Tomorrow (Friday) night, his friends will be celebrating his life and work at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square S., from 6-9 p.m.
You may find more details on the flyer below...

Unfortunately, our current lease is up as of June 2016. We’re just announcing it now to our customers. This is our third location. We keep losing our leases. That’s the story. These stores can’t maintain anymore. Stores like this, it’s the end, period. Everyone asks why aren’t there more. There aren’t more because of real estate.I don’t know what’s going to happen, like everyone else, but it is highly unlikely that we can move again should our lease go up beyond our means. Like many small businesses, we simply may not make it.
Name: Alan Good
Occupation: Owner, HENGE Outdoor Ping Pong Tables, Dancer, Choreographer
Location: Tompkins Square Park
Time: 2 p.m. on Friday, April 15
Last week, Alan, who moved here in 1977, talked about his early career as a dancer with Merce Cunningham. After an injury, he started thinking about his future. He pitched some goofy ideas... and one of them caught the interest of a worker with the city's Small Business Administration.
My advisers were kind of bored, but one day there was this one guy, 75 years old, who was in the fashion industry. He had Coke-bottle glasses and eyebrows out to here, and I said to him, I’m kind of thinking of concrete ping-pong tables. I know them in China and Europe because I lived and taught over there, but I don’t see any here and I can’t find any on the web.
And he stopped what he was doing and looked into the distance and said, ‘Ping pong, I remember ping pong.’ And the complexion in his face changed and his eyes watered a little bit. This was a sincere response, even a physical one.
So I [created] Henge in 2009. After six years you make so many mistakes and just keeping going. I wasted so much time — I almost caused my company to fail. We used to have this word in Merce Cunningham, ‘wrong.’ Wrong actually meant right. It was so wrong it was right.
In 2011, [the table in the center of the Park] became the eighth table we ever made and the second in Manhattan. I whipped up a suggestion for Tompkins Square Park of two tables over in [the northeast section].
When we came along finally to donate, at the last second another angel named Marc Schulz said, ‘Well that’s cool, but why don’t we put it here?’ [near the center of the Park]. I just wasn’t ballsy enough to suggest this. And in one fell swoop he probably determined the success of my company. Suddenly it was in the heart of the classical arching network of paths in the Park, right by the staff center and flagpole, and the intersection, most important, had 4-foot paths.
This became a performance area. The table gradually became this gathering spot, like a pub. One thing I like is that teenagers... sometimes I see them just draped over [the table]. They’re using the net as a pillow, and there are like 17 of them on it. It’s so sculptural.
This allowed me to reach so much further the aim of my company, which is not really about a cool object, it’s about the negative space — the space around and what people do with it. That’s reflected in the sculptural idea, not just in the base. The emptiness around here is what people flow through.
There’s a concept in the base of that table, which we call the T40, which is a well-known volume from the branch of mathematics known as topology. This is called Steinmetz solids, and as a positive, as an actual mass that exists, are two cylinders that intersect, often at right angles.
Can you imagine if you have two straws, perfectly joined? Now Steinmetz solids as a negative, meaning if you pressed them into clay and removed them, and you look at the imprint that they leave, they leave a very interesting and not predictable shape. Negative space is exactly what you’re looking at. You’re also looking at another more commonly known simpler form, also known in mathematics as the ogee. The ogee is also something in 3-dimensions, but it happens to be an S-curve. Once you take a step back and look at all the variations, you see it in fluid dynamics, the human cheekbone, the feet in furniture, and in water and rivers.
You see these strange clearly etched lines that you’ve never really seen before. They’re symmetrical and they’re curved, but they’re unusual, and they have kind of a rational to them. People should be destabilized. People should be knocked a little bit goofy when they see things. That’s the kind of thing that healthy societies do, something to pry you off balance. The concept was that you just throw two things together, like a fairly large-scale public event with paddles and balls and onlookers, and then a tiny little living ecosystem that people ... can enjoy and watch.
Upon visiting Portland, Ore., there was a series of plazas that link like a necklace through the city. The city had dictated to two architects that they were to include and not quarantine away or ticket skateboarders, on the risky notion that skateboarders are not evil people. They mix with courtesy with any other kind of person, people going to and from school and work, and that they can coexist. They’re not so wild that they can hurt you.
So I came away from that experience saying the least I can do coming out with this new public amenity for parks is invite and not repel skateboarders. So we made a triangular net that skateboarders can [ride].
Now we’re in 35 to 40 cities and we [put another table in the Park in 2015]. The mailing list for the weekly tourneys that we do is probably 200. We’re hoping to get other neighborhoods going, because there are 20 Henge tables in all and this summer there will be 42 in the New York City area. Jones Beach State Park is getting 12. What we want is the folks who come around here to come regularly. They bring that out of each other — the idea that you can by chance kind of expect a buddy to show up, even without the aid of text.
