Chelsea Now

BY YANNIC RACKWhat if you could step into the shoes of

local legislators and decide what improve-ment projects to greenlight for your neigh-borhood? That possibility is becoming real, once again, as the Participatory Budgeting process kicks off — after last year’s inau-gural effort awarded funds to, among other things, a new park on W. 20th St. and an ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act]-compliant bathroom for Jefferson Market

YOUR WEEKLY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL’S KITCHEN

BY WINNIE McCROYNearly 100 community members came together on the

evening of Oct. 7 at Fulton Auditorium in Chelsea for the monthly full board meeting of Community Board 4 (CB4). The watchword for the meeting was development — par-ticularly, the petition for transfer of unused development rights for properties on W. 24th St. to Extell Development and chef Anthony Bourdain’s rumored opening of an inter-national food hall at Pier 57.

First Vice Chair Delores Rubin led the Public Hearing session, where the community weighed in on the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) application for the transfer of unused development rights to 136 W. 24th St.

“Normally air rights would be transferred if they were in the same zoning district. They would have requisite congruity,” explained land use lawyer Jay Segal, who spoke

at the meeting on behalf of Extell Development. The real estate company is attempting to secure the 29,000 floor area ratio (FAR) of unused air rights from the co-op at 136 W. 24th St., and tack it on to their property at 142 W. 24th St., so that they can build up.

“Extell entity, which is one building away, wants to use these 29,000 feet. The co-op wants to sell it to them. But in order to do it, two things need to happen. The BSA must okay it, and because of the variance, we have to form a ‘chain’ ” between the buildings, Segal told Chelsea Now after the meeting.

He explained that the in order to transfer development rights in New York City, properties have to be contiguous within 10 linear feet. So if the FAR rights are transferred

CB4 Mulls Air, Street, Pier Matters

Continued on page 4

Have Your Say: Participatory Budgeting is Back

Continued on page 12

Photo by Rowa Lee courtesy of Friends of the High Line

Halloween Fun for Great Pumpkins and Little SproutsNot so long ago, the “Death Avenue” section of West Chelsea was downright scary! On Oct. 24, The High Line’s family-friendly Haunted Halloween event revisits this era, when characters from the railway’s indus-trial past are resurrected for a living history lesson that comes with music, snacks, puppets, and spooky surprises. See page 2.

BY ZACH WILLIAMSAcquiring one of the 5,100 permits issued

by New York City to sell food on the street can take a long time, but Mohammed Attia found a relatively simple way: through a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy.

Attia is one of thousands of food cart operators who rent someone else’s permit in order to avoid trouble with the law and hefty fines. He pays a permit-holder $6,000 each year to operate in his name from April until

Vendors Push to Lift Permit Cap

Continued on page 6

ALIEN INVASION THREATENS MANKIND And now that we have your attention, be sure to catch the “Honeycomb Trilogy” — which takes its audience on a journey from the first manned mission to Mars, all the way through the aftermath implied by our alarmist headline. See page 19.

© CHELSEA NOW 2015 | NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VOLUME 07, ISSUE 22 | JULY 16 - 22, 2015© CHELSEA NOW 2015 | NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VOLUME 07, ISSUE 33 | OCTOBER 15 - 21, 2015

2 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

HIGH LINE HAUNTED HALLOWEENGhosts of the past come to life

for a fall afternoon of mild frights, sweet surprises, and haunted history lessons that harken back to when freight trains ran at street-level on 10th Ave. — causing so many colli-sions that the area became known as “Death Avenue.” To prevent pedes-trians from becoming ghosts, “West Side Cowboys” used to ride their horses in front of trains, to warn of approaching traffic. Some of them will return on Oct. 24, along with other historical characters from the neighborhood’s industrial era (and instead of giving warnings, they’ll be handing out treats). So come in costume and get into the spirit, as you trick-or-treat and participate in frighteningly fun free activities that include face painting, a photo booth, a puppet show by Penny Jones & Co., horn-powered tunes from The Rad Trads, the spooky storytelling of April Armstrong, Caribbean-influenced brass hip-hop music by Bombrasstico, and sweet treats (Day of the Dead cookies! Hot chocolate! Pumpkin pie ice cream!) from fiendishly creative vendors La Newyorkina, Melt Bakery, and Terroir at the Porch.

Free. Open to all ages (costumes encouraged!). Sat., Oct. 24, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. on the High Line (btw. W. 14th St. & W. 17th St. Enter via the stairs or elevators at W. 14th or W. 16th Sts.). For info, visit thehighline.org or call 212-206-9922.

WIN TICKETS TO “THE VELVETEEN RABBIT”

The Atlantic Theater Company begins its 2015/2016 “Atlantic for Kids” season with a world premiere musical adaptation of “The Velveteen Rabbit.” Long before the days of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, the nurs-ery toy characters of author Margery Williams Bianco helped children explore matters of longing, loss, wis-dom, and friendship. A young cast brings life to the book’s beloved tug boat, wooden lion, porcelain doll and sawdust-stuffed rabbit, as they explore what it means to be real. A talkback session after each performance offers kids the chance to interact with cast members and discuss the themes of the play. For the chance to win four tick-ets to the Nov. 1 show, send an email to [email protected]. Include a daytime contact number. The winner will be notified on Oct. 26.

Best suited for ages 3 to 9. Sat. & Sun. at 10:30 a.m., through Nov. 1. At Atlantic Theater Company’s The Linda Gross Theater (336 W. 20th St. btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Not content to take your chances on our raffle? Call 866-811-4111 or visit atlantictheater.org to purchase tickets ($15 for ages 10 and under, $20 for adults, with group discounts available).

BLESSING OF ANIMALS AT CHELSEA COMMUNITY CHURCH

The nondenominational Chelsea Community Church (CCC) is really seri-ous about that “all are welcome” policy

— especially when it comes to their annu-al Blessing of Animals service, where the pews are full of paws (and feathers, and even scales). The guest speaker is Eric Barsness, of Puppies Behind Bars — a program that trains prison inmates to raise service dogs. Tenor Otto Walberg, the service’s longtime lay leader, will perform a new song composed by sing-er-songwriter and guitarist Phil Marsh, who will accompany Walberg. On Nov. 1, the church celebrates its 40th year with a service that includes special music and an overview of CCC’s history.

