This Halloween, a celebration of Jack Terricloth's DIY art at C-Squat

On Halloween this Sunday, C-Squat hosts a daylong event titled "Cut, Paste, Tape & Terricloth."

The show will present "a modest selection" of the late Jack Terricloth's original cut-and-paste artwork. Terricloth, a former East Village resident and lead singer of the World/Inferno Friendship Society, died in May at age 50. 

Here's more background via the EVG inbox... 

Without fail for 23 years, Brooklyn circus cabaret punx The World/Inferno Friendship Society have faithfully raised The Great Pumpkin at their annual HALLOWMAS celebration. Sadly, due to the recent tragic passing of their lead singer, their version of Hallowmas will not take place this year, or ever again.

We cannot try to begin to replace that event, but we can do our part to help make sure that Jack is remembered on this sacred holiday. So, in honor of Terricloth, we are setting up a small pop-up exhibit as a tribute to our fallen Halloween-obsessed friend. 

Starting in the late 1990s, Jack used to make postcards for his band's cultish following. The cards would advertise the Inferno's latest shows, capers and misadventures. At a time when the internet was replacing how punk rockers mainly heard about gigs, Cloth refused to give up the art of the physical mailing list. He wanted some things to remain tangible. 

We will display the original cut-and-paste postcard collages in all of their wonderful disintegrating DIY scrap art glory. We will also have some original handmade punk show flyers and pages to a lyric zine that he made back in the late 1980s. 

A visual cut-and-paste elegy hoping to pay respect and send a message back to him about the work that he did. Because it mattered.

You can check out the show Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at C-Squat. You can enter through the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, 155 Avenue C between Ninth Street and 10th Street. Find more info here.

Also, on Sunday ... back to the EVG inbox...

After the art show, a number of World Inferno fans will gather in Tompkins Square Park to play cover songs of their music. The band was booked to play a show in the park this Halloween. Obviously, the band will not be appearing but dedicated Infernites are still gathering around 5 p.m. to make sure the songs do not go unplayed this Halloween.

Remembering William John Lopez

William John Lopez, better known as Sharpie to his friends in the East Village and in the hardcore community, recently died. 

According to his parents, he was a victim of cyberbullying, and he took his own life. He was 18. 

This past Saturday, his parents, Ronald and Jeanette Lopez, his sister Jenna and his fiance Sarah Fulton (left in the photo) spoke during a memorial before a free concert in Tompkins Square Park.

As EVG contributor Stacie Joy reports, his family talked frankly and freely about bullying, cyberbullying, and the East Village community that always supported Sharpie.

Here's part of an online tribute to Lopez, who was born and raised on Staten Island:

He was extremely talented and played the guitar and bass. William continually developed his artistic abilities all throughout his life and was a tattoo artist with the family-owned business. William traveled to London which heightened his interest in the punk scene. 

He found a life in the hardcore music scene and enjoyed a bit of celebrity status on the Lower East Side as the heart of the mosh pit. He befriended and was accepted by those with addiction issues and was known to have saved at least 3 lives with Narcan. 

He was a leader and wise beyond his years in many aspects. He was a kind and giving soul and always caring for others.

His family is hosting a celebration of his life on Oct. 17.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. STOMP Out Bullying is a nonprofit resource for kids and teens.

RIP Dee Pop

Photo from 2020 by Stacie Joy

Dee Pop, the longtime drummer for the seminal downtown band Bush Tetras, passed away on Oct. 9. According to an announcement by the band, he died in his sleep. He was 65.

Cynthia Sley and Pat Place, who started the acclaimed no-wave-post-punk band with Pop in 1979, released this statement:

Dee Pop was a quintessential New Yorker, growing up in Forest Hills, Queens and living in New York ever since. He was not only Bush Tetras drummer, but also our archivist, owning an original copy of every Bush Tetras release and t-shirt and also maintaining the band's masters. 