The whole company is about trying to get strangers to meet, and because negative space is so important, that the base is an early expression of the power of the negative space. The object is cool, but what’s around it is even better.
The walls are the kind of green you’d expect in a hospital; there are surgical lights (and crystal chandeliers) and lots of stainless steel, and the drinks incorporate herbal elixirs that Mr. Trummer concocts.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., the New York Police Department, the Office of Court Administration, the Legal Aid Society, and Grand Street Settlement announced the second “Clean Slate” event, an upcoming warrant forgiveness opportunity where New Yorkers with open summons warrants for qualifying crimes can have them cleared from their record, without fear of arrest.
The types of summons warrants that can be cleared at this event include:
· Disorderly Conduct
· Public Consumption of Alcohol
· Public Urination
· Littering
· Unlawful Possession of Marijuana
· Others, including some subway offenses
In addition to the outstanding warrant, the underlying summons can also be resolved at this event without fines or other penalties. The presiding judge will issue Adjournments in Contemplation of Dismissal, or ACDs, which require the recipient to avoid new arrests for six months, before the dismissal and sealing of his or her case. Warrants for felony or misdemeanor charges cannot be resolved at Clean Slate, but Legal Aid attorneys will be present to offer free legal advice in an effort to help individuals resolve such cases.
Ellis finds current-day New York a bit unsettling: “I ate last night at the Ace Hotel and it was like a hipster museum. Dinner was incredibly expensive and I was the oldest person there; everyone was dressed in their artisanal finery and going home to watch ‘Girls.’
“New York once seemed to be a place for adults. You went knowing that it was going to be about sex and grit and drugs. Now New York seems childproof, like a moated, gated community for tourists and rich people.”
The attorney general’s office signed off on the sale of the property in October 2014, not knowing the buyer, Allure Group, was going to push the city to lift the deed restriction that required the property to be operated as a nursing home, an official said.
On Feb. 24, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen’s chief of staff frantically offered a $16.1 million refund to The Allure Group, which had paid the fee to get a deed restriction lifted on the property at 45 Rivington St. The deed change allowed Allure to sell the property to a luxury-condo developer for $116 million.
In return for the refund, Allure was told, the city sought a long-term care facility or affordable housing, according to a source close to the negotiations and evidence reviewed by The Post.
At the time of the deed modification, the department’s commissioner was Stacey Cumberbatch, who was appointed by Mr. de Blasio in 2014. She resigned in January. No reason was given for her departure, and she moved to an administrative job with the public hospital system NYC Health + Hospitals.
To: Raphael Toledano and Brookhill Properties
From: Toledano Tenants Coalition
Date: 4/20/16
The Toledano Tenants Coalition is gravely concerned about demolition taking place at buildings owned by you, or entities controlled by you.
The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has placed violations for elevated levels of lead dust in several of your buildings, causing the Coalition concern for tenant safety during ongoing demolition. Specifically, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) found that samples taken at three buildings you own contain elevated lead levels ranging from 1.5 to 16 times acceptable levels.
The three buildings, 235 East 5th Street, 233 East 5th Street, and 514 East 12th Street, were found to have elevated lead levels in common areas. Two of these buildings are home to children under six years old. Elevated lead levels can be hazardous to anyone, and can cause physical and developmental disabilities in children under six years old.
When you, or entities controlled by you, do demolition work that poses a potential risk of lead exposure to tenants, we demand that:
• A proper lead mitigation plan that utilizes an EPA-certified abatement contractor is put in place;
• Local Law 1, the New York City Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 2004, is followed.
In addition, we demand you take the following precautions to protect tenants:
• Notify building residents two days in advance of demolition work.
• Post warning signs outside work areas while work’s in progress.
• Clean, clear, and seal off work areas.
• HEPA-vacuum before doing work.
• Cover/seal ALL windows, floors, vents and doorways with plastic and waterproof tape.
• HEPA-vacuum and wet-mop work areas after each day's work.
• Store work materials in sealed containers, or remove them from premises after each day’s work.
• Carefully discard debris, and ensure that no dust or debris is tracked out of work areas.
• Spray plastic barriers with water mist, and safely remove them; fold and seal plastic in plastic bags.
Tenants have been advised that if they don’t believe you’re complying with the law, including the legally mandated demands outlined above, they should call 311, and report your activities to the relevant city agencies, including DOB, HPD, DEP, and DOHMH.
In closing, please don’t use demolition/renovation as a ploy to begin buyout discussions with tenants.
Sincerely,
The Toledano Tenants Coalition
As part of the current agreement, the developers are providing at least $20,000 annually to the congregation for the next 198 years, in addition to a $600,000 payment up front. East River is also giving the synagogue a $180,000 “fit-out allowance” for the synagogue to design and rebuild the sanctuary and other spaces, like offices or meeting spaces in the basement.