The Blessing of Animals service takes place on Sun., Oct. 18 at 12 p.m. at St. Peter’s Chelsea (346 W. 20th St. btw.

Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Free (a collec-tion will be taken). Visit chelseachurch.org and puppiesbehindbars.com.

HIGH LINE OPEN STUDIOS SELF-GUIDED TOUR

Finding out how the hamburger’s made will be as much fun as having it for lunch — when over 60 artists peel back the curtain to reveal their creative pro-cess, and allow you to walk away with a deal on stuff from their studio inventory. The High Line Open Studios event pro-vides the chance to get a rare glimse of artist workspaces, along the High Line between the Westbeth Artists building and the West Chelsea Arts building.

Sat. & Sun., Oct. 17–18, 12–6 p.m. The self-guided tour starts at the West Chelsea Arts building (508–526 W. 26th St. btw. 10th & 11th Aves.), where visi-tors can pickup tour maps and info on participating artists. Visit highlineopen-studios.org.

—SCOTT STIFFLER

Photo by Rowa Lee, courtesy Friends of the High Line

So fun it’s scary: Oct. 24’s High Line Haunted Halloween has food, puppet shows, music, and mild mayhem.

Photo by Ahron R. Foster

Enter our raffle for the chance to win four tickets to the Nov. 1 performance of Atlantic Theater Company’s “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

Photo by Peggy Vance

Eric Barsness of Puppies Behind Bars (here, with Dudley) will speak at Chelsea Community Church’s Blessing of Animals service (Oct. 18).

Courtesy High Line Open Studios

Maria Fragoudaki’s workspace, seen here, is one of the destinations on your High Line Open Studios self-guided tour (Oct. 17 and 18).

October 15 - 21, 2015 3.com

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from 136 W. 24th St. to 142 W. 24th St., the most logical way to form this “chain” will be to count the small lot between the buildings as a link in the chain.

Extell will then build on top of their existing properties. During the meeting, CB4 member Betty Mackintosh asked about the potential that this approval could result in a midblock hotel that was out of scale with the rest of the block.

“They said it’s for a commercial build-ing, and that would allow a hotel,” said Mackintosh. “This is a very hot issue in that neighborhood. This is the third applicant who has come here about this. This fellow will inventory unused devel-opment rights in the area.”

Questioned after the meeting about this, Segal said, “There is no indication this will be a hotel…but things change all the time. The most likely choice is a commercial building, offices or hotels. It depends on what the market demands.”

CB4 members voted to send a letter to the BSA recommending denial of the transfer of unused development rights, in a roll call vote.

MORE TROUBLE ON THE STREETDuring the public session — amidst

Hudson Guild’s invitation to free Zumba classes and teen programming, Manor Community Church’s notice of a free food pantry, and Neville Dance’s announcement of an Oct. 24 show at

Ailey Center — some area residents came forward to let the board know that they were not happy with the trouble they’d seen on the streets.

The Hudson Yards / Hell’s Kitchen Alliance BID spoke in support of Agenda Item 18, a letter to the NYC BID Association regarding a Street Vendor Study, which concerned the possible introduction of a local law to relax exist-ing rules pertaining to street vendors.

Some people want the permit cap on vendors to be removed. While the HY / HKA agrees that the street permit system is not working, they believe changes should begin with better enforcement of the rules we have. They have talked to business owners, elected officials and vendors themselves, and believe that lifting the cap and allowing any number of permits is not the answer. The caps should remain until there is time to get the system under control and study it. Later in the evening, CB4 approved Item 18, asking the BID to conduct future studies.

Also appearing at the Public Session to complain about the current climate on the streets was Carly Nordstrom, who lives near the Bowery Residents’ Committee’s homeless shelter at 131 W. 25th St (btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves.).

“[Executive Director] Muzzy Rosenblatt said that BRC programs cre-ated a safe environment for its clients and neighbors, and he claims they don’t stand outside or loiter in the streets,” said Nordstrom. “But there is public urination, fighting and drug deals. I have personally witnessed these and reported them to the BRC. The first response is usually, ‘Are you sure they’re from the

BRC?’ The NYPD has been assigned to patrol the block for eight-hour shifts, but it’s not working. BRC is an unresponsive neighbor.”

Nordstrom concluded that the facility was too large, and that the high concen-tration of homeless people gave rise to an unacceptable street presence, making the area unsafe since they opened in 2011.

Later in the Public Session, CB4 public member and longtime BRC Community Advisory Board (CAB) member Pamela Wolff spoke candidly, supporting Nordstrom’s assessment.

“This is a terrible situation for people who live there, but BRC offers incredi-ble services to people in this city,” said Wolff. “I have served on their CAB since the beginning, and I personally feel that the only real solution is to find a way to reduce the size of the population of that facility. It was originally two hundred, and is now three-hundred-twenty-eight. It’s too big. I’m sorry to be saying that, but it needs to become a political urgen-cy to reduce that population.”

HOW TO SPEND A MILLION DOLLARS

“People have hundreds of ideas on how to spend a million dollars,” said former CB4 Chair and current City Councilmember Corey Johnson, who stopped by the meeting to share the latest news on Participatory Budgeting. Johnson said his office had already held four Neighborhood Assemblies where citizens weighed in on how they’d like see $1 million spent in their community. Anyone who lives in the 3rd Council District and is 14 years old can vote. Contact Matt Green in Johnson’s office be sending an email to [email protected].

Johnson also gave a quick update on his work with the City Council, which included unveiling 12 bills last week on the steps of City Hall to reform the Department of Buildings (DOB) and get accountability in the department.

