Holy tweet! Local Episcopal churches definitely have each other’s backs. After the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted on May 6 to approve a shorter design for Church of St. Luke in the Fields’ planned residential tower at Barrow and Greenwich Sts., Pastor Winnie Varghese, of St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, tweeted out our article about it — with a little dig added, zinging the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation: “GVSHP fails to preserve West Village parking lot. Church moves forward with mission with modified plan.” Ouch!
N.Y.U. rumors: N.Y.U. hasn’t yet hired an architect for its planned building on the current Coles gym site, at Mercer and Houston Sts., but could soon. The university recently created a Superblock Stewardship Advisory Committee to advise the administration on quality-of-life issues related to construction on the Coles site. President John Sexton said the committee will advise on picking an architect — a process to begin this summer, with a selection expected by early fall. Superblocks resident Sylvia Rackow, one of the most vocal critics of the N.Y.U. plan, says that a new ULURP is needed now that an architect is being selected. However, N.Y.U. spokesperson Philip Lentz countered, “A new ULURP is not required because January’s court ruling dismissed all the challenges to the ULURP raised in the court case. The ULURP adopted by the City Council included height and square-foot limits on the building on the Coles site, and those, of course, will be followed in the design of the building.” While a faculty working group didn’t recommend any retail shops for the Coles site, Lentz said, that’s not set in stone. “As for commercial uses, that will be determined as planning for the site gets underway with the new stewardship committee,” he said. There’s no target date for when construction could begin at Coles, and rumors of a September 2015 start date are just that, Lentz said. “We are just beginning the process of selecting an architect,” he stressed. As for the dueling appeals on the N.Y.U. community lawsuit, arguments will likely be held in the fall, with a resolution expected by the end of the year.
Art is the story: Some of the art on display at last weekend’s Lower East Side Festival of the Arts literally could have been “ripped right from the headlines” of The Villager. There was a painting of Minerva Durham in front of the Citi Bikes at Spring and Lafayette Sts., “The battle for Petrosino Square,” by Serge Strosberg; and a sort of N.Y.U. collage including purple pennants and a graphic of the “Proposed ‘Zipper’ Building,” by Marianne J. Edwards, called “License to Destroy.” Then, there was Jeff Wright’s “41 Keys for 41 Gardens” mobile, actually a collection of keys by his artist friends who supported him in his “feud amid the foliage” at Dias Y Flores Garden, on E. 13th St. As for the court case against Wright for a down-and-dirty scuffle (well, it did involve soil, right?) last summer with Claude T. Kilgore over a dispute over plants and a garden plot, Wright said it was recently dismissed. As for Kilgore, he said, “As long as Jeff Wright stops harassing me — charges were based on sufficient evidence of physical assault — or creates libel to my name, I don’t care what transpires in his life.”
D.A. on McMillan: The article on Cecily McMillan’s sentencing in last week’s print edition of The Villager didn’t include a comment from the prosecution. Erin Duggan Kramer, deputy chief of staff for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, issued the following statement on the Occupy Wall Street protester’s sentencing: “The District Attorney’s Office will always uphold the right to freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. These constitutional protections are bedrocks of our personal liberties, the passionate exercise of which is deeply entrenched in our city’s culture. We also have a duty to uphold the law when someone’s action crosses the line between a protected freedom and a crime against another. An unprecedented amount of time and care has been given to the mass arrest cases that arose during the Occupy Wall Street movement. More than 2,600 cases came into the D.A.’s Office — from violations to felonies — and each case was individually reviewed to ensure that only those whose actions provably violated the law were charged. Great leniency was offered first-time, nonviolent offenders and the overwhelming number of cases were justly resolved with adjudications in contemplation of dismissal, in which charges are dismissed and sealed from a defendant’s record after six months. This defendant chose to take her case to trial, and was convicted by a jury of her peers for a violent felony.”
Jeremiah Joint-son? Former Lower East Side activist — and perpetual pot activist — John Penley last week called from North Carolina, where he recently moved temporarily after giving cannabis-friendly Colorado a try. The house he was staying in had too many people in and out, so he didn’t feel his computer and belongings were secure. Plus, he was living up in the mountains in the snow, which, along with the energy-draining high altitude, was grueling. Sounds sort of like that classic Robert Redford mountain-man flick, “Jeremiah Johnson” — umm, maybe “Jeremiah Joint-son?” Always the agitator, Penley wondered how much L.E.S. documentarian Clayton Patterson will rake in for his place on Essex St. when he sells it before he departs for Austria. “I’m sure he’s getting millions for that building,” Penley said. “Somebody’ll buy that and tear it down and build a big building. It’s a great location. He and Elsa will have more money than they know what to do with for the rest of their lives.” Plus, he asked, what is Patterson going to do with his voluminous photo archives? Patterson doesn’t know, either, except he won’t give them to N.Y.U.’s Tamiment Library like Penley did with his own photo archives because they didn’t do right by Penley, in terms of archiving and crediting, he said. So — does Patterson’s property have air rights? “Who knows?” the L.E.S. documentarian said. “And what difference does it make? This world is a different world than what I came to.” As for Penley saying how Patterson and Rensaa stand to cash in, Patterson said taxes and the dollars-to-euros conversion rate will suck up a lot of the bucks. “People always want to tell other people what to do with their money,” he said. Penley will be back in town to help lead a 740 Park Ave.protest on June 5 at 6 p.m. against the Koch brothers — there will be a movie and free popcorn — and a campout outside the Mexican Consulate, 27 E. 34th St., over the recent brazen assassinations of Zapatistas in Mexico.
