2014 began, here in New York, with newly elected Mayor de Blasio getting sworn in at City Hall, talking about how he was going to transform NYC from two cities into one, and taking not so veiled swipes at his billionaire predecessor, and ended with Mayor de Blasio trying to figure out how to unite an even more fractured city, under attack from a former Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. It was that kind of year, as our community, our city, our state and our country moved in directions we couldn’t have predicted a year ago. New faces emerged, old faces disappointed, and some folks continued to play the important roles they have played for years.
On December 20, 2004, Jack Newfield, one of the Village’s great heroes, and one of the great journalists of the 20th Century, died. For more than 20 years before he died Jack published an end of the year honor roll, which I was lucky enough to make in 1998. Although I do not fashion myself as a second coming of Jack Newfield, I thought I would take a hand at an Honor Roll, from a Village standpoint, for 2014.
Number 1 on my list for 2014 is Zephyr Teachout. Seven months ago very few people had heard of her. She was a Fordham Law professor, who had been active in Occupy Wall Street, and who wrote scholarly articles about political corruption. Somewhat quixotically, the Working Families Party, eager to find a candidate to run against Andrew Cuomo, began to groom her to run. But when they left her at the altar at the end of May, she decided to run anyhow. For months you would have thought that her name was “has no chance” but she pushed ahead anyway. She hooked up with Tim Wu, a hero of the Net Neutrality crown, built an online presence, gathered 45,000 signatures to get on the ballot, withstood an effort by Cuomo to knock her off the ballot, raised around 750,000 in around 8 weeks, traveled across NY State by car and bus, and got over 35% of the vote. Her vote total actually exceeded the number Republican Rob Astorino received in the General Election two months later. She got support from only two of hundreds of Democratic Party officials in NY State (me and my co-District Leader Keene Berger), but pushed on. In our Assembly District she got 72% of the vote, and she basically tied Cuomo north of Westchester County. No one doubts that her effort led to Cuomo’s “no fracking in NY” decision. She is a voice to be reckoned with in the future.
Number 2 is our Mayor, Bill de Blasio. Heaven knows that his first year hasn’t been perfect. But he has set a different tone in this city, one where people feel they have a chance to be heard. There are promises to make NYC somewhere where those who make under a million dollars a year matter. Bill de Blasio has tried to reshape government into an institution where government officials listen. He has turned down deals where corporations get massive amounts of tax breaks in return for keeping their operations in NYC. He has insisted that any new housing which requires a zoning variance, or some other sort of government permit, must include “affordable” housing. He got rid of “stop and frisk,” and worked with Bill Bratton to reduce crime nonetheless; if the Garner death hadn’t happened police-minority community relations might have improved. He reached contracts with 80% of the City’s labor unions, many of which hadn’t reached a deal with Bloomberg over the prior six years. He actually fought to keep a hospital (Long Island College Hospital) open. He established a “City ID” so that undocumented immigrants could have ID, and refused to cooperate with federal efforts to deport people. He and the City Council arrived at a budget without any threat of cuts. He started his program of Universal Pre-K, picked a Schools’ Chancellor who had actually been both a teacher and a principal, and made city teachers feel appreciated and not reviled. He dedicated extra funding to parks and playgrounds not in wealthy neighborhoods, and appointed some amazing people to office, like Steve Banks at HRA, Julie Memin at Consumer Affairs and Judge Zachary Carter as Corporation Counsel. And in our neighborhood he made sure that Jerry Delakis, at Astor Place, got a permit for his newsstand, after Bloomberg put a padlock on it after 26 years.