“The DOB is one of the most difficult agencies for an average New Yorker to navigate. It’s hard even for CB4 mem-bers,” said Johnson. “These bills take a more proactive role to protecting ten-ants. Bill Borock from the Council of Chelsea Block Associations has looked into these owners who say that their building is unoccupied, even though there are still thirty people living in the building. They don’t use the proper safety mechanisms to make sure people’s

CB4 Votes to Ground Extell’s Air Rights RequestContinued from page 1

Photo by Winnie McCroy

Carla Nordstrom, who has “personally witnessed” public urination, fighting, and drug deals on W. 25th St. (btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves.), connects these incidents to the presence of Bowery Residents’ Committee on that block.

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October 15 - 21, 2015 5.com

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVICSuccessful small business owner Marissa

Sabatelli, who opened her second clothing store earlier this month at 410 W. 24 St. at London Terrace, knew from a very young age what she was passionate about.

“My mother would take me to the garment district when I was like six to dress my babies, my little dolls, in the sample clothes that they had,” Sabatelli, 32, recalled in a phone interview. “I just always loved everything about design…personal style and helping people feel good about themselves inside and out.”

She added, “I wanted to dress people the way I would dress my dolls, and keep everything beau-tiful the way I would keep everything in my room, in my playroom. I just wanted to be able to do that for the public.”

The urge to dress people like her dolls started a trajectory that led to Sabatelli now owning two boutiques: Gossip in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and Marissa’s Closet (marissascloset.com) in Chelsea.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Sabatelli grew up in Bensonhurst, and now resides in Dyker Heights. When she was 18, she started working in retail at Kleinfeld Bridal.

“When I started working at Kleinfeld, it really made me realize that this is what I wanted to do,

because you’re helping brides and their families with the most important thing that’s happening to them at the moment — their wedding,” said Sabatelli. “That was what made me know for sure that was the career path that I wanted to chose.”

After Kleinfeld, she worked for other com-panies, building her retail experience as she went to school full-time. First, she attended Queensborough Community College and then New York University, studying communications and hospitality.

After finishing college, Sabatelli got married. As a wedding gift, her family helped her open her first store, Gossip, six years ago. By work-ing the wholesale side of things earlier, she had learned the industry inside and out — knowing how to order, going to Fashion Week, visiting her accounts and setting up at trade shows.

“So I had a really solid foundation behind me when it came to opening my business,” she explained. “Learning business on a small scale, like a mom and pop business, which is really what I am right now, that was something new for me because I was always working with bigger businesses.”

Gossip’s first location was in Bay Ridge. Two years later, it moved to its current location in Bensonhurst.

Sabatelli said she was very fortunate in start-ing her first store, and always envisioned opening a second location in Manhattan. Even though she is a Brooklynite, she said she’s spent a lot of time

Her London Terrace ‘Closet’ Has Style

Photo by Marissa Sabatelli

First comes marriage: Marissa Sabatelli, at 18, began working in retail at Kleinfeld Bridal.


6 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

October. They meet once each year to renew the permit with the city. And that’s the extent of the permit-holder’s contribution to vending smoothies at Attia’s food truck on Sixth Ave. (at W. 50th St.).

Several blocks away, Trancia Anabela Acosta makes smoothies in a cart on Eighth Ave. (btw. W. 50th & W. 51st Sts.). She applied for a permit eight years ago, but is still waiting. The immi-grant from Uruguay said in an interview on Oct. 12 that she hopes to eventually have her own food cart with her hus-band, who currently sells peanuts eight blocks to the south. The current price of a black market permit is simply too much for them, she said.

“I need my permit. It’s a lot of money [to rent] this permit,” she said. “You rent the permit for full-term, two years. I think now it’s $17,000.”

An advocacy group called the Street Vendor Project — part of the Urban Justice Center — seeks to convince the City Council to raise or eliminate the

cap on street vending permits issued by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. To further that cause, about a dozen members of the group gathered on Oct. 7 in front of 250 Broadway (btw. Park Pl. & Murray St.), where councilmembers have their offices.

As councilmembers and their staff

entered or exited, Sean Basinski, direc-tor of the group (streetvendor.org), approached them with a report released the day before extolling the value of the approximately 20,000 street vendors in the city, and an offer of free Taiwanese dumplings from a cart brought for the occasion.

“We gotta stay on top of things and let them know we’re still here,” added Basinski, who said about 200 vendors and supporters attended a rally held across the street two weeks before.

There are about 16,300 street ven-dors throughout the city, according to the report called “Upwardly Mobile: Street Vending and the American Dream” (ij.org/report/upwardly-mo-bile). The economic activity of the ven-dors generated about $71.2 million in taxes in 2012, adds the report. Such a cash flow also reaches suppliers, sup-porting more than 1,000 more jobs citywide and $82 million in “valued added” to the local economy, according to the report.

“Value added, similar to gross domestic product, measures the value businesses create beyond the raw or intermediate goods they purchases,” states the report.

Elected officials ate the dumplings and perused the report in front of 250 Broadway that day, but they gave no indication of when the cap set by the department in 1983 might increase.

Councilmembers Ydanis Rodriguez,

Food Cart Vendors Seek City Council Support to Reform Permit ProcessContinued from page 1

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Trancia Anabela Acosta sells smoothies on Eighth Ave. (btw. 50th & 51st Sts.) on Mon., Oct. 12. She would like to have her own business, but has waited for eight years for the necessary city street vending permit.

October 15 - 21, 2015 7.com

Jumaane Williams and Mathieu Eugene said in interviews that they support rais-ing the cap, but none of them specifi cal-ly said they would personally introduce legislation on the issue.

“I hope we can work together with the [City Council] Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, my other colleagues in the council and the administration to move some bill that will be good for the street vendors,” Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez told Chelsea Now.

Rodriguez extended his arms and shrugged when asked on Oct. 7 how soon a bill could be introduced.

Such assurances are wearing thin, Basinski said in an Oct. 12 phone inter-view. He added that councilmembers have repeatedly said they “are working on it.”

“That’s been happening for way too long, in many forms, for over a year. We need some action,” Basinski said.

