By Wickham Boyle
Inside
Editorial
John Kerry, the right choice for president The compelling reasons why George W. Bush should not remain in the White House four more years are extensive. For starters, we are not as safe as we ought to be, our respect throughout the world has been diminished and we have paid dearly in lives and dollars for a war that didn’t involve our most dangerous enemy. While the president rushed to give tax breaks we couldn’t afford to the nation’s wealthiest, he allowed health care costs to skyrocket, jobs to plummet and an historic budget surplus to be converted into an historic deficit.
The Penny Post
Tech spies and outsourced prayers
The most insane predictions are coming true at an alarming rate. The implantable chip is here ready to deliver all your data to anybody with a scanner. Every phone call is taped. Every computer has enough spy-ware in it to keep a thousand marketers and blackmailers in business. There is no place to hold a private conversation because they’ll lick the sound right off your car windows. And those stickers on fruit? Each one is an eye trailing you through the house. Confronted with the war in a left coast moment
This is a story about the war in Iraq from giant panoramic philosophy to tiny personal moment. It is told from the perspective of my southern California autumn.
First some back-story. My son Henry, just 16, moved to Burbank, California for his last two years of high school. This past summer he played tennis in this sleepy, conservative suburb of Los Angeles, and much to his surprise, was invited by his coach to move in and take his game to the big time. The coach pleaded his case saying he believed Henry could be one of the country’s top juniors in two years and perhaps have a full college scholarship. Becoming a professional tennis player is Henry’s dream and you can’t achieve it living in urban East Coast America with the vicissitudes of weather and the cost of court time. So he moved, and I spent the first month on the West Coast with him. Bless me father, for I am thinking of voting for Kerry
Last week an archbishop in Colorado said that voting for John Kerry would be a sin.
I’m in trouble now. While I’ve been sinning a long time, I haven’t yet disobeyed a direct order from an archbishop as reported to the New York Times. But then, I suppose these are not normal times. Letters to the Editor
Notebook
Shaping a political point of view
An old friend, who grew up in Texas, recently e-mailed me a letter asking me how my passion for politics evolved. It was a question that moved me to invoke some old memories.
Ratner on Gehry
Zoo in City Hall?
W.T.C. retail
Dining Downtown
C.B. 1 meetings
Celebrity tour guides just a call away
Police Blotter
The rain failed to stop another weekend of fun and friendly Downtown soccer action. Birthday girls Emma Gilberg and Mackenzie Charter were among the many who played great games.
Partying on the B.P.C. block
A police officer tasted a piece of patriotic pie Saturday at the third annual block party in Battery Park City,
Exciting downtown scene
Bars/Clubs
Exhibitions
Events
Dance
Film
Readings/Lectures
Theater
If, as most polls and pundits contend, New York City is solidly behind John Kerry for president, ground zero for those against President Bush might well be the East Village. This liberal breeding ground has long had a history of radical politics from the post-Civil War draft rioters to activist playwright Lillian Hellman. Gardeners fight B.P.C. ouster
Liberty Community Garden green thumbs might not have any soil to till, if the Liberty Court board of managers terminates a written agreement for two “islands” located between Liberty Court Condominium and the Rector Place playground. Downtown Express photo by Robert Stolarik
Not many stock traders are aware that Sunday will mark the 75th anniversary of Black Thursday, Wall Street’s greatest crash.
75 years after Wall St.’s crash
Seventy-five years ago, on October 24, 1929, known to history as Black Thursday, a seismic event shook the New York Stock Exchange. It resulted in a catastrophic collapse in share prices, a chain reaction of bankruptcies, and an economic depression that lasted more than a decade, creating mass unemployment. Community boards wary of East River-tower plan
Members of Community Boards 1 and 3 are questioning some parts of the city’s plan to build residential towers over the F.D.R. Drive to finance improved park space along the East River.
Security plan neglected Chinatown’s safety, judge rules
A state judge has ruled that the city illegally ignored the health safety of Chinatown residents when it closed Park Row for security reasons and has ordered the city to do a comprehensive environmental study to look at the street closure’s effects on ambulances and other traffic. A challenge for Downtown’s political challengers
Although he is facing a popular incumbent in Jerrold Nadler in next week’s congressional election, political newcomer Peter Hort said he is hopeful about his chances.
Gay youth want Hudson Park’s 1 a.m. curfew lifted
It rained on the FIERCE! parade last Saturday, but that didn’t stop about 100 queer and transgender youth and their allies from marching and chanting with banners flying from Christopher Park to Weehawken St. just off the Village waterfront. Developer Larry Silverstein, Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg celebrated the raising of the last steel beam at 7 World Trade Center Thursday while the Port Authority’s board of directors were meeting further Uptown to name the next person to oversee ownership of the W.T.C. site across the street. Residents fight plan for north Tribeca towers
Plans for a large-scale development along West St. in Tribeca has some community residents concerned that it may have a dramatic affect on the character of their neighborhood.
Neighbors help Tribeca porter who was run over
Grieving Tribecans are reaching out to the family of a night porter who was killed crossing the street last week. Ernesto Torres, who worked at Tribeca Tower apartment building, died at NYU Downtown Hospital early morning on Oct. 14 after being struck by an automobile. He was 48. Board looks to make Village’s tile park a 9/11 memorial
From far away it is a blur of red, white and blue images. Up close, it is a fence decorated with a menagerie of ceramic tiles with painted messages from across the United States.
P.S. 3 students determine the Hudson is healthy
Trying to emulate “real” scientists, 75 children from Greenwich Village’s P.S. 3 embarked on an adventurous field trip to the Hudson River last Wednesday. Students from kindergarten to grade five, accompanied by teachers and parent volunteers, conducted air and water tests, working assiduously from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tribecan playwright returns to ‘fight it out’
Maggie and Patty are sisters, handsome women of high intelligence — Maggie is in her sixties, Patty a dozen years younger — and after quite some months that Patty has been away from New York, during which interval 9/11 and a couple of wars have happened, they’re sitting together at a table in the restaurant near the river on Tribeca’s Desbrosses Street that’s been Maggie’s favorite for years. Tribeca Theater Festival
A colorless court
From every appearance, with the casting of Peter Dinklage as Shakespeare’s most conniving king in “Richard III,” director Peter DuBois figured his job was done. In fact, with the exception of some of Mr. Dinklage’s performance, the entire production is lackluster and careless, giving the impression of having been thrown together at the last minute. McCarthy era lessons more relevant than ever
THE CHAIRMAN: [J. Parnell Thomas, R-N.J.]: Any real American would be proud to answer the question, “Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — any REAL American! Half the story on an American form
For those who know little or nothing about musicals, a quintessentially American entertainment form, “Broadway: The American Musical,” a consistently entertaining documentary currently on PBS, is a suitable primer, but one that might not impress those with more entertainment knowledge, particularly considering the glaring gaps in coverage. Overall, though, clips of such moments as William Tabbert’s audition of “Carefully Taught” from “South Pacific” are so rare that they command complete attention.
For the Sex and the City crowd
First there was the real thing. Then there was Vagina Monologues and now, thank heavens there is “Vaginas: An Owners Manuel.” This new book published last week by Avalon and written in a clear, concise and funny fashion by Dr. Carol Livoti and her writer-daughter Elizabeth Topp is a great companion to anyone who either possesses the real thing or has an interest in it.Talking Point
Downtown Local
Youth/Children’s
Picture Story
New York’s
NEWS
Mixing alcohol with politics
In The News
7 W.T.C. beam raised as P.A.’s new leader is approved
In The Arts