In addition to Bush Tetras, Dee Pop played with Richard Lloyd, Michael Karoli (Can), The Gun Club, Jayne County, and The Shams, William Parker, Eddie Gale, Roy Campbell, Freedomland, Hanuman Sextet, Radio I-Ching and 1000 Yard Stare. He will be sorely missed by his bandmates and the many people he touched throughout his life.

Bush Tetras had a box-set release party previously scheduled for Saturday night at Howl! Happening on First Street. The band decided to move forward with the event, stating in a Facebook post: "We think he would have wanted us to carry on ... with our Bush Tetra release event. The band meant everything to him." 

The evening became a memorial and celebration of his life and attracted many fans and longtime friends.

There were plenty of tributes to Pop on social media. Among them:  

Bob Bert, who has played drums with Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch, among others, wrote this on Instagram: "Completely DEVASTATED over the passing of Dee Pop ... a good friend [and] an amazing drummer who was a big influence to me! Extremely sad day!"

From singer-songwriter Amy Rigby: "Very sad to learn of the sudden passing of brilliant drummer Dee Pop. What a genuinely sweet person, the best of NYC. My heart goes out to his family and friends & Cynthia and Pat/his band Bush Tetras."

And via writer Howard Phillips Rodman: "Saddened to hear that Dee Pop, drummer for the extraordinary Bush Tetras, died ... The BTs innovative, propulsive work represents the very best of post-punk/no wave, and Dee Pop's drumming was its driving force, its heartbeat."

Pop was born Dimitri Papadopoulos in 1956. As Pitchfork noted, he "grew up idolizing Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts, and Keith Moon, but it was Tommy Ramone who would inspire him to start playing despite a lack of formal training."

Pop is survived by his son Charlie and daughter Nicole.

RIP Faith Laugier

Faith Laugier, a prominent presence in the East Village and NYC activist community, died unexpectedly this past week. She was 42. A cause of death was not revealed. 

Here's more on Laugier from the Daily News, which first reported on her passing.

“She was a sensational woman who had an enormous amount of potential and it’s a huge loss for the activist movement and a huge loss for the city,” said Aton Edwards, a friend. 

Laugier became a prominent activist when Occupy Wall Street formed in September 2011 and protesters set up an encampment in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District. 

Laugier slept in the park the first night of Occupy Wall Street protests, said John Penley, a friend. "There weren't that many people who stayed there the first night," Penley recalled. 

The number of protesters in the park grew, and Laugier emerged as one of the movement's leading organizers.

Laugier's friends and family created a website to commemorate her accomplishments. News about a memorial will also be posted on this site. Her family also initiated a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for funeral expenses. 

Photo courtesy of John Penley

RIP Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, an author, journalist and longtime East Village resident, died on July 23. She was 75. According to published reports, the cause of death was due to complications from heart disease. 

Born in Brooklyn, she settled in the East Village in 1967 after graduating from Harpur College (now the State University of New York at Binghamton). 

Aside from her trailblazing work as a journalist, she was known for her relationship with Jim Morrison of the Doors. 

Here's more via an obituary at Legacy.com:

Kennealy-Morrison became a rock music journalist as a young woman, bringing a new seriousness to rock criticism as one of the first women in the field. She interviewed Morrison in 1969 for Jazz & Pop, the magazine she edited and contributed to. 

The two began a relationship, largely long-distance, and they participated in a handfasting ceremony in 1970. It wasn't a legal marriage, though Kennealy-Morrison considered herself Morrison's wife. It was a controversial claim, refuted by some who point out that Morrison was also in a serious relationship with Pamela Courson (1946–1974). 

The handfasting ceremony was included in the 1991 Oliver Stone movie "The Doors." Kathleen Quinlan played Kennealy-Morrison, and Kennealy-Morrison herself appeared in the scene as the Wiccan priestess who performed the ceremony. 

Kennealy-Morrison wrote the 1992 memoir, "Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison." It was one of more than two dozen books written by Kennealy-Morrison, including several fantasy novels in "The Keltiad" series. In 2007, she founded the publishing house Lizard Queen Press, riffing on Morrison's "Lizard King" nickname. 

