Memorial moment: On World AIDS Day, last Thursday, a crowd of several hundred gathered on Greenwich Ave. at Sixth Ave. for the dedication of the New York City AIDS Memorial. Others stood inside the adjacent small park with the long-winded name, the New York City AIDS Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle. Long forgotten, it seemed, was the acrimony over how much of the former St. Vincent’s Triangle the memorial would occupy or the very name of the park itself. There was a far, far big problem now — namely, the tweeter in chief, Donald Trump. Speakers included Christopher Tepper and Paul Kelterborn, the two young planners who co-founded the memorial project, as well as Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James, Councilmember Corey Johnson, state Senator Brad Hoylman and Borough President Gale Brewer, as well as Alphonso David, counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had been expected but couldn’t make it. David reaffirmed Cuomo’s pledge to “end AIDS by 2020.” Cuomo is the only U.S. governor to promise that. “By testing, treatment and new drugs, we will end AIDS in New York,” David declared. “We will end AIDS in New York regardless of who’s in the White House.” Stringer said he was proud to have put up the first $1 million for the memorial, which features interlocking triangles and was crafted in Argentina. “Here, in the West Village, the heart of our country’s L.G.B.T. movement, this symbol will stand true,” the Beep said. “At the national level, we are seeing people appointed at the highest levels who want to roll back the gains of the last decade. Be loud and proud,” Stringer urged the crowd, “because silence equals death.” Johnson spoke about the fateful day in October 2004 when he found out, at age 22, that he was H.I.V. positive. Johnson was born in 1982, when New York was in the grip of the plague. In all, 100,000 in the Big Apple have died from the disease. The activists from ACT-UP led the fight to get government to face the crisis. “I and others of my generation know that we are standing on the shoulders of giants,” Johnson said. “St. Vincent’s deserves to be recognized today,” he added, of the city’s groundbreaking and courageous first AIDS ward. “One day, we will live in a future without H.I.V. and AIDS,” he said. “So let this memorial remind us that every man, woman and child who died had value, and also let us remember the heroes that ran to help them — not away. … And now, with this illegitimate man being president, who we will not normalize, we will continue to take care of ourselves…Muslims, L.G.B.T. people, women, Jewish people… .” The Gay Men’s Chorus closed out the event with some beautifully haunting singing. The ceremony began and ended with the reading of names of the 100,000 victims (well, at least some of them), in a sort of overlapping sonic collage by three readers as the names scrolled on screens. Some of them just had first names, “Lefty from 125th St.,” “Tito”…they kept on reading as the police gathered and stacked up the chairs — clack! clack! — on the chilly, now-empty avenue. The memorial has been enclosed again for some finishing touches before opening to the public.
Tweet of the week: In a touché to Twitter devotee Donald Trump, Art Downtown tweeted: “Lon[e]liness under a dictatorship was the average citizen’s experience in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. To usurp Trump, fall in love.” Hey, it’s good advice for anytime — but especially now.
Scoopy scoop: Last week The Real Deal reported that Raphael Toledano is trying to sell a portfolio of 13 of his East Village buildings. However, Scoopy actually broke the news on this back in June. “The word is he’s in trouble with his lenders,” our source told us then. “It’s Madison Equities, they’re very aggressive. They had him do the dirty work — work over the tenants. It’s the whole Tabak portfolio — they’re marketing it for $150 million. This is real. It’s an off-market deal. It’s being peddled quietly — not on the open market. The real story is Raphael Toldeano’s short reign of terror may be about to end.” The Real Deal reported that the cocky young mogul is asking for $160 million. O.K., so we were off by $10 million — but you read about it in Scoopy first!