Opponents of the group’s effort to raise the cap include NYC Business Improvement District Association. Co-chairs Ellen Baer and Michael Lambert said in an Oct. 7 statement that the activists oversimplify the issue

by focusing on the permit cap.“Everyone agrees the street vending

permit system is broken and reliant on a tangle of unevenly enforced rules that make the system unfair for everyone,” they said in the statement. “But pinning the ills of the system on the permit cap dramatically oversimplifi es the issue, and [the] report fails to make a compel-ling case to New Yorkers that opening the fl oodgates to unlimited vending on our streets is the best way to fi x a com-plex system. It’s time to have a serious conversation about a path forward that works for everyone.

In the meantime, Attia and other vendors continue waiting for a time when they will not have to rent a city permit from someone else.

“Basically it looks like I work for him but I don’t. This is my own cart,” Attia said. “I know people who have been on the waiting list for fi fteen years and they still don’t have a permit,” he added. “I can be working in a store for fi fteen or twenty years and I’m not going to have my own store, but I can be vending for four or fi ve years, save some money, and then I can have my own business.”

Food Cart Vendors Seek City Council Support to Reform Permit Process

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Sean Bansinki, director of the Street Vendor Project, shows Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez a report urging the city to raise a cap on street vending licenses.

8 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

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THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

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Chelsea Now is published weekly by NYC Community Media LLC, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. (212) 229-1890. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $75. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2015 NYC Community Media LLC, Postmaster: Send address changes to Chelsea Now, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY FOR ERROR: The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue.

COMMUNITY BOARD 4 (CB4)CB4 serves Manhattan’s West Side neighborhoods of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. Its boundaries are 14th St. on the south, 59/60th St. on the north, the Hudson River on the west, 6th Ave. on the east (south of 26th St.) and 8th Ave. on the east (north of 26th St.).

The monthly full board meeting, open to the public, takes place on the first Wed. of the month. The next meeting is Nov. 4, 6:30 p.m. at the Hotel Trades Union (305 W. 44th St., 2nd Fl. btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Call 212-736-4536, visit nyc.gov/mcb4 or email them at [email protected]. COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (CB5)CB5 represents the central business district of New York City. It includes mid-town Manhattan, the Fashion, Flower, Flatiron and Diamond districts, as well as Bryant Park and Union Square Park. The district is at the center of New York’s tourism industry. The Theatre District, Times Square, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building and two of the region’s transportation hubs (Grand Central Station and Penn Station) fall within CB5.

The full board meeting, open to the public, happens on the second Thurs. of the month. The next meeting is Nov. 12, 6 p.m. at Xavier High School (30 W. 16th St. btw. Fifth & Sixth Aves.). Call 212-465-0907, visit cb5.org or email them at [email protected].

THE 300 WEST 23RD, 22ND & 21ST STREETS BLOCK ASSOCIATIONContact them at [email protected].

THE WEST 400 BLOCK ASSOCIATION Contact them at [email protected].

CHELSEA GARDEN CLUBChelsea Garden Club cares for the bike lane tree pits in Chelsea. If you want to adopt a tree pit or join the group, please contact them at [email protected] or like them on Facebook. Also visit chelsea-gardenclub.blogspot.com.

DISTRICT 3 CITY COUNCILMEMBER COREY JOHNSONCall 212-564-7757 or visit council.nyc.gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml.

STATE SENATOR BRAD HOYLMANCall 212-633-8052 or visit bradhoylman.com.

LOWER CHELSEA ALLIANCE (LOCAL)This group is committed to protecting the residential blocks of Chelsea from overscale development. Contact them at [email protected].

THE GREENWICH VILLAGE-CHELSEA CHAMBER OF COMMERCECall 212-337-5912 or visit villagechel-sea.com.

THE MEATPACKING DISTRICT INITIATIVEVisit meatpacking-district.com or call 212-633-0185.

PENN SOUTHThe Penn South Program for Seniors provides recreation, education and social services — and welcomes vol-unteers. For info, call 212-243-3670 or visit pennsouthlive.org.

THE BOWERY RESIDENTS’ COMMITTEE: HOMELESS HELPLINEIf you know of anyone who is in need of their services, call the Homeless Helpline at 212-533-5151, and the BRC will send someone to make contact. This number is staffed by outreach team leaders 24 hours a day. Callers may remain anonymous. For more info, visit brc.org.

THE LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY CENTERAt 208 W. 13th St. (btw. 7th & 8th Aves.). Visit gaycenter.org or call 212-620-7310.

GAY MEN’S HEALTH CRISIS (GMHC)At 446 W. 33rd St. btw. 9th & 10th Aves. Visit gmhc.org. Call 212-367-1000.

HUDSON GUILDFounded in 1895, Hudson Guild is a multi-service, multi-generational com-

munity serving approximately 14,000 people annually with daycare, hot meals for senior citizens, low-cost pro-fessional counseling, community arts programs and recreational program-ming for teens. Visit them at hudsonguild.org. Email them at [email protected]. For the John Lovejoy Elliott Center (441 W. 26th St.), call 212-760-9800. For the Children’s Center (459 W. 26th St.), call 212-760-9830. For the Education Center (447 W. 25th St.), call 212-760-9843. For the Fulton Center for Adult Services (119 9th Ave.), call 212-924-6710.

THE CARTER BURDEN CENTER FOR THE AGINGThis organization promotes the well-be-ing of individuals 60 and older through direct social services and volunteer pro-grams oriented to individual, family and community needs. Call212-879-7400 or visit burdencenter.org.

FULTON YOUTH OF THE FUTUREEmail them at [email protected] or contact Miguel Acevedo, 646-671-0310.

WEST SIDE NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE Visit westsidenyc.org or call 212-956-2573. Email them at [email protected].

CHELSEA COALITION ON HOUSINGTenant assistance every Thursday night at 7pm, at Hudson Guild (119 9th Ave.). Email them at [email protected].

SAVE CHELSEA Email [email protected] and visit savechelsea.com.