She went on to write and publish a series of rock-themed mystery novels, including "Ungrateful Dead: Murder at the Fillmore," "A Hard Slay's Night: Murder at the Royal Albert Hall," and "Scareway to Heaven: Murder at the Fillmore East."

She was also a longtime reader of EVG and left comments under her real name as well as, more recently, Peachy McPeachface. 

You can find feature obituaries about her at Variety and the Los Angeles Times, among many other news outlets.

Remembering Biz Markie

There's a new memorial in place for the late Biz Markie outside the Second Avenue F stop at East Houston. 

Will Power created the mural over the weekend for Markie, the legendary beatboxer, DJ and rapper who died on July 16 at age 57. 

Services for Markie, who was born in Harlem, were held this afternoon. 

The mural is expected to be up here for the next two weeks.

RIP Joe the tailor

Several readers have shared the sad news that Joe Ariyav, the longtime proprietor of Joe's Custom Tailors on 14th Street, has passed away. We hope to get some more details soon. 

The sign about Ariyav's death arrived last week on the storefront here between First Avenue and Second Avenue (H/T @brohattan). The notice instructs customers to call a number to retrieve any items that may be inside. 

We knew that Joe's had been around for years, but was surprised to read via Manhattan Sideways that the shop dates to 1965.

❤️❤️ for Hash Halper

People turned out today to pay their respects to Hash Halper at the New York Romantic Memorial Chalk Out in Washington Square Park. 

Halper, the artist known as New York Romantic, drew chalk hearts on the sidewalks around the East Village and other parts of the city these past few years. He had said he felt New York was losing its romance.

And during the day, people had a chance to thank the late artist for all his efforts (photos here by Lola Sáenz)...

He died on June 11. According to published reports, he took his own life by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. He was 41.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. 

A memorial chalk out Sunday in honor of Hash Halper, aka New York Romantic

The family of Hash Halper is inviting his friends and followers to the New York Romantic Memorial Chalk Out in Washington Square Park on Sunday. The chalking will start at 9 a.m. 

Halper, known as New York Romantic, was the artist who helped beautify streets by drawing chalk hearts on the sidewalks around the East Village and other parts of the city. He died on June 11. According to published reports, he took his own life by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. He was 41.

It was estimated that Halper drew over 300,000 chalk hearts in downtown NYC since 2014. 

He told The New York Times in February 2018 that he draws the hearts "because he feels New York is losing its romance, with people holding phones instead of looking at each other." 

Halper got his heart start in 2014 while working at Kossar's Bagels & Bialys on Grand Street. "The reason I started drawing hearts all over the city is because I fell in love with a woman."

Despite his desire to spread positivity, he harbored his own struggles, his family told The New York Times in an article published on July 4.

He was recently preparing for a solo exhibition of his work. 

But, his family said, his paintings were destroyed during an altercation with someone who attacked him in his Lower East Side apartment. Rattled by the incident, he took to the streets and was seen two days later walking barefoot in SoHo.

"He didn't tell people that he was troubled because it was dissonant with his public persona," his brother Omkar Lewis said. "He was the heart guy, so he couldn't reveal his problems to the world, because he was the guy carrying other people's pain."

During Sunday's event, his family is also planning on raising awareness of mental health, homelessness and drug abuse.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. 

RIP Thomas McIntyre

Thomas McIntyre, known to friends as Irish, collapsed in the heat on June 30 and died. He was 55. 

His friend Saori Tsukada has posted a fundraising page to pay for his funeral expenses:

It was in the middle of the heatwave on June 30, 2021, Thomas McIntyre a.k.a IRISH was sitting on one of the porches on E 3rd street just like any other day when his heart failed. The ambulance was called and took him to Beth Israel but he did not come back. 

It was so sudden that it is still hard to comprehend that he is really gone. In the meantime, his surviving wife Lisa, is desperately trying to give Irish a proper funeral service in the neighborhood that he loved. I am one of the neighbors who had the opportunity to get to know him better over the years and I am helping to make that wish come true.

Find the GoFundMe link here. 

