ZINE Launch Party at MoRUS!
Brand new zine "How Not to Get Arrested at a Demonstration" by Bill of Times Up with illustrations by FLY is being launched on Sunday Oct. 1 at 7 PM at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space!
All attendees will get a just-released copy of "How Not to Get Arrested" zine with the latest tactics. This zine is a crucially important read in this current political climate, giving you all the information you need to know in order to decrease your odds of being arrested at a political demonstration.
The zine includes how to prepare for an action, how to scout your location, how to pack, and many more tips that will keep you from getting arrested and eating prison food. This zine will help you stand up for your First Amendment rights and avoid confrontation with the police. Fly will do a slideshow of her illustrations followed by a discussion where you can add your tips on how not to be arrested!
The annual Blessing of Animals will take place on Saturday September 30th at 1 p.m. in front of Immaculate Conception Church, 414 E. 14th Street near First Avenue. All are welcome!
Kate and I are meeting for lunch, naturally, and she’s suggested a place in the East Village. I can’t say the name because I promised Kate I wouldn’t. (It’s a best-kept secret, only it wouldn’t be if I blabbed, is the idea.) Technically it’s a restaurant, though “restaurant” seems like too highfalutin a term to convey its essence. “Hole-in-the-wall” might be nearer the mark, “dump” nearer still: linoleum floor, laminated menus, Asian-y pop music on the speakers (“Asian-y” is as close as I’ll get to giving away its identity—see, Kate, I didn’t break my word), ceiling fan moving the thick, soupy air around some without cooling it any. Yet the food is as good as the ambience is bad, as I will soon discover when a guy, a waiter I assume though he’s in street clothes, flings on the table first Kate’s dish and then, following a discreet dick adjustment, mine.
The CB3 resolution builds on more than a decade of community demands for improved M14A bus service.
“In response to past calls for better M14A bus service, the MTA has regularly taken the position that the M14A route is operating just fine. Our community knows full well that is not the case,” said Chad Marlow, chair of CB3’s Transportation, Public Safety & Environment Committee.
Marlow added, “the goal of our resolution is to document the shortcomings of the M14A bus service in extensive detail and to request corrective measures be swiftly taken. It is time to stop engaging in a false debate over whether problems on the line exist. Our resolution will hopefully and at long last put that debate to rest so we can get down to fixing the problems.”
The CB3 resolution points out that many of the MTA’s assumptions about the M14A’s adequacy are based on faulty data. For example, because young students do not swipe MetroCards when boarding busses, they are not counted by the MTA as passengers.
Likewise, when M14A passengers give up waiting for a bus and take the M14D bus instead, as they frequently do despite the long walks that await them at their destinations, they are counted as M14D passengers. CB3’s resolution points out that the M14A’s poor service has the greatest impact on local school children, elderly residents, and persons trying to get to and from work.
In addition to requesting services changes to improve the frequency and reliability of buses on the M14A route, CB3 also requested the MTA appear before its Transportation, Public Safety & Environment Committee to discuss why disparities exist between the community’s and MTA’s analysis of the route.
[F]or the last two years, they have begun the task in October, so maybe they like to get ahead. Christo and Dora are a well-bonded pair, and projects like this serve to reinforce their partnership.
Or, maybe they're just bored!
The tree itself is strong and can be easily defended from squirrels. The cross at St Brigid's church is a perfect perch for the hawks, giving them a good view of the nest and surrounding area. We won't know what their real plans are until January or February, but based on their past behavior, these hawks look pretty serious about this location.
WHAT: Free Stop ‘N’ Swap Community Reuse Event
WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 30, Noon-3pm
WHERE: Downtown Art (Rear Yard), 19 E 3rd St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery
The public is invited to bring clean, portable, reusable items to share with those who can use them. No one is required to bring something to take something — you can simply show up with a bag and see what’s free for the taking. Books, toys, fashionable clothing, housewares and electronics are just some of the offerings.
Anything leftover at the end of the day is donated or recycled. Furniture and other large items are not accepted at the swap.
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced a first of its kind settlement between the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force (Task Force) and ICON Realty Management (ICON). This settlement provides tenants broad relief, requiring the landlord to end harassment and hazardous living conditions for the hundreds of tenants in buildings owned and managed by ICON.
Tenants in several ICON-owned rent-regulated buildings in the East Village, the Lower East Side and Brooklyn were forced to live in adverse conditions, enduring excessive dust and debris from construction in the building common areas and apartments, inconsistent and irregular heat and hot water, and lack of cooking gas and elevator service for extended periods.
The Task Force investigation found that, on multiple occasions, ICON failed to obtain Department of Buildings work permits, performed construction outside the scope of permits issued, and failed to appropriately clean or maintain the construction work areas.
The Task Force investigation also found that ICON ignored tenants’ requests for repairs, failed to timely correct housing and building code violations, and subjected tenants to long-lasting interruptions of heat, hot water, and cooking gas services.
The Assurance of Discontinuance executed today by the Attorney General’s office requires ICON to adopt policies and procedures to prevent future violations and safety risks; corrects all outstanding housing, maintenance, and building code violations; establishes safe construction practices; provides rent abatements to tenants during disruptions of essential services; appoints a tenant liaison to immediately address tenant concerns; and establishes an independent monitor to ensure ICON’s compliance with the agreement.