CHELSEA REFORM DEMOCRATIC CLUBThe CRDC (the home club of Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried) meets monthly to exchange political ideas on protecting the rights and improving the lives of those residing in Chelsea. Visit crdcnyc.org or email them at [email protected].

Community ContactsTo be listed, email info to [email protected].

WE’RE BRANCHING OUT THIS FALL

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HOMICIDE: Three women gunned down

Three women were shot outside of Motivo, a bar located at 915 Broadway (btw. W. 20th & W. 21st Sts.), on Mon., Oct. 12. Police say they received a 911 call a few minutes past 4 a.m. The vic-tims were all transported to Bellevue Hospital where one of them, 24-year-old Walikque Faussett of the Bronx, was pronounced dead. The other two victims stabilized, according to a police statement. Police said in an Oct. 13 statement that they arrested 26-year-old Bronx resident Dalone Jamison on a murder charge, two assault charges and three counts of criminal possession of a deadly weapon — all felonies. He did not live in the same neighborhood as the deceased woman, according to the statement.

LEAVING THE SCENE OF A PERSONAL INJURY: Binary details in 11th Ave. crash

A black automobile struck a woman in front of 111 11th Ave. on Sun., Oct. 11. The 18-year-old was attempting to cross the street at about 10:11 a.m. The driver steered the vehicle else-where after leaving the early morning jogger, a Chelsea resident, with an injured hip and elbow.

ASSAULT: Ambush and stomp down

Three people jumped a man as he rode his bike on Sat., Oct. 10. The victim was riding along the 200 block of W. 17th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.) at about 10 p.m. when two men and a woman exited a white Chevy Equinox. The three perpetra-tors then yanked the man off his bike and punched him in the face multiple times. The victim, a Queens resident, did not recognize his attackers, accord-ing to a police report that did not state

his age. A 47-year-old Chelsea man witnessed the incident, police said.

AGGRAVAED HARASSMENT: Unsolicited fan mail

A local artist who lives on the 400 blocks of W. 25th St. (btw. Ninth & Tenth Aves.) told police that he received multiple emails from a woman he met through an online advertise-ment for his work. The artist said that the twenty-something email writer threatened him, and suicide, in the emails — according to a police report, which did not state the victim’s age. They had never communicated before 7 a.m. that day, he told police. Police have not located a suspect.

THEFT OF SERVICES: No money mention post-arrival

There was no money for the fare, a homeless man told a duped cab driv-er on Sat., Oct. 10. The 47-year-old driver picked up the 32-year-old free ranger around midnight and drove him about eight miles, to the intersection of 12th Ave. and W. 42nd St. Shortly after arriving, the passenger let the driver know that he had no means to pay the $39.30 fare. Police arrived about 30 minutes later and arrested the passenger. He had in his possession a crack pipe and seven ziplock bags with crystal meth, police said.

—ZACH WILLIAMS

POLICE BLOTTER

THE 10th PRECINCT Located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.). Commander: Deputy Inspector Michele Irizarry. Main num-ber: 212-741-8211. Community Affairs: 212-741-8226. Crime Prevention: 212-741-8226. Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216. Youth Officer: 212-741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-924-3377. Detective Squad: 212-741-8245. The Community Council meets on the last Wed. of the month, 7 p.m., at the 10th Precinct or other locations to be announced. The next meeting is Oct. 28.

CASH FOR GUNS$100 cash will be given (no ques-tions asked) for each handgun, assault weapon or sawed-off shot-gun, up to a maximum payment of $300. Guns are accepted at any Police Precinct, PSA or Transit District.

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in the city. A good friend stumbled upon the

perfect location in Chelsea this July.“I was so excited. It fit my bud-

get and I loved the building,” said Sabatelli, who rents space in the building. “London Terrace is just beautiful, so I jumped on it,” she recalled. “It’s a beautiful block in a great area. There are so many things here, so I figured, why not?”

By mid-August, Sabatelli signed a lease, and “started our construction work almost immediately. We gave it pretty much a makeover. It needed a nice fresh coat of paint. The floors needed to be finished.”

She took out things that weren’t needed, like the kitchen, and put in new lighting and chandeliers. To coin-cide with the yearly London Terrace Street Fair, Sabatelli had a soft open-ing on Sept. 26. The grand opening was the first weekend of this month.

“It’s really nice to be able to come in and do what you love every day,” she said. “The community is just so warm, so welcoming, there’s all dif-ferent types of people that I deal with on a daily basis, that I love.”

Sabatelli said her store “offers sta-ple pieces that every wardrobe needs.

Quality is a major factor. I make sure to touch and feel all the clothing before I actually order it.”

These are pieces a woman can build upon, she said, such as ponchos sweaters, mini skirts, leggings and jeans, including as skinny and boy-friend cuts.

“It’s a great mix of day-to-day, and then your options of what’s trending right now, or if you have a date night or you’re going from work to play,” she said. “I try to make everything very versatile, because we’re all busy.”

Marissa’s Closet also has a full-service salon that includes make-up. London Terrace residents receive special discounts, she said.

Focusing on customer service and building a rapport with her customers is the secret to her success, she said.

“I’ve watched some of my custom-ers’ kids grow up at this point, and I love that,” she explained. “I love the fact that customers from my Brooklyn location came to support me here over [my opening] weekend [in Chelsea]. These things mean a lot and I think that’s really what sets me apart.”

And Sabatelli is not stopping with just two locations.

“I’m definitely trying to create a chain,” she said. “I’d love to have fifty of these stores one day.”

Marissa’s Closet is Open at local ‘Terrace’

Continued from page 5

Photo by Marissa Sabatelli

Marissa Sabatelli hopes the new Chelsea location, combined with her bou-tique in Brooklyn, will be the first two links in a long chain of stores.

October 15 - 21, 2015 11.com

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12 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

Library. About $1 million is up for grabs

in Council District 3, which along with Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen also includes the West Village and parts of Flatiron, Soho, and the Upper West Side.