H/T Felton Davis  

RIP Art Guerra

We were sorry to hear about the recent passing of Arthur Enrique Guerra, the founder of Guerra Paint & Pigment on 13th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. 

Guerra, who suffered from Lewy body dementia in recent years, died on May 28. He was 81. (The mural in his honor, as seen in the top photo, went up on the store's gate here this past week.) 

Frustrated with the quality of paints available to muralists, Guerra launched the specialty paint and pigment store in 1986. In 2000, Jody Bretnall and Seren Morey joined the business, and the two will carry on after Guerra's death. 

Here's part of a tribute to Guerra on the shop's Instagram account:

Art was an institution in and of himself. A true original, one-of-a-kind character. They broke the mold after they made him. Wild man straight out of Haight-Ashbury, painter, lover of life, good Spanish wine, great Mexican food, art, artists and art materials. He was a chronic saver of homeless animals and a connoisseur of pigments and classical music. 

Forever a kid at heart, Art's boundless energy for art, art materials and the teaching and sharing of his knowledge knew no bounds. We will sorely miss his laughter and his presence. He was not only our partner but our friend. 

As his business partners for 20 years, we would like to assure you that the business that he founded and so loved is secure and will go on in his name. Though right now we are crying we will continue the teaching mission of this business to supply artists with the highest quality paint components possible to make the best paint possible. This was his vision and it is ours as well.

Some longtime East Village residents will recall Guerra's mural on St. Mark's Place of John Spacely, aka Gringo, from 1983 (it was up through the early 2000s) ... Photo by Peter Bennett ...

As an EVG reader said of Guerra's death: "It's a big loss, and not just for the neighborhood."

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Guerra Paint & Pigment Corp (@guerrapaint)

Tuesday's parting shots

There were several reports of chalk hearts around the neighborhood... tributes to Hash Halper, the artist known for drawing chalk hearts on sidewalks in the East Village and other parts of the city in the past few years. 

Halper — aka @newyorkromantic — died this week at age 41. (You can read our post here.) 

Halper told The New York Times in February 2018 that he draws the hearts "because he feels New York is losing its romance, with people holding phones instead of looking at each other." 

Steven took these photos in Tompkins Square Park...

The March Hare also left a hearts tribute outside the shop on Ninth Street...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The March Hare (@themarchharenyc)

RIP Hash Halper, aka New York Romantic

Hash Halper, the artist who helped beautify streets by drawing chalk hearts on the sidewalks around the East Village and other parts of the city, has died. 

According to the Art of Our Century Gallery, Halper took his own life. He was 41. 

The Gallery, where Halper had a solo show back in February, shared the following on Instagram: "He was a thoughtful, kind, peaceful and talented man." 

He just opened his second solo show last Thursday at the gallery Bento on Hudson.

Halper, aka @newyorkromantic, was often spotted chalking hearts on streets and sidewalks, showing struggling businesses some love along the way as well.

He told The New York Times in February 2018 that he draws the hearts "because he feels New York is losing its romance, with people holding phones instead of looking at each other." 

Halper drew his first hearts in 2014 while working at Kossar's Bagels & Bialys on Grand Street. "The reason I started drawing hearts all over the city is because I fell in love with a woman."

After he met the woman, he would pay homage to her by writing her initials, "MSB," along with hearts, on the sidewalks and buildings that lay along his route to work. "I wanted to infuse that romance into the city," he said.

The two eventually stopped seeing each other, but he continued on leaving the hearts — as many as 100 a day. 

According to the Times, Halper was raised in modern Orthodox communities in Philadelphia and Washington Heights and attended Yeshiva University "before becoming less religious in his 20s." 

Sold Magazine had this to say about Halper in May 2020:

Even in these turbulent times, Hash continues to give NYC the love it needs. He starts his day dedicatedly chalking out hearts on the streets, providing the denizens of the city with hope for a conclusive solution to Covid 19 and a restoration that things will resume back to normal. The city needs love right now, and Hash's hearts continue to fortify the flow of healing energy that is much needed, bringing light and positivity everywhere he goes.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, then please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. 

