the renovation’s Phase III, which includes the park house/comfort station. We hope to start construction in late spring/early summer and finish one year later.” Asked if it was the first all-hours dog run in one of the city’s public parks, Abramson said, “I believe so.” Many questions remain unanswered, though, about “Club Canine.” Will small dogs from the nearby small dog run try to crash the pooch party? Will there be a V.I.P. area for the hot dogs (and we’re not talking dachshunds)? Will a pit bull be the bouncer at the gate?
Koch consistent:
Ed Koch said that his former Greenwich Village co-district leader from the 1960’s, Carol Greitzer, recently sent him an old newspaper clipping from March 11, 1965, reporting on his talk at a meeting of the Greenwich Village Association. The article, by Mary Nichols, quoted Koch as saying that all legislative reapportionment — i.e. redistricting — at the city, state and federal levels, should be done by a bipartisan commission. Ironically, it’s the same cause Koch is still pushing today — nearly 45 years later! — as part of his New York Uprising initiative. “She said, ‘Because it’s what you’re currently involved with, I thought you’d be interested,’ ” Koch said Greitzer wrote in a note she enclosed with the old paper. “It’s flaky, you have to be careful when you handle it. It falls apart,” he said of the aged article, which ran in another Village paper. “Regrettably, it was the Village Voice,” Koch said, “I was hoping it would be The Villager.”