“We want to know what the needs are in the district, and how Participatory Budgeting can meet those needs,” Matt Green, an aide to District 3 Councilmember Corey Johnson, recently told a group attend-ing a neighborhood assembly at New Dramatists (on W. 44th St.), one of several held throughout the district to introduce residents to the concept.

Participatory Budgeting is a grass-roots process that lets community residents vote to directly allocate money toward proposals developed to meet local needs. Through a series of public meetings, they work with elected officials throughout the year to identify neighborhood concerns and craft proposals to address them.

Residents then decide which propos-als to fund through a public vote.

Anyone who lives or works within the district can volunteer to become a budget delegate, which means they

will join a committee advocating for one of the projects, with regular meet-ings scheduled through next spring.

The proposals will then be sub-mitted to Corey Johnson’s office and reviewed by the responsible city agen-cies some time in late January or early February. Green said the agen-cies would then come back with cost assessments and feedback on the indi-vidual projects.

The final ballot will go to a public vote in late March or early April. Anyone, even undocumented immi-grants, can vote as long as they live in the district and are at least 14 years old. The winning ideas will be adopted into the city’s budget in June.

“Then it can take a number of years for them to be implemented,” Green said, noting that although no projects chosen during April 2015’s final vot-ing process have broken ground yet, the funding would not be lost.

At the meeting in Hell’s Kitchen, around a dozen residents brain-stormed in small groups to come up with a new slate of viable projects. Half of them had been at a launch event on the High Line organized by Johnson a few days earlier, but only a few had taken part in the process last year.

“I think it’s a worthwhile cause,” said Carrie Smith, 41, who found out about the event through a newsletter sent out by Johnson’s office. Smith lives on W. 42nd St., between Eighth and Ninth Aves., and said she came

to propose some kind of street beau-tification project, like planting trees and adding a roundabout or a public bathroom on her block.

“I care about the condition of my neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t think that, just because it’s a major thoroughfare, that’s an excuse to have a really disgusting block, where I smell human feces and urine every single day on my way home.”

Last year, around 2,400 people voted for their favorite projects in the district.

One of them was Susan Treacy-Mannix, 49, who lives in the Manhattan Plaza complex on W. 43rd St. She said she had found out about the process too late to actively partic-ipate last time, and had come to the meeting to advocate for a library at the new City Knoll Middle School on W. 33rd St., where one of her sons attends seventh grade.

“We need it, we need it for these kids. These kids that don’t have any-thing, they can’t continue because there’s no resources for them. If we can get this middle school up and running it will benefit everybody,” she said.

“Downtown had everything, then they got hit by Sandy, and got it again. We never had anything to begin with [in Hell’s Kitchen], and this goes back a long time. That’s why I want this library.”

Treacy-Mannix, who sits on the school’s PTA, said she might even

send email entries to [email protected] the subject line “Dr. Lonnie Smith.”

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With One Million For District 3, Participatory Budgeting Season Kicks Continued from page 1

Courtesy James Khamsi for Friends of 20th St. Park

Ballot Item #8 was the top vote-getter in April, securing funds for a micro park on W. 20th St. (btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves.).

Photo by Yannic Rack

One group of residents discussed ideas for local projects in this year’s Participatory Budgeting process, at a neighborhood assembly held by Councilmember Corey Johnson.

October 15 - 21, 2015 13.com

decide to volunteer as a budget dele-gate if she can fi nd the time.

Green said that the district had 55 delegates last year, with a few assigned to each of the 17 projects on the bal-lot, of which seven were eventually selected.

The total funding pledged in the district’s fi rst round came to $1.68 million, with individual projects rang-ing from as little as $35,000, for library renovations at PS3, to as much as $500,000, for the Jefferson Market Library project.

The costliest idea was actually ren-ovations for the bathrooms at Lab School, running to $560,000, but the NYC School Construction Authority is funding that project — showing how Participatory Budgeting can raise awareness for community improve-ments even beyond the program’s own

resources.At the meeting, Green also empha-

sized that this was an opportunity for residents to bring attention to what they think needs fi xing in their community, whether the projects will eventually be chosen or not.

“We want to expand civic engage-ment,” he said. “The best ideas come from the residents who interact with their physical environment every day.”

This year, New Yorkers in 27 Council Districts will collaboratively decide how to distribute over $30 million to local capital projects. Each idea must cost between $35,000 and $1 million to be viable.

Patrick Shields, 52, was at the neighborhood assembly with his mind already made up. Like Treacy-Mannix, he had come with a par-ticular proposal: to replace the tar

surface at the William F. Passanante Ballfi eld on W. Houston St. with a proper soccer turf.

Shields was a budget delegate last year, but his pet project, funding another soccer turf near the Fulton Houses on W. 17th St., wasn’t select-ed. As a longtime resident of the West Village who only recently moved to Manhattan Plaza in Hell’s Kitchen, he said that, by sprucing up unused play-grounds, they could be preserved from development in the future.

“I want to get as much soccer turf anywhere I can, because those actually get used. Passannante Park is empty constantly,” he said.

The last initial information ses-sion on the Participatory Budgeting process will be a youth assembly held on Oct. 29 at the LGBT Community Center on W. 13th St. Green said that

a website with this year’s proposals for Council District 3 would be launched soon. In the meantime, visit corey-johnson.nyc for the latest on this and other District 3 concerns.

As for the stated goal of fostering civic engagement, it seemed the resi-dents at the community assembly were taking it to heart. Between the three groups, they came up with a multitude of different ideas, ranging from bike lanes on W. 14th St. and a pop-up business space in Hudson River Park, to sidewalk repairs and solar-powered trash compactors throughout the dis-trict.

Shields’ project, the soccer turf on W. Houston St., also garnered wide support, and he said he had learned from last year’s budgeting process.

“I’m going to work really hard to get out the vote on this one,” he said.

With One Million For District 3, Participatory Budgeting Season Kicks

Courtesy James Khamsi for Friends of 20th St. Park

Ballot Item #8 was the top vote-getter in April, securing funds for a micro park on W. 20th St. (btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves.).