Top photos from 2020 by Steven; bottom two photos via @NewYorkRomantic

Remembering Penny Rand

Friends of Penny Rand gathered early last evening at the Tompkins Square Park dog run to celebrate the life of the longtime East Village resident.

Rand passed away suddenly on May 12. She was 71. 

Rand was a regular in the dog run with Leeluu, who's now staying with a relative.

Photo by Stacie Joy

RIP Penny Rand

Penny Rand, a longtime East Village resident who was a familiar presence in the Tompkins Square Park dog run, died on May 12. A family member said that she passed away suddenly from complications of her treatment for throat cancer. She was 71.

Her friends recall her as a talented photographer and clothing designer as well as a loyal community member and housing activist. 

With city budget cuts preventing the usual maintenance of Tompkins Square Park this past year, Rand helped organized volunteer days to pick up trash and weed and rake parts of the gardens.

In March 2015, she started the Sidewalks of New York Facebook group, which attracted nearly 4,600 members who shared "memories of New York, past and present." 

Her decades-long residency dating to the early 1970s here included a friendship with Allen Ginsberg ... and allowed her to document the early days of punk. (Her photo of Harley Flanagan graces the cover of the Stimulators' first single from 1980, "Loud Fast Rules!")

Rand was an animal lover and adored her dog Leeluu and cat Annie.

She will be interred at a private graveside service this afternoon at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. Rand's friends are planning a celebration of her life in the Tompkins Square Park dog run on June 10 from 4-7 p.m.

Thank you to Steven for the reporting on this post.

RIP Madelaine (Dee) Ferro

Via the EVG inbox...

Residents of Saint Mark's Place greatly miss their friend Madelaine (Dee) Ferro, who passed away this past week at NYU Langone from complications due to COVID-19. Dee leaves two children and many friends, who she always had time for. She was known for her great devotion to animal care. 

Her viewing is today from 4-9 p.m. (with a religious service at 6 p.m.) at Peter Jarema Funeral Home, 129 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. There will be a mass tomorrow morning at 9:30 at St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Church, 101 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, followed by burial in the Bronx.

 Thank you to Allen Semanco

Remembering the city's biggest opera fan, and what will become of her memorabilia?

Lois Kirschenbaum, a fan fixture at the Metropolitan Opera for more than 50 years, has died at 88. https://t.co/WYkMvITA4e

— NYT Obituaries (@NYTObits) April 10, 2021

Longtime East Village resident Lois Kirschenbaum died earlier month. She was 88. 

The Times covered her passing (see tweet above), and followed up with another story on who they called "the queen of the Metropolitan Opera’s stage door since the 1950s."

Corey Kilgannon has a feature on her extensive collection of autographed photos of opera stars as well as singed programs — a number that exceeds 200,000. And they are all sitting in boxes in her spare bedroom now.

Kirschenbaum was a switchboard operator from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who became perhaps New York's biggest and longest-standing opera buff — and an obsessive autograph collector. For over half a century, she spent about 300 nights a year at the Met and other musical and dance performances. Legally blind since birth, she would usually sit in the uppermost balcony and follow the action with a pair of large binoculars, always hustling back after the curtain call — programs and headshots in hand — to gather signatures.

Her will, drafted in 1992, directed her collection to be left to the "Lincoln Center Research Library," which, as the Times notes, is likely a reference to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

Its executive director, Jennifer Schantz, said the library was "delighted and honored," adding, "We look forward to reviewing the collection and learning more."

But...

Since the library does not accept all such donations, however, Kirschenbaum’s friends still fear the material might wind up discarded.

RIP Arthur Farrier

Longtime East Village resident Arthur Farrier, founder of Bookleaves used and rare books in the West Village (now Left Bank Books), passed away on March 25. He was 80. A cause of death was not revealed. 

Here's more information from his published obituary:

Arthur cherished all his many friends and fans from Bookleaves and the tight-knit NYC booksellers community. 

