Op-Ed: The back of our ballot in NYC

Op-Ed by Pat Arnow 

Even the most informed NYC voters might overlook key proposals tucked on the back of this year's ballot. These measures are significant, so don't forget to flip your ballot and make your voice heard. 

Here’s what's up as early voting begins on Saturday: 

Proposal 1 

VOTE YES on the State Equal Rights Amendment to the state Constitution.

Equality for all under the law seems like it would be straightforward and popular, but big money is being spent to defeat it. 

Opponents warn that "the law would undermine 'parents' rights' and allow transgender kids to participate in girls' sports teams. The nonpartisan New York City Bar Association says those claims are false," according to Gothamist.   

Proposals 2-6

VOTE NO on NYC Charter proposals. 

"Mayor Adams rushed revisions to change NYC's charter (our constitution) to give the current and future mayors more unchecked power, weaken checks-and-balances, and make it harder for city government to deliver for New Yorkers. The proposals came out of the most rushed and undemocratic charter revision process of the past 20 years and should never have been fast-tracked to our ballots." (from the Grand Street Democrats) 

Here's the text of Proposal 1, the ERA to the NY State Constitution: § 11. a. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in [his or her] their civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state, pursuant to law. 

Proposals 2-6: They sound innocuous, even beneficial, but they're destructive and a power grab by the mayor. 

Proposal 2: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to expand and clarify the Department of Sanitation's power to clean streets and other City property and require disposal of waste in containers." One of the several problems with this initiative, according to The City, is increased ticketing (harassment) of street vendors and small businesses. 

Proposal 3: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require fiscal analysis from the Council before hearings and votes on laws, authorize fiscal analysis from the Mayor, and update budget deadlines."

According to The City, "Opponents of Prop 3 say that requiring the executive branch to submit a budget estimate before a public hearing on a bill is held will just delay lawmaking processes that already take years...Jason Otaño, general counsel for the City Council, testified at one of the Charter Revision Commission hearings that Prop 3 would give the mayor's office a 'de facto veto' of proposed legislation…"

Proposal 4: This proposal would require additional public notice and time before the City Council votes on laws respecting the public safety operations of the Police, Correction, or Fire Departments.

According to The City, "City and State reported that opponents felt that the Adams administration was pushing this proposal in direct response to two specific laws passed by City Council earlier this year: one that requires the NYPD to report on lower-level encounters with residents and another which bans solitary confinement. Adams vetoed both those laws, and the City Council then overrode him."

Proposal 5: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require more detail in the annual assessment of City facilities, mandate that facility needs inform capital planning, and update capital planning deadlines." 

From No Power Grab NY: "The mayor's charter commission claimed that Proposal 5 was based on a recommendation from the city’s Comptroller (the city’s top financial executive)." 

Comptroller Brad Lander’s statement reads in part: "Requiring the Citywide Statement of Needs to include additional detail on facility condition is meaningless for capital budget planning purposes — since these are in fact the projects that the City has already decided need to be improved and to invest funds to do so…"

Proposal  6: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to establish the Chief Business Diversity Officer (CBDO), authorize the mayor to designate the office that issues film permits, and combine archive boards." 

From No Power Grab NY: "Proposition 6 is a collection of three totally unrelated items. It claims to support Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs), but really only renames and largely restates the role of a mayoral office. This gives the illusion of change without additional concrete support for MWBEs." 

For more on what these proposals will do and objections to them, here are several resources and published reports cited above:

• A Guide to the Six Ballot Questions New Yorkers Will Vote on in 2024 (The City) 

• Why New Yorkers Should Vote 'No' on Proposals 2 Through 6 (NYCLU)

• 2024 NYC General Election Ballot Proposals (New York City Council) 

• VOTE NO on Props 2-6 — What You Need to Know (No Power Grab NYC, PDF)

So be sure when you vote to flip your ballot and vote on these propositions! 

------

Pat Arnow is a Lower East Side resident, park advocate and founder of East River Park Action.

"As much a part of the fabric of New York City as the landmarks she helped popularize: Magnolia Bakery, Pastis and her beloved Greenwich Village

Page Six Magazine puts Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell on the cover of its new issue.

And we begin:

Honey blond highlights? Check. Sample-size physique? Check. Closet full of designer duds to wrap around said physique? Check. But Candace Bushnell, the creative genius behind Sex and the City and the NBC TV hit Lipstick Jungle, doesn't just look like a character from one of her best-selling novels. (Take your pick: Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, Trading Up or Four Blondes.) By the way she lives (a feminist, she eventually married a much younger man) and who she writes about (most famously, of course, Carrie Bradshaw), Candace, 49, embodies a modern breed of New York woman that is as ambitious about love as her career. She is also as much a part of the fabric of New York City as the landmarks she helped popularize: Magnolia Bakery, Pastis and her beloved Greenwich Village.

Candace, who grew up in "upper middle class Glastonbury, Conn.," also recalls moving to New York:

After three semesters at Rice University in Houston, she dropped out to "run away to New York City." Her goal was to become a writer, but when she first moved to Manhattan in 1978 at age 19 she lived in a two-bedroom apartment on 11th and Broadway with three other girls. She had to scrape to pay her $150-a-month rent, often eating $1 hot dogs or a can of soup for meals. Dating was a way to score free meals and meet the city's glitterati.

The article doesn't get into what Candace thinks of a post Sex-and-the-City New York ... or the impact the show may have had on New York.

Still, the article notes that: she is relieved to be out of the dating pool. "There's nothing harder than being single. And things are even harder for young women these days," says Candace.When I was growing up in the 1970s, you didn't have to shave your legs, let alone have a Brazilian wax."