Photo by Yannic Rack

Residents of Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, including Patrick Shields, center, proudly held up their proposals for capital projects that could be funded through Participatory Budgeting.

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October 15 - 21, 2015 15.com

BY LENORE SKENAZYSam Schwartz grew up tearing

through Brooklyn on his bike, making deliveries for his family’s mom-and-pop grocery. He rode the subways too, and sometimes took them all the way into the train yards with his friend — “which was pretty scary,” he admits.

But his dream form of transit was none of the above. When he finally scraped together the cash, he pur-chased his prized possession: a 1960 Chevy Impala with huge, flat fins.

Like everyone else in Bensonhurst, he spent an inordinate amount of time waxing his beloved. Pull up next to him at a stoplight? He’d gun it. He was such a car fanatic that in-between getting his physics degree at Brooklyn College and his masters at the University of Pennsylvania in (what else?) civil engineering, with an eye toward traffic planning, he worked as a cabbie.

Eventually Schwartz became the city’s chief transit commission-er and then our Department of Transportation’s chief engineer, all while he wrote the book — literally — on New York’s traffic shortcuts. His column in the New York Daily News was called “Gridlock Sam” (and in the Yiddish press, “Gridlock Shmuel”).

But these days?“I don’t think I’ve driven my car in

three weeks,” he said. “It’s gathering a lot of dust.”

We’re sitting in the buzzing Chelsea office of Sam Schwartz Engineering, surrounded by brainy-looking Millennials doing the work he is dedicated to today: figur-ing out how to get more people out

of their cars and onto subways, buses, street-cars, bikes, and their own two feet.

Oh, he still tack-les traffic. In fact, the Barclays Center folks hired him to figure out how not to make game nights a snarling, honk-ing nightmare for all of Downtown Brooklyn. But Schwartz sees the writing on the asphalt, even if the federal government, intent on build-ing ever more highways, does not. The future isn’t on four wheels. If you want your area to attract young people, entrepreneurs, and capital, you have to make it walkable.

That’s the premise behind his new book, “Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars” (Public Affairs Books). His facts are hard to refute.

“Something happened around the millennium and nobody noticed, and it’s nothing short of a revolution,” Schwartz says, eyes twinkling as he pointed out that in 2003 — for the first time since World War II — Americans drove fewer miles than the year before.

And then they drove even fewer in 2004.

And even fewer in 2005. “It went down for ten straight years, and nobody noticed it.”

Talk about a cultural shift. Schwartz only began to notice the decline around 2010, but he also noticed nobody else was noticing it. He’d go to conferences about the future of transportation and see graphs with highway construction

projections pointing up, up, up, as if to meet a growing need for a need that wasn’t growing.

So his mission today is to explain the real trend: Young people don’t want to spend their lives behind the wheel. They’d rather call Uber or hop on a bike or com-mute virtually.

“In 1990, about two-thirds of nineteen-year-olds had licenses,” says Schwartz.

“Now it’s less than half. In 2014, more cars were retired than bought for the first time.”

The auto companies are worried, but cities should be excited. They’re already poised to attract the kids without cars, and Schwartz’s research shows that the more walkable a city is, the higher the GDP — the gross domestic product. So fewer cars equals more capital.

What irks him, then, is the way

government funding still flows to highway construction, and yet any money earmarked for public transit is dubbed a “subsidy.”

“As if highways aren’t subsidies, too — for drivers!”

It looks like the future is a break from the past, but Schwartz says it’s really a return. For millennia, humans lived in small, densely popu-lated areas. It was the 70-year subur-ban experiment that was radical. And now, he believes, its time is up.

And New York is obviously poised to reap the benefit of being the ulti-mate walkable town.

“But New York could lose its edge if we lose a tunnel or a transit facili-ty,” Schwartz warns.

Cars have their place — some place else. The future belongs to the cities that can pack us in and get us around.

Lenore Skenazy is a public speak-er who authored the book, and founded the blog, Free-Range Kids (freerangekids.com).

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lives are not a living hell.”Johnson has a bill that takes aim at this

issue: landlords who falsely claim build-ings are unoccupied when they still have tenants. He also helped pass an amend-ment in the City Council to the Schools Diversity Accountability Act, which helps gather more data on school arrests, use of metal detectors, and handcuffs. This data found that across the city, young people of color, disabled, and LGBT youth are targeted at a much higher rate.

“Instead of using prevention and counseling, the cops come in and arrest them,” said Johnson. “I even heard a report of a six-year-old who was cuffed and brought into the station because a teacher thought they were misbehaving.”

Johnson also spoke to Nordstrom’s problems with residents of the BRC, saying that one of the major things his office has seen over the past 18 months is the proliferation of people buying and using K2/Spice “synthetic marijuana” on that block.

“This is not marijuana. It’s herbs with dangerous chemicals sprayed on it that makes people go crazy,” Johnson explained. “It is very, very cheap. People buy it in bodegas for two dollars, and it has packaging that makes it look fun. It’s marketed to young people. And the City Council has come down hard on businesses selling these products, and have used nuisance abatement laws to get these places closed.”

Finally, Johnson let residents know that he would be offering free flu shots on Oct. 28 in his District Office at 224 W. 30th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.). RSVP at 212-564-7757 or [email protected].

“Flu season is almost upon us,” said Johnson. “The flu kills people, so the

best we can do for ourselves, our friends and our neighbors is to get this shot, so you don’t spread the flu to people with underlying health problems.”

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, ALL NIGHT LONG?

Agenda Item 15, a letter to Hudson River Park Trust regarding the Pier 57 project, was another hot issue among CB4 members and the community alike.

The project concerned is celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s proposed food hall and restaurant at end of the mam-moth 560,000-square-foot Pier 57 com-plex at the corner of W. 15th St. and the Hudson River.

The chef has been candid about his plans to revamp the abandoned complex and create Bourdain Market, a huge gourmet marketplace with 155,000 square feet of bakers, artisans, butch-ers, a fishmonger and oyster bar, and restaurants.

