Bobby Sanabria, on the drum set, and his big band wowed the crowd at the Borimix opening party at The Clemente.
Borimix big-band blowout: The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center a.k.a. The Clemente, at 107 Suffolk St., was definitely the place to be last Friday night. That’s because it was the opening party for the Teatro SEA’s Borimix, a month-long celebration of Puerto Rican art, film, music and performances. Making Friday night truly special was the performance by drummer Bobby Sanabria and his 20-piece big band, who played a sweet mix of Puerto Rican and Cuban songs as the hopping crowd enthusiastically hit the dance floor. The Grammy-nominated Sanabria, who is like a walking encyclopedia of the history of Latin music, hit all the right notes, from Tito Puente and Celia Cruz favorites to classics like “Bésame Mucho” and even managed to mix in some Earth Wind & Fire. The diverse crowd was all ages, though it was really the old-timers who had all the right moves. Among those making the scene was former Councilmember Alan Gerson, who a decade ago helped mediate the bitter feud between the building’s Latino and Anglo artist factions that was threatening to rip the place apart. Reveling in the good vibes, Miguel Trelles, one of the building’s artist leaders, said he’d love to see the place have dance parties like this on a monthly basis. Trelles has also started his own cottage industry in the art center, a framing business, Frames and Stetchers.com, which he said is perfectly legal. He said he researched it, and the former public school building’s zoning allows for 20 percent commercial use. He’d like to see more uses like that in the building. “We don’t want a Starbucks,” he said. Hmm, sounds a lot like what the C-Squat folks were saying before they found a good, community-oriented tenant for their long-disused Avenue C commercial storefront: the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS).
Feel the Bern! (a bit less): This doesn’t quite rise to the level of controversy seen in the Republican presidential debates, but it seems there’s a divergence of opinion on the final numbers in the straw vote for the recent political club-sponsored debate in Chelsea between surrogates for the Democratic presidential candidates. No one disputes that Bernie Sanders was the winner in the Nov. 1 show of hands. The Villager’s Mary Reinholz reported that Sanders won with 89 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 59 and Martin O’Malley’s 54. However, two members of the Village Independent Democrats, Tony Hoffmann and Marti Speranza, say Clinton actually got 20 more votes than that, with the final tallies, Sanders 89, Clinton 79 and O’Malley 54. “Even though the article was excellent and captured the event accurately, Mary’s numbers were wrong,” Hoffmann told us. And to hear him tell it, Sanders and Clinton both have strong support among local Democratic activists in the community. “V.I.D. has been doing voter registration and taking informal presidential polls in our community over the past couple of months,” Hoffmann said. “The results of our very informal polls showed Hillary on one Saturday winning by 10 votes, Bernie winning by 10 votes on another Saturday, and the two candidates being virtually tied on the third Saturday.” In addition, due to an editing error, the article said the presidential forum was sponsored by about a dozen local Democratic clubs — only about that many were actually cited on the event listing on the V.I.D. Web page. In fact, as Reinholz had written, two dozen clubs co-sponsored the forum.
Hurl hero: Little Italy activist Lil Tozzi called us with the uplifting (upchucking?) news that her nephew Brandon Williams, 15, saved a fellow student’s life. Both kids, who are autistic, attend I.S. 24 on Staten Island, where they’re in a special-needs class. The girl was eating something, choked and was turning blue. Williams thought and acted fast, giving her the Heimlich maneuver. “When they asked him where he learned that, he said, ‘SpongeBob,’ ” Tozzi said incredulously. “He’s always watched ‘SpongeBob’ since he was a kid. “It made the front page of the Staten Island Advance,” she noted of her nephew’s heave-inducing heroics. “NBC covered it, WINS. Channel 7 is there right now,” she said, as she was speaking to us last Friday. His family also believes that Brandon learned how to swim by watching ‘Sponge Bob SquarePants,’ the cartoon series created by a marine biologist and set in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Apparently, watching ‘SpongeBob,’ beyond sheer entertainment value, has some real benefits for students.
Correction: As of press time last week, the first meeting of the Community Board 2 Pier 40 Air Rights Transfer Working Group had been set for Mon., Nov. 16, at Greenwich House. C.B. 2 subsequently changed the meeting date and venue because Borough President Gale Brewer is also holding a forum on Nov. 16 on the city’s new plan for mandatory inclusionary zoning, and C.B. 2 did not want its meeting to conflict with that one. The meeting was rescheduled for Thurs., Nov. 12, at 6:30 p.m., in the N.Y.U. building at 194 Mercer St., Room 306.