No one is apparently approving the reader recommendations at visitnyc.com

How do I know this? Because I went to the site yesterday and started making stupid nightlife recommendations as part of the NYC & Company's "Just Ask The Locals" campaign. (According to the press release, "The site provides an expanded list of celebrity and local insider tips and top five recommendations, organized by Shopping, Dining, Arts & Entertainment and Nightlife. Visitors to the site also will be able to provide their own tips and ideas on how to navigate and experience the City.")

Why did I have such a mean-spirited high-school moment? Part of it was just wishful thinking. I wish that the Cedar Tavern didn't become a condo, for instance. Plus, I was actually curious if anyone was paying attention and patrolling the comments. More important, though, I'm tired of seeing these "Just Ask the Locals" ads everywhere. Seems as if I can't even walk to the bodega on my corner without seeing an ad with Mr. Mickey telling me about the lobby bar at the Bowery Hotel.

I don't mind real locals offering some advice to out-of-towners at the site, as we're invited to do. (Well, I mind a little bit...particularly when it's awful advice.) But! The site also features input from real celebrities! Say I'm from out of town looking for a place to go for a drink. Hmm, Sean "Diddy" Combs suggests a cocktail at the Mandarin Oriental. Perfect! Alan Cumming suggests the Box on the LES. Coltrane Curtis suggests the Beatrice Inn! Go the site and you'll see nuggests like this:

"If you are into clubs, I’d check out Butter, Marquee or 1 Oak." -- Sean "Diddy" Combs

All places that even tourists might know about, and likely couldn't get into unless they were really wealthy and dressed the right way. Here's the thing, the campaign (and site) only caters to an upper-class demographic. (For example, the site lists the most popular hotels, shops and restaurants based on user page views. The top three hotels? The Waldorf, the Bowery Hotel and the W.) This is the sanitized, condofied city our leaders apparently want us to be. All nice and glossy and...

Oh, and there's a whole Sex and the City section on the site:

This is the Life.
This is New York City.™ This is home to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. This is a city known for its cutting-edge dining, shopping, entertainment, nightlife and culture. It’s where lines wrap around the block for a cupcake; where cosmos are sipped over conversation and where energy, excitement and style are found on every street. It’s classic and modern all at once with iconic landmarks that never lose their allure and new hotspots are constantly emerging. So whether you want to try the places made famous by Sex and the City or discover you own favorite locales—this is where it’s done. This is New York City.

Related: Et Tu, Debbie? (Flaming Pablum)

By the way, I don't have an approval system for this site. Yet.

Is America's greatest family moving to the East Village?

We're still reeling from the feature in yesterday's Post on the superduperfaboo Novogratz family...

After reading this, you may want to move to, say, Greenland. Or someplace where aren't TVs. And we pretty much have to excerpt the entire article:

Two gorgeous, self-taught downtown designers with seven young urban kids are set to become Manhattan's next reality-TV stars. Think "Jon & Kate Plus 8" meets "Sex and the City."

Artsy downtown couple Bob and Cortney Novogratz, who gut-renovate dilapidated city buildings and transform them into multimillion-dollar homes, are set to star in "9 by Design," a Bravo reality show premiering April 5 that chronicles their chaotic Manhattan life where real estate is the constant family drama.

Their shenanigans could make Bob and Cortney the latest New Yorkers you love to hate -- with some viewers likely to be outraged by the manic couple's constant uprooting of their kids, and others embracing them as the coolest and most photogenic TV parents since Mrs. Partridge and Billy Ray Cyrus.

Cameras follow the nomadic Novogratz clan -- they've moved more than 15 times within a five-mile radius -- as Bob and Cortney scramble to find a temporary apartment in one day after renting out their mansion at 5 Centre Market Place in SoHo.

They check out a $14,000-a-month East Village rental and briefly consider renting out an old bar where they would bathe their newborn in the urinal. They eventually settle on a two-bedroom apartment where all the kids have to share a 12 x 14 bedroom.

During the eight-episode season, Cortney gives birth, the couple builds their first boutique hotel on the Jersey Shore, and designs a private gym in Hoboken, NJ, a beach house in Amagansett and a townhouse in the East Village.

"We wanted to show off New York City like 'Sex and the City' did," said Bob, 46, who is filmed scooting around SoHo on his Vespa with his pregnant wife on the back of the bike.

"Building in the city is stressful," said Cortney, 38. "People can relate to moving whether they've moved once or as many times as we have. We've lost track of how many times we've moved over the past 17 years." Twice, the family has moved three times in one year.

The chronic flippers live in their homes while renovating, then sell them and move on to their next project.

The family currently lives in a five-bedroom, 8,000-square-foot townhouse at 400 West St., where they've built an indoor basketball court for the kids. But Bob and Cortney are already getting bored; they've listed the property for just under $20 million and are eyeing a move to the East Village.

"The kids may end up in therapy," Bob jokes on the show. Indeed, the couple actually named their fifth child "Five."

The Novogratz kids, Wolfgang, 12; twins Bellamy and Tallulah, 11; Breaker, 9; twins Five and Holleder, 4, and Major, 1, attend three different schools.

Meanwhile, as you may know, work continues at 238 E. Fourth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B where the former one-level construction company was razed to become a BoCoNo-designed $4 million penthouse.



Previously on EV Grieve:
A Manhattan family that intrigues, intimidates and nauseates

[Photo via]

Andrea Peyser does not like the Sex and the City movie (or, apparently, men in pastel shirts)

So New York Post Columnist of the Year Andrea Peyser caught the first screening of Sex and the City yesterday. What did she think?

In a roomful of women who looked as if they hadn't digested in months - and scant few breathing men - I saw the big-screen version of "Sex and the City," an excruciating paean to Manhattan, Manolos and menopause that should have been sponsored by Depends.