Number 3, is for all those New Yorkers who jumped in to help people in distress. Here are a few. Back in March a gas explosion, which had taken seven lives and injured at least 70, left piles of burning debris and a billowing plume of thick smoke in the neighborhood after it occurred around 9:30 a.m. The chaos was captured on photo and video by some residents, while other witnesses immediately kicked into gear, using their bare hands to frantically dig survivors out of the rubble. David Cesario and Alex Camilo were among those responders, rescuing a young boy trapped under rubble immediately after the explosion. The boy, between 7 and 10 years old, was still clutching a PlayStation controller when the two men found him in shock and pain, they said. The pair began working among hot bricks and broken glass to dig the boy out from under the building ruins while the fire continued to burn in front of them. They grabbed the boy and brought him down to the cops and went back. On June 30 an elderly woman was struck by a yellow taxi while walking her bike near Columbus Circle — but she miraculously survived with the help of two construction workers who lifted the vehicle off her. The cab hit the 83-year-old woman at 9:30 a.m. while turning east on West 60th Street from Columbus Avenue, authorities said. She had been walking a blue bicycle across Columbus Avenue with the light. The car was on top of the woman; Joe Delfino, 34, and Marcos Loyola, 60, told the driver to get out and then lifted up the front of the 3,300 pound vehicle. Loyola gently pulled the woman out, and Delfino put the cab down. “All I saw was her sneakers,” said Loyola to the NY Post. “I don’t know where I got the strength.” FDNY medics took the woman to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated for a broken wrist and multiple fractures to her right leg.
Number 4 on my list for 2014 is George Capsis, the publisher of this paper. George continued his relentless crusade for a new Lower West Side hospital, while he served as one of the first journalists to introduce the public to Zephyr Teachout. Only a year earlier Westview News had featured George’s interview with Bill de Blasio at a time when de Blasio was stuck at 8 % in the polls. A month earlier George had published a controversial piece which discussed how race shaped the public debate about the Obama Presidency. George, now somewhere around 87, perseveres every month to publish Westview News with an all-volunteer writing crew and keeps alive the heart of community-based journalism, even as outfits like The Villager (which has 1/8 of Westview News circulation) have become part of big conglomerates and censor local news.
Number 5 are some of the other elected officials who were swept into office along with Bill de Blasio in the fall of 2013. My favorite is Leticia James, who everyone calls Tish, the first black woman ever to hold city-wide office. Tish has not minded butting heads with the Mayor when he is wrong, and standing shoulder to shoulder with him when he is right. She has introduced legislation to have police wear body cameras, and it passed. She proposed that all school children receive free breakfast and free lunch, instead of stigmatizing low-income students, and she succeeded. In November she criticized de Blasio for leaving the Bloomberg-era Human Rights Commission, including its chairwoman, in place, and within the week they were replaced. In December she called for the creation of a pooled retirement system for private-sector employees who lack pensions. Similar kudos go out to Melissa Mark-Viverito, who has redefined the Council Speaker position post-Christine Quinn, and our Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer who is a non-stop dynamo who is leaving her mark on every Manhattan community.
Number 6 is the group of community residents who have dedicated untold hours to shape a new middle school at 75 Morton Street, acting as a liaison between the parent community, the School Construction Authority and the Dept. of Education. These folks include four Community Board 2 (CB2) members: Keen Berger (Task Force Chair), Heather Campbell, David Gruber, Jeannine Kiely, and two Community Education Council District 2 (CECD2) members: Mike Markowitz and Shino Tanikawa. It took years both to get the City to contract to purchase the building, and to turn it over. Since last April, in meeting after meeting, the Task Force has designed a school which all hope will meet the needs – and dreams – of local parents.
Number 7 is Andrew Berman, the indefatigable Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. The Village would not remain what it is without Andrew, who year after year is on top of landmark and zoning issues critical to the preservation of some of the beauty and tranquility of our community. In 2014 he helped lead the effort to sink the secret deal to transfer air rights to the St Johns building without full public review, and he has kept the Hudson River Park Trust under a microscope since then. Andrew has kept the effort to limit the scope of NYU’s expansion rolling after a serious set back in court. And as the year ends he is sounding the alarm about some massive 20 plus story development underway on University Place at the site of the old Bowlmore Alleys.
Honorable mentions? Allen Roskoff, who has built the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club into a powerhouse which has the guts to endorse Zephyr Teachout in the Democratic Primary, and Howie Hawkins (Green Party) in the general election, but can still honor Brooklyn Democratic Boss Frank Seddio and State Controller DiNapoli at its events. Corey Johnson, who has done a creditable job replacing Christine Quinn in the City Council and allowed community voting on how to spend his budget funds. Tobi Bergman, who after 16 years on CB2 has taken the unenviable job as Chair and will try to reshape the Board to be more responsive to the community. And then there is everyone else on CB2, who spend endless, often thankless hours channeling community input into important government decisions.
Arthur Z. Schwartz is the male Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village, and has been a member of Community Board 2 since 1991.