Born in the Bronx, he was a proud graduate of Stuyvesant High School, a U.S. Army veteran who was antiwar, a New York cabbie, a longtime East Village resident, and an accomplished abstract photographer.

Bookleaves was part of a New York Times feature from 2003:

Stocked with out-of-print books, it is a browser's nirvana. People bring in dusty boxes, and the owner, Arthur Farrier, sorts them.

''I have the smallest inventory in the Western world,'' said Mr. Farrier, who spent 20 years driving a cab before he got tired of complaining about disappearing bookshops and opened one of his own. ''The odds against finding a book here are tremendous.''

Mr. Farrier is in danger of becoming a Village character. He affects a beret over a mane of white hair — he calls it a poor man's toupee — and he is a mine of Greenwich Village lore. 

Felton Davis of Maryhouse on Third Street shared the above photo of Farrier with his friend Marianne Goldscheider sitting in Washington Square Park.

"Most of us are, sadly, always running around from one thing to another, but if you had the time, those two had the memories," Davis told me in an email.

Goldscheider, an activist and writer, "is carrying on bravely in her late 80s," though she is now in a senior-care facility near her family in Massachusetts. 

Remembering Carol Joyce on 7th Street

This plaque arrived last week outside 39 E. Seventh St., the longtime home (1963-2020) of Carol Joyce and her husband Bob here between Second Avenue and Cooper Square ...

"In Loving Memory of the Mayor of Seventh Street."

She's remembered here as "anti-establishment, outspoken, compassionate & witty."

In the early days of the pandemic last March, she and her husband stayed at a cousin's country home. While away from the city she died of cardiac arrest on March 22, 2020. She was 93.

Jonathan Ned Katz, a longtime friend, wrote an essay about Carol at OutHistory.org.

She was born in the Bronx on April 1, 1926 ... and later graduated from Washington Irving High School. 

Carol taught textile design for many years at the School of Visual Arts, and she wrote several books on the topic. 

Here are few a excerpts from the essay:

Carol spent her adult life in Lower East Side rentals. In the 1980s, she and Robert Joyce founded the E. 7th Street Block Association which had trees planted, increased street safety and garbage pick-ups, and brought neighbors together at street fairs. Carol fought against gentrification, sometimes winning long battles to keep the heights of new buildings scaled to the neighborhood and protecting old brownstones from being demolished for high rises. 

And...

I always viewed Carol with a bit of awe, as a wondrous, fantastical creature, a quintessential New York character. Bob Joyce said it this way, recalling his wife as "a New Yorker born and bred, with no tolerance for hypocrisy..." 

Her only shortcomings, he noted, were that "she did not drink wine or eat pasta." He called her "the love of my life."

You can read the full essay here. Bob Joyce is now living upstate with relatives. 

Thank you to Dinky Romilly for the photos! 

Remembering Wendy Schonfeld

Wendy Schonfeld died in a fire in her fourth-floor apartment at 335 E. Fifth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue late Thursday night. She was 80. 

The Daily News has more about Schonfeld and her life:

Even at 80, Schonfeld was a vibrant fixture in her East 5th St. building and a priceless mentor to former colleagues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

"She lived and breathed the arts," said Robert La Force, a neighbor for 29 years. "Even though she didn’t really go out the last couple of years, she was still a part of everything," said La Force. "She would stick her head out the window and talk to people."

And...

Her home was crammed with artifacts from Mexico and elsewhere collected during a lifetime of devotion to the arts. 

At the Met, Schonfeld was recalled for guiding younger colleagues to get their noses out of books and helping them communicate the grandeur of art to the general public. 

"She had that wonderful New York way of setting things straight, with kindness," said Joanne Pillsbury, a curator at the Met. "She was a fountain of information about objects and ideas."

According to the News (and as several readers pointed out), there was another fire in Schonfeld's apartment more than 10 years ago. She reportedly suffered permanent health problems from smoke inhalation.

As for this fire, FDNY officials told the News that "the blaze may have been caused by faulty wiring in an air conditioner." 

Photo by Steven