When did the story of four aging broads - and these women are about as far from being "The Girls" as Phyllis Diller is from puberty - turn into a horror show?

Time and the tyranny of the camera close-up have not been kind to Sarah Jessica Parker, who at 43 looks positively ghoulish as the still-single Carrie Bradshaw.

Her litany of lifestyle impossibilities continues to mount like her facial blemishes - a rent-controlled apartment, dozens of $525 pairs of stilettos, and a noncommittal, mega-rich boyfriend, Mr. Big. Sadly, the only thing large about Chris Noth these days is his protruding gut.

Ouch.

I spied a gaggle of gals who looked as if they'd eaten recently. I asked, Did you like it?

"Loved it!"

You can't be from New York, can you? "No, Connecticut," she said.

"Better than Indiana Jones!" trilled only the second man I saw. But this guy wore a pastel shirt. Figures.

I predict huge success in the multiplex. New Yorkers know better.

"Sex" sucks.

Hmm.

Well, it's really easy to make fun of a movie like this; it's even easier to make fun of the people who may enjoy this movie. Oh. And not to mention the looks of the actors in the movie. (Chris Noth fat? SJP ghoulish? C'mon.)

I wish Andrea would have written about the real problem with the movie -- how it ruined New York City. It's a subject worth repeating. Maybe she took a different route because the Post covered this a few weeks back. But is saying that Chris Noth has a beer gut do much to bring attention to the rampant commercialization, sterilization and development that the movie helped spawn here?

I invite anyone who may be new to this subject to read the following articles at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York:

How the cupcake crumbled

A plea to SJP

How SATC killed NYC

Related today:
Fashion review: 10 Years Later, Carrie Coordinated (New York Times)

Gallery Watch: 'Group Sex' at Full Tank Moto Cafe

Text and photos by Clare Gemima 

Group Sex

Full Tank Moto Cafe, 49 Monroe St.

The New York City health guidelines — via its updated Safer Sex and Covid-19 fact sheet — discourage group sex, but provide advice for interested parties, suggesting “to find a crowd, pick larger, more open, ventilated spaces”…

This is an open-minded safety precaution endorsed by the New York City health department to take during the pandemic ... and also a genius conceptual parameter for a visual-arts exhibition. 

The East Village-based Ed. Varie is presenting Group Sex in their newest collaborative location on Monroe Street that showcases the works of artists Cavier Coleman, Colleen Herman, Esteban Ocampo-Giraldo, Giorgio Handman, Ivy Campbell, Leticia Infante, Moises Salazar, Nina Gilkshtern, Sarah Hombach, Scout Zabinski and Ted McGrath. (To learn more about each artist, please visit the gallery website here.)

The show explores group sex, sexuality and sensuality — both metaphorically and literally — in a raw, 2,000 square-foot space. This particular Ed. Varie collaboration marries gallery with the new Full Tank Moto Cafe — part cafe, motorcycle workshop and future bookshop all under the same beautiful roof. 

The building used to be a glass factory, and (thematically, if you will) hosts chains hanging from the ceiling. Ed. Varie founder Karen Shaupeter had to enlighten me that the bondage decor was not part of the show but a happy accident nonetheless. 

Through linoleum prints, gouache and acrylic paintings, soft sculpture and collage, the grit of the work in the space left an enduring impression as I walked through and witnessed exposed brick walls around the canvases and spilled dog food along the gallery floor. 

There were spirit and realness both on and off-canvas, and if you’re exhausted by the Chelsea gallery hoity-toity, then please visit Group Sex for a revitalization. Authentic work is out here in the Lower East Side, ready to challenge and capsize the whitewashed and straight status-quo of what being an artist in New York looks like. 

Thank you Ed. Varie for curating a show that, much like its title, isn’t afraid to show its roughness, its realness, its core. Among the standout work: Esteban Ocampo-Giralso’s Mañanas oil painting, depicting an illusionary, self-pleasuring scene that collides ecstasy with the mundanity of one's own bedroom confines. The forms in this piece are curvaceous and rich with highlighting and shadow play that is seductive and wildly transportive.

Another highlight was Ted McGrath’s Marat Moods/“…stop me if you heard this one…”/Haw haw haw. For me, the more disturbing looking the work is, the better. In this oil painting, we see multiple characters looking both humanly and mystically entrenched in a scene that looks so uncertain and on edge that it becomes nerve-wracking and uncomfortable to be around. There are skulls, banana peels and a sense of impending doom all captured in a sizeable canvas. Confusing and wretched, my favorite work in the show, hands down. 

And there is Spring Fever by Moises Salazar, which captured me immediately both from Ed. Varie’s social media and in person. The work depicts a female form wearing heels on a fur backdrop embellished with constructed floral arrangements. 

This to me is a kitsch daydream from the color right through to the glitter, yarn and sequins used to create the piece. The work is so polished and technically precise that it will leave you wondering how Salazar made it, let alone how the idea came into existence. Super cute, super ridiculous and super exciting to see how this artist grows. To no surprise, this piece has already sold.

If you are in need of a visual explosion, or even a new lease on your own creative practice, then I recommend visiting Ed. Varie’s amazing new space, and even striking up a conversation with its founder and staff. The experience was extremely welcoming and informative and I thank Karen for curating a potent and memorable show that represents a handful of talented and young practitioners. 

Group Sex will be showing until April 18 at 49 Monroe St. (across the street from Coleman Skatepark under the Manhattan Bridge). Full Tank Moto Cafe is open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the gallery will remain open until 6 p.m.

Ed. Varie’s sister location, 184 E. Seventh St. at Avenue B, is currently exhibiting a solo show of Cavier Coleman’s work titled Heaven & Hell, also showing through April 18. 

