Koch-eye view: Although he’s tall, former Mayor Ed Koch was stuck standing right behind another tall politician, Governor George Pataki, onstage at Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s victory party at the Sheraton last week. However, earlier in the night, he’d had a clear view of the place, and told us that the one person he saw walking around with Bloomberg during the festivities more than anyone else was Councilmember Margarita Lopez. Although a few months ago Koch told us there was no way he’d endorse Lopez in the Manhattan borough president Democratic primary because of the ongoing unresolved issues with her 2001 campaign finances, Koch has changed his tune. “I think she’s cleared it up, I think she’s repaid it,” he said, referring to the $186,000 Lopez paid the Campaign Finance Board as a bond so that C.F.B. would give her public matching funds for her B.P. race. “I think she’s very competent,” Koch said of Lopez.
Slow cube coming: New York magazine’s recent Intelligencer column jumped the gun on the date of the “Alamo” cube sculpture’s return to Astor Pl., saying the iconic, spinnable (often by drunken college students) public artwork would be re-installed early this Mon., Nov. 14. However, Carli Smith, a Parks Department spokesperson, said that information was incorrect and that she didn’t know where the magazine got it. She promised to keep us informed. According to another source, Parks is saying that the cube will be returned “within the month.”
Stone free: There are currently no provisions in the Houston St. reconstruction project to save the cobblestones between West and Greenwich Sts. According to John McElvie, the on-the-street supervisor for Tully construction, which is doing the three-year project between West St. and the Bowery, the plan as of now is to pull up the old cobblestones on the two blocks and replace them with “9 inches of concrete and 3 inches of asphalt” when the street is resurfaced a year from now. Right now, workers are only installing some pipes and mains in spots on the street. Yet, McElvie figured if local residents and preservationists made enough noise the plan could always be changed; though, he noted, it’s a lot more expensive and worker intensive to lay and level cobblestones. The stones under the St. John’s Building overpass are in much better shape than the ones a block east because they’re protected from the rain and snow, he said.
Private Fields: As she was feeding a head of lettuce on a fishing pole to a hungry lion dancer at the recent dedication of the new Chinese-American Planning Council senior center in the tony Police Building on Grand St., Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields paused to tell us that she has several job offers from the private sector, so it sounds like that’s where she’s headed. But she didn’t offer any specifics. Neither did the lion.
Check out library meeting: The Greenwich Village Block Associations is sponsoring a forum in conjunction with Councilmember Christine Quinn concerning the proposed interior renovations and state of the exterior of the Jefferson Market Library on Nov. 29 at Our Lady of Pompei Church, at Carmine and Bleecker Sts., starting at 7 p.m. (enter on Bleecker St.). Check the G.V.B.A. Web site at www.gvba.org for updates on the forum.
He’s got the FEVA: Joseph Pupello has been hired as the Federation of East Village Artists’ new executive director. He will be responsible for organizational development, fundraising and management. For a decade, Pupello was president of the New York Restoration Project, raising more than $30 million for the restoration of city community gardens and parks. Also, Tom Birchard, owner of Veselka restaurant and longtime neighborhood supporter of FEVA, has joined the group’s board of directors.
Honky-tonky moves: Damon Dell, owner of the Hog Pit roadhouse-style bar on 13th St. and Ninth Ave. in the Meat Market, tells us he’s opening up a Hog Pit on the Lower East Side at Essex and Rivington Sts. in the former LSX hip-hop club space. He tells us that Hogs & Heifers, another Meat Market favorite in the same mold, opened a Las Vegas branch two months ago.
