Volume 74, Number 34 | December 29 – January 04, 2004
Scoopy’s notebook
Fanning the fire: So what really started all the stories on Bernard Kerik? One of the first was a column by Ellis Henican in Newsday. East Village activist John Penley said he had been driving back to New York City with Stanley Cohen from the radical attorney’s Upstate country house, when they heard on the radio that Kerik had been nominated for secretary of Homeland Security. “Stanley was just nonstop yelling for three hours about what a crook Kerik was,” Penley said. “When I got back I called Ellis immediately. I can’t say 100 percent that’s what prompted Ellis to write the column — but it added fuel to a smoldering fire.” Henican was subsequently quoted by both the New York Post and Village Voice.
Afflack! Toni Dalton of Westbeth tells us that Affy, a.k.a. Afflack, the goose that was living on Gansevoort Peninsula until he was rescued off the Hudson River ice last winter, is doing well at the Farm Sanctuary in Upstate New York. “Affy is enjoying the sun today with his buddies; I can hear the geese from my office. Again, thank you for getting him safely to us,” Susie Coston of Farm Sanctuary wrote to Dalton in a video holiday card of Affy.
Restaurant rumble: Gabrielle Boone, owner of Pennyfeathers cafe at Seventh Ave. S. and Grove St., was annoyed to read in Scoopy’s Notebook recently about Sushi Samba 7’s attorney claiming complaints about the chic-set seafood place were partly a result of Pennyfeathers being a competing business and the fact that Pennyfeathers’ owners, the Boones, also live next door. “How she can say this has anything to do with Pennyfeathers is ridiculous,” said Boone. “The fact that there’s a gas line 18 inches from mother’s window — that pisses me off. Now they’ve installed these pink-and-white, hideous Chinese lanterns. This has nothing to do with the holiday.”
Weiner worry: We hear that Ray Alvarez of Ray’s Candy Store at Seventh St. and Avenue A is bravely continuing to man his hot dog and egg cream counter, despite the fact that he has a worsening hernia. Friends are urging him to go to the hospital and get it taken care of before it gets infected, but Alvarez doesn’t want to close his 24-hour store, a neighborhood mainstay, afraid the store might get robbed if he does. We hear that for the first time in years, he closed the store for an hour last Sunday because he was in so much pain.
Pie Man’s plight: Aron Kay, the “Yippie Pie Man,” no longer throws pies in the faces of controversial political figures — but he may soon get thrown out of his apartment, as he can no longer afford the rent. Kay, who lives in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, has space for two roommates. Part of the deal is having to go to the store a lot on errands because Pie Man cannot get around very well. For information, check his web site at www.pieman.org.
Poster puzzler: We still haven’t been able to track down who posted those Holocaust-referring posters on the doors of the E. 11th St. office building of Beyer Blinder Belle, the architects of Gregg Singer’s proposed towering dorm on the site of the old P.S. 64/CHARAS/El Bohio. The posters refer to Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz: “Do you sell your souls, Beyer & Blinder & Belle — for 30 coins of Silver? Rudolf Hoss [sic] — designed Auschwitz — design is not neutral, pretending so is an abdication of professional responsibility.” Michael Rosen, a founder of the East Village Community Coalition, said he didn’t know who put up the posters — and didn’t even know who Hoess was either. “I did a Google search on it — and whatever that man’s name is popped up,” he said. However, Rosen concurred, “Architects do have a responsibility” to the community.
Correction: Due to an editing error, the caption in an article in last week’s Villager on the “East Village USA”/ “East Village ASU” feud stated that the artworks at “East Village ASU” at B-Side Gallery “didn’t make the cut” for the “East Village USA” show at the New Museum. In fact, the shows are exhibiting works by some of the same artists.
Art aficionados: The dueling East Village ’80s art gallery shows are bringing renewed attention to the East Village art scene of yore, of which Mark Kostabi emerged as the most successful artist, at least in financial terms. Apparently, even the Tompkins Sq. Park homeless always knew this. At one Art Around the Park in the late 1980s, two homeless guys sizing up the paintings ringing Tompkins Sq. Park recognized Kostabi’s and knowing his reputation, swiped it and ran. They reportedly sold it for $500.
Squat ’n’ roll: The Lower East Side Squatter Homestead Archive Project art show closing party will be Jan. 9, 8 p.m. – midnight, at Sixth St. Community Center between Avenues B and C. Gringo Loco will be D.J.’ing and plans to play “a lot of Mexican dance music and punk and hard core, like the Bad Brains.” Admission is $5.