 

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ 

Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

Articles that I won't be reading this week

From New York, a profile of Taavo Somer, proprietor of Freemans, etc. The sub-head alone is enough to scare anyone off:

Coolhunted
For those in search of the next groovy thing, Taavo Somer, proprietor of Freemans and the new Rusty Knot, is the prey of the moment. His downtown anti-style wants to have it all ways all the time—ironic and earnest, neurotic and carefree, cool and cheeseball

Actually, I did read the first three paragraphs, where there was a discussion on the old ice machine at Joe's:

To Somer, however, the ice machine was an object of mysterious beauty. He’d moved to New York to be an architect, and although he’d quit the profession almost immediately, he retained an architect’s compulsive tendency to deconstruct interiors, to take them apart in his head and figure out how they worked. “That ice machine was just kind of awesomely utilitarian,” he says. “The inner workings were right in front of you, not hidden away in some super-refined way.” Somer soon found himself filling drawing pads with studies of dive bars—detailed renderings of fictional haunts where he imagined his friends would hang out. The places he drew looked like Joe’s, with one crucial difference: Everything accidental was now orchestrated, the ice machine a piece of the design. “You don’t know it, but that’s what makes a place like that so comfortable,” says Somer. “That’s why you want to come back every night.”

Do you blame me for stopping after this?

Also, not to pick on New York, a magazine I generally like, there's the cover story on something called Sex and the City. The headline and sub-head here make the article seem sympathetic to the star.

Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words With Carrie Bradshaw
The Sex and the City star likes Victorian morality tales, frets about artistic purity, and laments the passing of Old New York. So how did she become the poster girl for the New Manhattan

Let me know how it goes.



Meanwhile! The New York Daily News also thinks New Yorkers care about the Sex and the City movie. What else would explain the paper running an EXCLUSIVE review of the movie 25 days before it opens? Great scoop, thanks! Oh, and Features Editor Colin Bertram gives it a breathless four out of five stars.

Meanwhile, does anyone die in the movie? Does anyone here care?

"...it's not some perfunctory cinematic appendix to a popular series, but the beginning of a whole new string of films"

That's part of Mick LaSalle's glowing review of Sex and the City in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hoo-boy, did he like this movie. A lot!

Yet even viewers coming in cold will appreciate "Sex and the City" as the best American movie about women so far this year, and probably the best that will be made this year. Indeed, at the rate Hollywood has been going, it may stand as the best women's movie until "Sex and the City II," if that ever comes along.

Meanwhile, Mick wraps it up:

There's something alive here. There's a feeling about this movie, that it's not some perfunctory cinematic appendix to a popular series, but the beginning of a whole new string of films. There's certainly no artistic reason "Sex and the City" can't be the women's equivalent of "Star Trek," with human emotion being the final frontier. Like outer space, that frontier is infinite.

Is it true that in space, no one can hear you scream?

Q-&-A with Susan Seidelman, director of 'Smithereens' and 'Desperately Seeking Susan'

[Image via]

"Smithereens" starts a weeklong revival today at the Metrograph, the newish theater complex down on Ludlow Street.

The 1982 dark comedy, which marked Susan Seidelman's directorial debut, is set in the East Village (and other downtown locales). Wren (Susan Berman), a suburban New Jersey escapee, is eager for downtown fame, plastering "missing" posters of herself on the subway and elsewhere. She sees a meal ticket in Eric (Richard Hell), the hot guy with a short attention span in a band. And there's the too-nice Paul (Brad Rijn), who pursues the uninterested Wren. Hustling ensues.



Seidelman started filming in late 1979, and continued on and off for the next 18 months. (Production shut down when Berman broke a leg during rehearsal.) "Smithereens," made for $40,000, was the first American indie invited to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

She went on to make several female-focused comedies, including 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna and 1989's "She-Devil" with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, among others. (She also directed the pilot for "Sex and the City.")

I spoke with Seidelman about "Smithereens" and her follow-up, "Desperately Seeking Susan," also partly filmed in the East Village, during a phone call last week. Here's part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

On why she wanted to tell this story in "Smithereens":

I was living in the East Village and I was also at NYU. And at the time, NYU Film School, the graduate film school, was on Second Avenue — part of it was where the old Fillmore East used to be. So for three years, that area around Seventh Street and Second Avenue was my stomping grounds.

I started NYU in 1974, and I was there until 1977. So it was interesting to watch the transition from the older hippie generation and hippie-style shops and people as it started transitioning into the punk and new wave kind of subculture. I was a music person, so I frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City at that time. And so, that world was interesting to me, and telling a story set in that world about a young woman who’s not from that world, but wants to be part of it in some way, was both semi-personal and just of interest.

On production shutting down:

There were challenges throughout the shoot because I never had all the money. The budget ended up being about $40,000, but I probably only had about $20,000 at any given moment. I was borrowing and racking up bills. I wasn’t really thinking about how I was going to pay it. I figured I’d get to that when I needed to pay it.

Aside from those challenges, when Susan Berman fell off a fire escape and broke her leg during rehearsal, there was no getting around that. We had to quit filming. I kind of thought, oh, you know, fuck it — I’m not going to let this stop me. It made me actually more determined. I had the time to look at what was working and what wasn’t working, and I learned a lot of stuff. I started editing the footage. I could rewrite stuff and change the story a bit.

On casting Richard Hell:

That was when we redefined the character of Eric, who was originally not played by Richard Hell. It was played by somebody else who was not a rock-and-roller — he was more of a downtown painter/artsy type, not a musician — and was also played by a European actor.

