Teachout holds out: Although Randy Credico, who finished a distant third in the governor’s Democratic primary, assures that Zephyr Teachout will soon endorse Andrew Cuomo, he might be proven wrong. Teachout has said she’ll decide whether or not to do so by Oct. 28, about a week before the Tues., Nov. 4, general election. A source close to Teachout told us there’s no way she’ll endorse the governor for re-election unless he comes down against fracking in New York. Plus, she’ll never back Rob Astorino, the G.O.P. candidate, after she repeatedly slammed Cuomo for virtually being a Republican. Meanwhile, her running mate, Tim Wu, gave a lukewarm endorsement to the Cuomo-Kathy Hochul ticket, saying he did it for the broader Democratic effort.
Crane and the clawback: “I swear to God, I’m gonna go to jail rather than pay up a penny.” That’s not a line from a gangster movie but what Cynthia Crane, the cabaret singer, has to say to Irving Picard. The Madoff assets trustee is still suing Crane and her husband over “clawback” claims in the 2008 Bernard Madoff investment scandal because they took out money before the scheme broke down. The chanteuse is about to move back into the city after she spent the last two years on Long Island. She and her husband, Ted Story, lost their Greenwich Village brownstone on 11th St. — along with an apartment in Paris and her beloved Steinway piano — in the Madoff meltdown. “Irving H. Picard, the son of a b—-, he’s worse than Madoff. He really is,” said Crane, who had lived in the Village for 45 years. “They should leave us alone, time has passed. But I’m not going down quietly.” Crane said she and her husband were introduced to Madoff some 30 years ago and took out money for home renovations two years before the epic ponzi “went bust. [The lawsuit] has been going on five years. We’ve been paying a lawyer about $12,000 to date, just dreadful. But according to Picard, we have made money.” Even their friends can’t believe they have to pay money back after losing almost everything. The couple has once again applied for hardship and is moving into the vicinity of a Downtown hospital because Story has chronic lung problems. “It’s kicking us while we’re down, literally,” Crane said, “because we lost the money and now they want what we have left.”
Meadows will be in the field: For the record, Alexander Meadows confirmed to us on primary day that he definitely will be running against Deborah Glick for Assembly on Nov. 4. We bumped into Meadows as he was heading to the L.G.B.T. Center poll site to catch an appearance there by Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu. Meadows will be running as the candidate of the Progressive Party, a line he created for himself for the election, which is perfectly legal to do. For the record, we saw Glick and Meadows having a very civil conversation at Doris Diether’s party on Sunday marking Diether’s 50 years on Community Board 2. Meadows’s main issue to date is bashing Glick over the Hudson River Park development-rights transfer legislation.
Trouble in paradise: C.B. 2 Chairperson David Gruber tells us the board is set to pass an even tougher resolution urging the city to save the Elizabeth St. Garden and drop its plan for developing affordable housing there. “I’m going to put it on the calendar for October,” he said. “We had an encouraging resolution, and now we want a stronger one.” Gruber said the garden, which is a mere “postage stamp size,” is needed more than ever now, especially since the city is dragging its feet on earmarking two watershaft sites for future parks. “This was recently listed as one of the most beautiful open spaces in the city,” Gruber said of the municipally owned garden, “and I wish our elected officials would recognize that. The board is a strong supporter of affordable housing, but we don’t want it at the expense of one of our rare open spaces. It’s used by hundreds and hundreds of people from the neighborhood.” As for those “elected officials” he referred to, Councilmember Margaret Chin continues to push hard for the housing project on the Nolita garden. Because Chin couldn’t get 100 percent affordable housing (which, let’s face it, was always an unrealistic goal) in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area project all the way over on the Lower East Side in C.B. 3, the Elizabeth St. Garden was quietly targeted as a supplemental site. “We were never formally notified that this was her intention,” Gruber stressed. “It didn’t get any public review. Thousands of people have signed onto a petition against this, representing thousands of voters in the district.”
Florent, the TV show: Adding some serious food savoir faire to this year’s Vendy Awards was Florent Morellet —formerly of Florent restaurant in the Meatpacking District, now of Bushwick. Morellet was among the judges for the food-truck fare contest, held Saturday on Governors Island. Beyond that honor, Morellet is also the inspiration for a new SundanceTV cable series in development, which may be titled, “Florent: Queen of the Meat Market.” Alan Cumming of “Cabaret” fame is set to portray Morellet. “I can very much see him being me,” Morellet told us. “David Sigal told me about Alan Cumming, and I immediately said, yes.” Sigal, who directed the movie of the same name, is the producer of the planned TV series. Patricia Resnick, the series’s writer, wrote the story for 1980’s “Nine to Five.” “She came to Bushwick to meet me in my new home,” Morellet said. Six episodes are in the works, though Morellet has no idea at this point what they will be about. But as he put it, “So many nights were an episode!”
You go, Bo! Firing out a detailed white paper on how he would restructure C.B. 2, Bo Riccobono announced to us his candidacy for board chairperson. Basically, he said, there are so many demands on the chairperson nowadays — from having to attend multiple meetings to appearing at weekend events — that it makes sense to delegate some responsibilities to the board’s first and second vice chairpersons. “What happened over the years is that board chairperson became more of a job,” he explained. “I don’t know if that’s because of the Internet.” The problem, as he sees it, is that this rules out “the vast majority” of board members — those working full-time jobs and without flexible hours — from running for the board’s top office. Riccobono’s proposals could be enacted without changing the board’s bylaws. “It would really be a three-member leadership team,” he noted. He also supports taking a “big picture” approach on zoning, rather than barraging board members and the public with numbing technical details. As for his chances in the November race, Riccobono told us, “I know I have a significant number of people supporting me, otherwise I wouldn’t run.” … We asked Richard Stewart, another declared candidate, about Riccobono and the “Bo Plan.” “I’m just excited to see so many people interested in chairing the board,” he said. “I’m not so sure what he wants to do.” For his part, Stewart said, “I don’t want to do anything fanatical — that’s all I’m going to say!” Tobi Bergman has also expressed interest in leading the board.
Cool as a Cude-cumber: There are rumors a female candidate might also throw her hat into the Board 2 chairperson race. Hmm…for some reason, Terri Cude’s name keeps coming to mind — so we asked her. “I have not yet made any decisions on how I can best serve the board,” replied Cude, who is currently C.B. 2 second vice chairperson. One thing that she could tell us, though, as chairperson of the board’s Arts and Institutions Committee, is that the new Whitney Museum, on Gansevoort St., is on track to open in March 2015.
Patrol gets booted: Jessica Berk, of Residents in Distress, tipped us off that the Christopher St. Patrol has gotten the boot from St. John’s Lutheran Church, on Christopher St., after the patrol’s president, David Poster, made critical remarks about Boots N Saddles at a recent C.B. 2 S.L.A. Committee meeting. The patrol, which includes Guardian Angels members, gathers at the church before going out on its anticrime sorties. But apparently word of Poster’s remarks got back to Pastor Mark Erson, who took exception. Terri Howell, the patrol’s No. 2, confirmed to us that it’s all true.
Correction: Last week’s article on the Democratic primary election for governor incorrectly stated the amount of money Zephyr Teachout spent on her campaign. In fact, she raised about a half million dollars and spent nearly all of it. … (For the record, Teachout didn’t do any TV ads or mailings, but she had ads online, including on Facebook.)
