PEA SOUP P.U.! It’s time to change the Washington Square Park fountain water! It was green and soupy looking when we went by on Monday. Obviously, it wasn’t because it was St. Patrick’s Day. It was algae. The water jets spurting up from the fountain even had a distinctly green tinge. According to a frequent parkgoer, it had been that way a few days. A Parks Department spokesperson said, “The fountain’s water system uses bromine as an algaecide/disinfectant. We will refresh the system to ensure it remains fully functional.” We looked up “bromine” online, and apparently it — not the algae — was what was causing the bleach-like odor in the fountain plaza: In Greek, bromine means “stench of he goats.”… Also, three port-a-potties were recently installed in the park, so at least there will be somewhere to go during the next year while the park’s comfort station is being rebuilt. We hear Parks initially balked at installing them because they’re a pain to maintain.
CONGRATS! When we called Deputy Inspector Brandon del Pozo this week we heard a loud wail at the other end of the phone. No, it wasn’t a police siren — it was Rex, the new baby boy born in May to del Pozo and his wife, Sarah. Rex joins big bro, Zane, 4½. The Sixth Precinct commander shared a cute anecdote about his latest “member of the squad.” On New Year’s Eve, a Barrow St. woman participating in a noisy, late-night, Occupy Wall Street march through the Village – drumming, chanting, the works — was arrested for disorderly conduct for making a racket. When the activist subsequently learned del Pozo had a new baby, she gave him a gift — a little, children’s-sized drum. Asked if he felt the woman was trying to ensure his son grows up to be an Occupier, del Pozo said, “I thought it was great. My older son has been driving me crazy with it.”
CHIC HOT WHEELS: According to the Sixth Precinct, on Tues., July 3, an emotionally disturbed person got into the parking garage at 3 Sheridan Square and stole a car belonging to Jean-Marc Houmard, the owner of Indochine, the famed restaurant and nightlife spot on Lafayette St. The First Precinct recovered the brown ’89 Mercedes Benz convertible at Varick and Clarkson Sts. The suspect has been indicted for the car theft.
SLASH ROCKER: After we heard about punk rocker Harley Flanagan trying to slash up the Cro-Mags at Webster Hall last week at a hard-core show in the CBGB Festival, we reached out to Laraby Bishop-Sharp. We remembered her telling us she dated one of the Cro-Mags back in the day. (We met Lara a few years ago at the Christodora House at a protest by a group of homeless middle-aged “L.E.S. Slacktivists” who were calling for Michael Rosen to adopt them, since Rosen had helped raise several local boys from the neighborhood.) Anyway, we thought she had possibly dated Flanagan, but we weren’t sure. “I dated Parris [Mitchell Mayhew], NOT Harley,” she e-mailed us. “And Parris and I are still very close friends. I DO have one thing to say… Harley has kids. Those kids just lost their father. And, what their father did is all over the media. That sucks for the kids, big time! The entire situation is really sad.” According to the New York Natives Web site, Flanagan claims he acted in “self-defense.” NYN says it will have an exclusive interview with him soon.
B.P.C. — PEOPS OUT: The last art show at the Bowery Poetry Club as we know it is by Fly, who is exhibiting her PEOPS, and had an opening party there Sunday for her “PEOPS #7” zine. BoPo, as it’s known to some, will close for renovations early next week. B.P.C.’s Bob Holman dropped in to perform at Fly’s show, along with poet Hettie Jones. Holman has posted a statement on the place’s Web site, saying, “The rumors of the Bowery Poetry Club’s death are greatly exaggerated!” We hear from a source that the place will “reopen as a sort of fancy restaurant,” with the Bowery Poetry Club only operating on weekends.
KITTY-CATTIN’ AROUND: We bumped into Doris Diether of Community Board 2 in Washington Square Park the other day and she proudly told us she has a new 10-week-old kitten to replace her feline friend Mr. Bip, who recently passed away at the prodigious age of 19. “It’s kind of a wild kitten,” she told us. “It’s one of a litter of six from a feral cat from someone’s backyard. But I’m sure I can tame it down eventually. His name is Lucky.” Lucky is being followed everywhere by Doris’s other cat, Missy, which is freaking out the young feral feline.
LAGUARDIA LEASE WORRIES: As we were chatting with Diether, Ray Cline came by. He was heading to a meeting with N.Y.U. representatives on the issue of renewing 505 LaGuardia Place’s ground lease. Cline wasn’t feeling too upbeat. “They keep asking us to give up all our rights for the next 30 years,” he said. One provision N.Y.U. is requesting, for example, he said, is that if even one tenant in the Mitchell-Lama building sues the university, then that case’s outcome would affect every single other tenant in the place — i.e. all or nothing.
SOHO PLANTER WARS: A “peaceful protest” is set to occur Sat., July 14, at 102 Prince St., from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. against the strategic placement of anti-artist-vendor planters on the pavement. “Huge planters have been placed on the sidewalk illegally to evict veterans, artists and people who desperately need to earn a very modest living,” an expected protester e-mailed us. “Vendors bring customers to the area, helping all the business people.”
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, the obituary on Steve Ben Israel by Bill Weinberg in our June 7 issue referred to him as Ben Israel throughout. However, Ben was his middle name. As Weinberg explains it, “Right, ‘ben’ is Hebrew for ‘son,’ so everyone thought his surname was Ben Israel, as in ‘Son of Israel.’ But that wasn’t it.” Israel was definitely a son of the Village.