By recasting and redefining that role with Richard Hell in mind, it shaped the tone of the movie and changed it, I think, in a good direction. I’m not going to give names, but the other actor — the other person is a working actor, as opposed to Richard Hell, who was acting in the movie, but was more of a presence and an iconic figure even at that time. So trying to make the character of Eric blend in with the real Richard Hell added a level of authenticity to the film.

On filming in the East Village:

In the scene when Wren is waiting out on the sidewalk and the landlady throws her clothing out the window and then splashes her with water, all the people and all the reactions in the background were from the people living on that block who had come out to watch.

At the time, New York was coming out the bankruptcy crisis. There weren’t a lot of police on the street, there wasn’t a lot of red tape and paperwork. These days to film on the street, you have to get a mayor’s permit — so many levels of bureaucracy. Back then, either it didn’t exist … but also I was naïve to what probably needed to be done.

We just showed up with cameras and we filmed. We had some people working on the crew who were friends and they told crowds lining in the street — just don’t look in the camera. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but it was all very spontaneous.

That’s the advantage of doing a super low-budget movie — you can just go with the flow. For example, there’s a scene with a kid who’s doing a three-card Monte thing on the sidewalk. He was a kid we saw in Tompkins Square Park with his mother. We didn’t have to worry about SAG or unions or anything. I thought he was interesting and [we asked his mother] if they come to this address at this time and be in our movie.



On the lead characters:

My intention wasn’t to make likable characters. My intention was to make interesting characters and who had some element of ambiguity. There are things that I like about Wren; on the other hand, I think she’s obviously somebody who uses people and is incredibly narcissistic. I’m aware of that. But she’s also somebody who is determined to recreate herself and to live the kind of life that she wants to live, and redefine herself from her background, which you get a little hint at, this boring suburban New Jersey life she must have run away from.

On the independent film scene at the time:

The definition of an independent filmmaker has changed so radically. Nowadays, being an independent filmmaker could mean you’re making a $5 million movie that’s really financed by the Weinstein Company, or it could mean you're doing a cellphone movie like “Tangerine.”

But back then, there weren’t that many independent filmmakers. I know there were some people working out of Los Angeles who were doing stuff and a small pocket of people in New York City. So either you knew them or you were friends with them or you just knew what they were doing and had mutual friends. It was truly a small community. And within that community, there were also a definite relationship between people who were musicians, filmmakers or graffiti artists.

So everyone was borrowing people, trading information or sharing resources. Also, the world wasn’t as competitive as it is today. People were eager and willing to help somebody who was a filmmaker would act in somebody else’s film or tell them about a location or a musician. It was pretty simple, like — hey, let’s make a movie, without a lot of calculation.

On her follow-up film, "Desperately Seeking Susan:"

I didn’t have anything lined up after "Smithereens." I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I just finished the movie when it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.

But I did know that there were very few female film directors. And the one or two I had heard about who had made an interesting independent film ... I knew that your follow-up movie, especially if it was going to be financed by a studio, you needed to be smart about the choice. You had to make a movie that you could still be creatively in charge of, or else you could get lost in the shuffle.

For about a year and a half, I was reading scripts. And they were, for the most part, terrible. I just figured these couldn’t be my next movie. I have nothing to say about this kind of material.

So then I got this script. It was a little different than the way it ended up being, but it was called "Desperately Seeking Susan." I liked that the character, Susan, felt like she could be kind of related to Wren in "Smithereens." I thought I could bring something unique to that kind of a role. So I didn't feel like I was out of my element there.

And also, part of the film was set in the East Village, a neighborhood that I loved and knew. The other good thing was I was so familiar with the characters and able to add my own spin using a lot of people from the independent film community in small parts, like Rockets Redglare, John Lurie and Arto Lindsay. Richard Hell has a cameo.



On working with Madonna:

At the time, Madonna was not famous when we started out. We were just filming on the streets like she was a regular semi-unknown actress. So there wasn’t a lot of hoopla around the film.

And then, you know, so much of life is about being there with the right thing and the right timing. It just so happened that the movie came out at the moment that her "Like A Virgin" album was released and they coincided and she became a phenomenon. But since that wasn’t during the actual filming, there wasn’t the kind of pressure that one would normally feel if you were working with a big star or a a super-famous person.

On the legacy of "Smithereens":

I think I was trying to document what it felt like to live in that neighborhood in that part of the city at that time. I never really thought about it in terms of whether the film would pass the test of time or be a time capsule or anything.

But the fact that it ended up being pretty authentic to the environment, to the neighborhood, is maybe what enabled it to pass the test of time.

-----

The Metrograph is showing "Smithereens," which features a score by The Feelies, on a new 35-millimeter print courtesy of Shout Factory LLC. Seidelman will be attending tonight's 7 screening. Details here.

From the EVG archives: Q-&-A with Susan Seidelman, director of 'Smithereens' and 'Desperately Seeking Susan'

Filmmaker Susan Seidelman has just released her first book, "Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls." Seidelman and the book have received a lot of press (The New Yorker... Vogue... Variety... among others). 

I talked with Seidelman in 2016 when her first feature, "Smithereens," played a weeklong revival at Metrograph on Ludlow Street. On the occasion of her book release, we're revisiting this post...

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Seidelman started filming "Smithereens" in late 1979 and continued on and off for the next 18 months. (Production shut down when Berman broke a leg during rehearsal.) "Smithereens," made for $40,000, was the first American indie invited to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

She went on to make several female-focused comedies, including 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna and 1989's "She-Devil" with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, among others. (She also directed the pilot for "Sex and the City.")