The settlement also requires ICON to pay $300,000 to the State of New York (on behalf of the Task Force) and over $200,000 in penalties, fees, and costs to New York City’s Housing Preservation & Development and Department of Buildings.
"Icon never, ever intended to harass tenants and the task force made no finding of harassment because none occurred. There were some construction issues in a handful of buildings which Icon addressed over a year ago, giving affected tenants rent abatements, and changing their procedures to prevent reoccurrence."
Arts in Education engages a network of passionate and dedicated artists to teach after-school theater classes to underserved middle-school students in the Lower East Side and East Village, filling the critical void left by underfunded or nonexistent drama programs
Arts in Education is offered after-school, completely free, two days a week from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. for 9 weeks in the Spring and Fall. Throughout the program kids engage in ensemble building games, improvisation exercises, text analysis, physical theater exercises, writing exercises, original choreography, character creation, playwriting and mask-making workshops. The students show off their skills and perform their self-written playlets and scenes as well as their own dance at our Culminating Event for friends and family.
It's time to sign up for your local WINTER CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Mountain View Farm supplies farm fresh food to the 14th Street Y CSA. Six Bi-weekly distributions beginning in November — you will pick up a massive box of fresh vegetables at the 14th Street Y, 344 E. 14th St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
This makes it easy to enjoy fresh organic produce all through the winter months.
Each distribution will consist of 25-30 pounds of produce. Vegetables you will see in your share will be: Carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, winter squash, cabbage, purple top and hakurei turnips, black, daikon and watermelon radishes, kale, onions, celeric, leeks, bok choy potatoes, garlic and much more
Feel free to email alice14ycsa@aol.com if you have questions or would like to sign up.
Name: Nancy Blum
Occupation: Artist
Location: Seventh Street
Time: 4 p.m. on Sept. 24
I’ve been here 30 fucking years. I’m from an area called Mainline, Philadelphia. I went to college in Amherst, and I graduated early, specifically to come to New York because I’m an artist. In the 1970s, New York was it – it’s self-explanatory.
I babysat in Tribeca for many years for very wealthy people – loved that. My first job in New York was as an au pair — you’re not paid, but you live in the apartment, and I took care of two little girls. The youngest one, who was three at the time, [later became] the chief curator at the Guggenheim Museum a few years back.
I moved to the East Village in 1988 because I got a job with Irving Penn. His photography studio was on 16th and 5th, and I used to bike to work. It was unbelievable, and I think of him every day. He was extremely important in my life. He was a genius. He rarely spoke. He was extremely intense. He only thought about work, and he was a very civilized man, a real gentleman. In all the years I worked for him, I never once heard him raise his voice or get short tempered, even though we were under a lot of pressure.
Mr. Penn’s studio was very bare. His philosophy was if we can make it out of cardboard, we make it out of cardboard. It was old-school, old world, to the bone. We always stopped work at 5, and we always started at 9. It was a small studio with very few of us, and you could never make a mistake. I knew a girl who worked there — she misspelled one name wrong and she was fired that day. You could not make a mistake – just absolute precision. I adored him, I don’t know what else to say. He was unlike anybody I had ever known.
I was relatively young when I worked for Penn. I met a lot of famous people, and most of them were really unimpressive. I’m going to be honest, there were some who were fantastic, brilliant, but a lot of celebrities were real morons and just shockingly so. They were uninformed, very narcissistic, very superficial. I could say that because I spent time with them – they came to the studio for a couple hours and sat for Penn. Most of his portrait work was for Vogue. He rarely did any private work. He didn’t like to be paid by the sitter, because then you’re in a way obligated to flatter the sitter.
I was a portrait photographer for many years. I was mostly a child photographer. I turned down the Trumps. When I worked for Penn once, New York magazine called, this is 1989, and Donald Trump was going to be on the cover with his wife, and they wanted Penn to shoot the cover. He said no, and they asked if he knew anyone. I was standing right there in the office, so he put them on hold and said, ‘Nancy would you like to photograph the Trumps?’ And I said, ‘No thank you.’ And I was broke. That one picture could have paid my rent for a year, no question. I was really particular.
Eventually ... I gave up the money from the photography, and I said, no, I’ll just starve, and I starved. The reason I stopped was I went to photograph Robert Rauschenberg in 1992 for an art critic named Henry Geldzahler, the curator of 20th Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After I took the picture, Bob said, "I don’t know why you’re doing this Nancy. This is not who you are." I just met the man. He said, "You’re an artist, go home and make some art." So I went home and I made Bob a drawing, stayed up all night, walked over at six the next morning and put it through his mail slot. He loved it. He sent it to where he lives in Florida and put it on his wall in his bedroom. And this man didn’t like anything. So that’s when I knew I was on the right road.
He then gave me a great job. It was unbelievable. He gave me a job to go into his personal closet and archive and organize all his private possessions that he had since the 1940s — his private shit — letters from Cy Twombly, hot dog wrappers, really expensive little Etruscan sculptures. I remember thinking it was unreal.
So I’ve been really lucky, but you have to take risks in life. I was really destitute for many years. You had to live by your wits, but I wasn’t the only one. It’s a very hard life. I paid my rent. You could do it then, you could get it together. You could come up with the $300 for rent. I feel very sorry for young people today – you have to work your fucking ass off.