I spoke with Seidelman about "Smithereens" and her follow-up, "Desperately Seeking Susan," also partly filmed in the East Village, during a phone call. Here's part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

On why she wanted to tell this story in "Smithereens":

I was living in the East Village and I was also at NYU. And at the time, NYU Film School, the graduate film school, was on Second Avenue — part of it was where the old Fillmore East used to be. So, for three years, that area around Seventh Street and Second Avenue was my stomping grounds.

I started NYU in 1974, and I was there until 1977. So it was interesting to watch the transition from the older hippie generation and hippie-style shops and people as it started transitioning into the punk and new wave kind of subculture. I was a music person, so I frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City at that time. And so, that world was interesting to me, and telling a story set in that world about a young woman who’s not from that world, but wants to be part of it in some way, was both semi-personal and just of interest.

On production shutting down:

There were challenges throughout the shoot because I never had all the money. The budget ended up being about $40,000, but I probably only had about $20,000 at any given moment. I was borrowing and racking up bills. I wasn’t really thinking about how I was going to pay for it. I figured I’d get to that when I needed to pay it.

Aside from those challenges, when Susan Berman fell off a fire escape and broke her leg during rehearsal, there was no getting around that. We had to quit filming. I kind of thought, oh, you know, fuck it — I’m not going to let this stop me. It made me actually more determined. I had the time to look at what was working and what wasn’t working, and I learned a lot of stuff. I started editing the footage. I could rewrite stuff and change the story a bit.

On casting Richard Hell [a longtime East Village resident]:

That was when we redefined the character of Eric, who was originally not played by Richard Hell. It was played by somebody else who was not a rock-and-roller — he was more of a downtown painter/artsy type, not a musician — and was also played by a European actor.

By recasting and redefining that role with Richard Hell in mind, it shaped the tone of the movie and changed it, I think, in a good direction. I’m not going to give names, but the other actor — the other person is a working actor, as opposed to Richard Hell, who was acting in the movie, but was more of a presence and an iconic figure even at that time. So, trying to make the character of Eric blend in with the real Richard Hell added a level of authenticity to the film.

On filming in the East Village:

In the scene when Wren is waiting out on the sidewalk, and the landlady throws her clothing out the window and then splashes her with water, all the people and all the reactions in the background were from the people living on that block who had come out to watch.

At the time, New York was coming out the bankruptcy crisis. There weren’t a lot of police on the street, there wasn’t a lot of red tape and paperwork. These days, to film on the street, you have to get a mayor’s permit — so many levels of bureaucracy. Back then, it didn’t exist … but also I was naïve to what probably needed to be done.

We just showed up with cameras and we filmed. We had some people working on the crew who were friends and they told crowds lining in the street — just don’t look in the camera. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but it was all very spontaneous.

That’s the advantage of doing a super low-budget movie — you can just go with the flow. For example, there’s a scene with a kid who’s doing a three-card Monte thing on the sidewalk. He was a kid we saw in Tompkins Square Park with his mother. We didn’t have to worry about SAG or unions or anything. I thought he was interesting and [we asked his mother] if they would come to this address and be in our movie.

On the lead characters:

My intention wasn’t to make likable characters. I intended to make interesting characters with some element of ambiguity. There are things that I like about Wren; on the other hand, I think she’s obviously somebody who uses people and is incredibly narcissistic. I’m aware of that. But she’s also somebody who is determined to recreate herself and to live the kind of life that she wants to live, and redefine herself from her background, which you get a little hint at, this boring suburban New Jersey life she must have run away from.

On the independent film scene at the time:

The definition of an independent filmmaker has changed so radically. Nowadays, being an independent filmmaker could mean you’re making a $5 million movie that’s really financed by the Weinstein Company, or it could mean you're doing a cellphone movie like “Tangerine.”

But back then, there weren’t that many independent filmmakers. I know there were some people working out of Los Angeles who were doing stuff and a small pocket of people in New York City. So either you knew them or you were friends with them or you just knew what they were doing and had mutual friends. It was truly a small community. And within that community, there were also a definite relationship between people who were musicians, filmmakers or graffiti artists.

So everyone was borrowing people, trading information or sharing resources. Also, the world wasn’t as competitive as it is today. People were eager and willing to help somebody who was a filmmaker would act in somebody else’s film or tell them about a location or a musician. It was pretty simple, like — hey, let’s make a movie, without a lot of calculation.

On her follow-up film, "Desperately Seeking Susan:"

I didn’t have anything lined up after "Smithereens." I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I just finished the movie when it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.

But I did know that there were very few female film directors. And the one or two I had heard about who had made an interesting independent film ... I knew that your follow-up movie, especially if it was going to be financed by a studio, you needed to be smart about the choice. You had to make a movie that you could still be creatively in charge of, or else you could get lost in the shuffle.

For about a year and a half, I was reading scripts. And they were, for the most part, terrible. I just figured these couldn’t be my next movie. I have nothing to say about this kind of material.

So then I got this script. It was a little different than the way it ended up being, but it was called "Desperately Seeking Susan." I liked that the character, Susan, felt like she could be kind of related to Wren in "Smithereens." I thought I could bring something unique to that kind of a role. So I didn't feel like I was out of my element there.

Also, part of the film was set in the East Village, a neighborhood that I loved and knew. The other good thing was that I was so familiar with the characters that I was able to add my own spin using many people from the independent film community in small parts, like Rockets Redglare, John Lurie, and Arto Lindsay. Richard Hell has a cameo.

On working with Madonna:

At the time, Madonna was not famous when we started out. We were just filming on the streets like she was a regular semi-unknown actress. So there wasn’t a lot of hoopla around the film.

And then, you know, so much of life is about being there with the right thing and the right timing. It just so happened that the movie came out at the moment that her "Like A Virgin" album was released, and they coincided and she became a phenomenon. But since that wasn’t during the actual filming, there wasn’t the kind of pressure that one would normally feel if you were working with a big star or a super-famous person.

On the legacy of "Smithereens":

I think I was trying to document what it felt like to live in that neighborhood in that part of the city at that time. I never really considered whether the film would pass the test of time or be a time capsule.

But the fact that it ended up being pretty authentic to the environment, to the neighborhood, is maybe what enabled it to pass the test of time.

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village or Lower East Side.



By James Maher

Name: Holly DeRito and Tulip
Occupation: Owner, Waggytail Rescue
Location: Avenue B between 10th and 11th
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 28

I’m originally from the sticks of Pennsylvania. I grew up with horses on a small farm next to Allentown. I came here for the music scene. One of my friends was a roadie for a band, and I started seeing shows. I just became addicted to New York. I’ve been here for 24 years. I was into hardcore punk, alternative. The first show that I drove up to myself was Bad Brains at the Wetlands.

I was bold but I probably should have been more scared than I was. I was always a little bit fearless. I’ve always been a little bit shy but then I’ve been bold. I like challenges — so one of my friends dared me to go into one of those S&M places and try out to be a dominatrix.

I was going to school and working two jobs. I just did it for shits and giggles, and they were like, ‘Oh, you’re blond, you’re hired.’ So I ended up doing that and that’s how I put myself through college with no debt. And then I did a dominatrix workout program that was on HBO and VH1 Real Sex — it was called Slaversize.

I got really sick with Lyme disease, so I didn’t start that again, but I adopted my dog Taco, and he was just magical. The day that I adopted him, two of my friends died in a murder-suicide, and I just remember he was so scared and I just clung to him. He was my soulmate dog.

Then I fostered a dog for another group, and the second that dog was adopted, Taco just looked so sad. So I road my bike up to the city pound to jailbreak him a friend. There I ran into a girl I had worked with as a dominatrix. She was running a pug rescue.

She pulled me into the back to where all of the dogs were on death row that the public didn’t see. She was like, ‘These are the ones that aren’t going to get out, who can you take? Can you help me?’ And I went home with seven dogs that night. I couldn’t leave any of them. So I went home and called my friends and said, ‘Hey can you watch a dog for a few days?’

I had no idea what I was doing — and that’s kind of how I started. It became like — I can save more. I was so passionate, and it was a challenge. I officially formed a rescue in 2004 and it’s just grown from there. The city has changed a lot in that there are almost no small dogs or family friendly dogs in the city shelters, which is great because people have started spaying and neutering. They have started taking better care of their pets. The city has become really pro-dog and dog friendly in comparison to what it used to be. Here for dogs to breed and have puppies, you almost have to make a conscious effort. They have to be in heat and find each other down the hallway and down the stairs. In Los Angeles, Dallas, and elsewhere in the south, they don’t spay/neuter and the dogs are just running in yards. They’re just completely overwhelmed with dogs.

We had a waiting list of people who wanted to adopt dogs. I went to Los Angeles to dogsit for one of my friends and saw the shelters there. I decided to form a program called One-by-One. We supply the carriers, we pay for the ticket for the dog as well as the leashes, the harnesses — everything. We drop off the dog at the airport, pick it up on the other side and a person just flies with the dog. Everybody said it couldn’t be done, and it seemed like it was impossible, but people love it. Everybody who’s done it has done it again. We’ve gotten about 500 dogs that way — one by one.

I have a little bit more faith in humanity. We get adoption donations. The dogs that are coming in tonight on American Airlines are from the highest kill shelter in Dallas, and then all the fosters are going to pick them up. I’m going to microchip them myself. I have my own little branch in Los Angeles with my system and my setup with the shelters and the veterinarians and we also partner up with a few groups. We take in dogs about every two weeks. I formed a buddy system where people who have fostered help the new [dog owners].

I really like anything hands-on. My mom was a nurse and my grandmother was a lab tech. I grew up going into the lab, visiting my grandmother and being fascinated by tumors when I was 6 years old. That stuff is kind of normal to me. I grew up next to a wildlife sanctuary, and because my mom is a nurse, we used to take in all types of orphaned animals and birds with broken wings. It’s an addiction, and it’s also a little bit of a gamble because I agree to a certain amount of dogs. If I don’t find fosters, then I’m out on the street with the dog. Hasn’t happened yet but I’m at the max amount allowed in my building – so yeah, I’d be sleeping at Remedy diner.

If people want to help we have a little fostering section on Waggytailrescue.org. For support we have trainers who we work with. A lot of the fosters end up adopting. A lot of people are considering adopting a dog and they’re not sure it’s the right time, so they’ll foster for a week or two and see if they’re ready for the commitment. If they’re not ready, they’ll maybe foster again until the right time or the right dog, so it’s a good system.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Noted (and with apologies)

I don't know why I do this. Anyway, this article seems to be floating around out there in the interwebs -- different sites, different dates, but all by the same author. It is titled "New York travel inspired by romantic films."

Travelling the City is like watching or experiencing what we see in the movies or any TV series. If it looks good in the movies, well, I have to say, my instinct one way or the other tells me I want to be there too! New York gives us the thrill of experiencing shopping, dining, be entertained and be romantic.
If you are a fan of ‘Sex and the City’, the first thing that you will remember is watching Carrie Bradshaw (or Sarah Jessica Parker) and her addiction to shoes along with her fashionable dresses. What do you do? SHOP GALORE! One can never go wrong in shopping at Big Apple. Prepare your Manolos or Marc Jacobs to fill your shopping pleasure with sophistication and style at Barneys Madison Avenue.
Not done with shopping? Madison Avenue is where you will find the top end department store filled with American and European designers like Saks Fifth Avenue. Of course who can forget the transformation of Anne Hathaway on the Devil Wears Prada. Make time for celebrity designer shops (Calvin, Giorgio) and fashion house boutiques (Prada, Chanel) in Madison Avenue.
One of the feel good movies with unforgettable wedding proposal to date is Sweet Home Alabama. Why? While others go for a romantic setting at the beach or high end restaurants, Patrick Dempsey picked the perfect spot for a girl (Reese Witherspoon) to choose her own engagement ring at Tiffany’s. While there is a selection of jaw-dropping engagement rings for the bride to be, fine items for men are available and even for babies. Undoubtedly, Tiffany’s remains a girl’s best friend.
After shopping fashionably, and hopefully spending wisely, it is time to perk up your social life. Sex and the City’s famous girlfriends - Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha shows us their ritual revolving with friends and loved ones is by dining out. Despite the countless fine dining restaurants in Soho the City also offers funky and inexpensive ethnic restaurants in East Village.

An Evening with John Strausbaugh

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

An Evening with John Strausbaugh

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) will host author and cultural commentator John Strausbaugh as he reads from his latest book, "The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues" (Ecco 2013) on Thursday, June 13. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. with a Q&A session with Strausbaugh to follow. MoRUS is located at 155 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets. $5 - $10 suggested donation.

The Village is a collection of profiles and stories from events and personalities going as far back as 1640 that shaped and colored the cultural landscape of New York City below 14th Street.

Ada Calhoun writes in the May 31 issue of The New York Times Book Review: How rare and refreshing it is to find a chronicler who can remain dry-eyed and funny while describing the Village’s transformation from laboratory for change to “Sex and the City” tour stop.

Meanwhile, the folks at MoRUS conducted a Q-and-A with Strausbaugh, whose credits include serving as an editor of New York Press.

An excerpt:

MoRUS: Do you believe that the increasing gap between the rich and poor is effecting radical, progressive thinking in New York City? If so, in what ways?

JS: I suspect this is a very low point for radical, progressive thinking in NYC. Again, I’m speaking from what I know of the history. New York City was, for so many decades and in too many ways to enumerate here, a hotbed of forward thinking, not only in traditional political terms but in social and cultural movements as well. All the reprogramming and refashioning of the city over the last quarter-century or so to create the affluent, suburbanized, generic, tourist-friendly New New York has had, I think, a severe dampening effect on the city as a place that nurtures radical or progressive thinking on any front — political, social, or cultural. New York used to be a fantastically creative place on all those fronts. Now it’s being repurposed as a place of recreation, not creation.

Read the rest of the interview here.

A walk around inside the long-abandoned — and ghoulishly beautiful — P.S. 64

Photos by Stacie Joy

In recent weeks, residents who live near the former P.S. 64 on Ninth Street and 10th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C have reported an opening in the plywood, offering access inside the long-empty property.

There have been reader reports lately of people inside the school, including on the roof. The FDNY responded to a fire here in December.

The other day, EVG contributor Stacie Joy, accompanied by a friend, walked through the wide-open gate to look around the former school and Charas/El Bohio Community Center. (The plywood has since been shored up, cutting off this entry.)

After seeing her photos, I asked Stacie for more about what she saw inside the school, which developer Gregg Singer bought in a city auction in 1998.

Why did you decide to enter the former P.S. 64?

It was kind of a whim. I’d heard reports of what was going on inside and I was, as a photojournalist and longtime East Village resident, curious…and the door was open. 

I originally planned just to take some shots of the exterior but when I saw I could get inside the building I decided to document it for posterity. I have a history of getting into places and I felt it was important to see — and share — what was inside.

What did you first notice after entering the building? 

The smell! It’s pretty unpleasant. A mix of urine and funk, with top notes of mold/mildew and, I think, animal death and decay. I also keyed into the sounds…there is a lot of dripping noise, echoes and scurrying and flapping from the animal inhabitants. Hundreds of pigeons live inside, plus the rats. 

It’s almost pitch-black as you enter and there are shards of broken glass everywhere. There is evidence of other people bleeding from getting caught in the shattered glass or broken planks and exposed nails. I could also hear and feel the wind as it moved through the building. It was eerie and spooky and ghoulishly beautiful. It had a bit of a post-apocalyptic feel to it, at least until you made it up to the roof.  

Based on your photos here featuring discarded cans of spray paint and fresh graffiti, it appears people have been inside recently. Did you see any evidence of anyone who may be living inside? Did you think anyone else may have been present while you were there — perhaps just hidden from view?

I did not see evidence of anyone living in there. I didn’t want to disturb anyone who may be living inside, and I wanted to be as respectful of the space as possible for an uninvited guest. There are, I think, six floors including the basement, plus the roof, but I only spied the wall art left behind, and evidence of parties: empty White Claw cans, condoms, teenage graffiti, love notes and messages, mostly centering around sex and drugs, plus some social justice themes. 

What is your assessment of the building’s current condition?

It looks like at one point work might have begun — there were some supplies on the first floor ... but also evidence of a fire. The place is gutted down to the crumbling brick and studs, and there are hazardous holes in the floors and walls. 

The space is soaring, empty and vast. I kept thinking about what it could be, and what a luxury it must be to have so much space to live or work in. The ceilings are so high! And there are so many windows, though most of them are busted out. 

I was with a local artist who marveled at the graffiti and was covetous of the space, and what could be created there. We both felt changed and deeply affected by our time inside. 

As previously reported,  Gregg Singer has wanted to turn the building into a dorm called University Square. The DOB continues to maintain a Stop Work Order — dating to August 2015 — on the property. 

In years past several local elected officials, community activists and residents have asked for the return of the building for community use.