Google has scooped up 250,000 square feet in the building, and restaura-teurs April Bloomfeld and Ken Friedman have already signed on. In a Sept. 2015 interview with The New York Times, he equated the end result to “an Asian mar-ket. Eating and drinking at midnight.”

Some CB4 members picked up on Bourdain’s “up all night” sensibilities for this project, and noted that as a public park, Hudson River Trust closed nightly at 1 a.m. Bourdain’s business would like-ly have to follow those operating hours.

Board Chair Christine Berthet said that the applicant had met with the Hudson River Park Trust and CB4’s Business License and Permits Committee (BLP) about the proposed restaurant and it would next come before of the city’s Business and Licensing Committee.

In the meantime, CB4 has completed a traffic study of the area. Transportation Planning Committee Co-Chairs Jay

Marcus and Ernest Modarelli had looked at the potential traffic congestion in this area and found it negligible, but member Burt Lazarin questioned whether it took into consideration Bourdain’s 24-hour operating model.

Berthet furthered the possibility of putting a friendly amendment into their letter saying that CB4 did not want this project to be open 24 hours. But Rubin noted that it was inappropriate to create a stipulation on something that was not set in stone, noting that these late hours were “highly unlikely” as it was against park policy, and something that they could dis-cuss during a public hearing of the lease.

Rubin added that she had recently called RXR Reality directly to ask about this project, and they had not mentioned Bourdain at all or commented on the operations that would occur inside the pier.

Regarding traffic congestion outside the pier, Rubin said that in the event that Google implements a shuttle ser-vice for Pier 57, the tenants would have to consult everyone concerned before implementing and devising a pedestrian safety plan. But this did not assuage citizen concerns.

A final item of note brought Brookfield Properties Vice-President Henry Caso

before the board, to show their good faith efforts to manage their construction project on W. 31st St. between Ninth and Dyer Aves.

Earlier this month, he met with CB4’s Transportation Planning committee, who requested an eight-foot variance between the 12-inch safety bollards and Brookfield’s proposed sidewalk elevators to access their above-ground plaza.

“We went back and took a lot of looks…and after due diligence were able to get two more inches, getting to sev-en-feet, ten-inches, but we had a lot of difficulty getting the full eight feet,” said Caso. “We are asking CB4 to work with us on this.

The board approved Item 19, Proposed Revocable Consent for the sidewalk and above space for an eleva-tor and extended above-ground plaza, and said that Brookfield would come back next month with their entire list of improvements.

The next full board meeting will be held on Wed., Nov. 4, 6:30 p.m. at the Hotel Trades Union (305 W. 44th St., 2nd Fl., btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). For more info, visit nyc.gov/mcb4.

Pier 57 Market Hours a Bridge Too Far for CB4Continued from page 4

WE’RE BRANCHING OUT THIS FALL

EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING& WE WANT YOU TO BE PART OF IT

SEND YOUR CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL’S KITCHEN STORY IDEAS TO [email protected].

[email protected] | 718.260.8340

Photo by Winnie McCroy

Land use lawyer Jay Segal speaks on behalf of Extell Development’s petition for transfer of unused development rights.

18 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

BY DUNCAN OSBORNEAs the prosecution ended its case

in the murder trial of Edwin Faulkner and Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera, the gay couple charged in the 2012 death of John Laubach, two so-called spon-taneous utterances in which the two admitted to the killing were put into evidence.

“He stated ‘But I killed him,’” Brian Erbis, a detective in Chelsea’s 10th precinct, testifi ed on Oct. 13, referring to Martinez-Herrera.

Allegedly, the two defendants bound the 57-year-old gay man on March 2, 2012, and covered his face with the duct tape that caused him to choke to death. The couple, who had been having sex in exchange for money with Laubach for some time, robbed his apartment and fl ed to Florida where they were arrested weeks later, on March 15. They were brought back to New York City.

Erbis said that as they were being fi ngerprinted, Faulkner turned to Martinez-Herrera, who was sitting in a nearby holding cell, and said, “I told you I got everything. I will wait even if I have to see my baby again after fi fteen years,” implying that he was taking full blame for the crime and anticipating a 15-year prison sen-tence. Martinez-Herrera responded with his comment taking responsibil-ity for the killing.

Daniel Parker, who represents Martinez-Herrera, aggressively cross-examined Erbis, noting that during pre-trial hearings, the detective testifi ed that “they” had been put in a cell. On Oct. 13, Erbis said they were put in separate cells. He also said they were brought from an upper fl oor in the precinct to the room where arrest-ees are processed without speaking.

If they were in a cell together, they could have had their conversation privately without being overheard by detectives. The defense hopes jurors will doubt that two men who said noth-ing to detectives would suddenly blurt out admissions in front of them.

Before ending its case on Oct. 14, the prosecution played three 2014 calls that Faulkner made from jail on Rikers Island. In one conversation, report-

edly with his father, the other party, not Faulkner, states that he is telling friends that the 33-year-old is charged with “homocide.”

The calls were introduced over defense objections. The concern is that the jury will see Faulkner as having the same attitude as the party he was speaking with. Most calls made by inmates from Rikers Island are record-ed. Inmates are told by an announce-ment at the start of their calls and by signage that they are being recorded.

Faulkner and Martinez-Herrera are charged with second-degree murder in that they acted with depraved indif-ference, not that they intended to kill Laubach; felony murder, based on the allegation they caused Laubach’s death in the course of committing another felony; and kidnapping and robbery, the charges that form the basis for the felony murder charge.

The prosecution case is hampered because there is no eyewitness to the killing, nor can prosecutors assert that Faulkner and Martinez-Herrera were the last people to see Laubach alive. Martinez-Herrera’s fi ngerprints were found on a knife and the duct tape that were used to execute the crime. Laubach’s antiques and col-

lectibles were in the couple’s posses-sion when they were arrested, and there is video of them attempting to withdraw cash from Laubach’s bank account using his ATM card. The jury has seen pawn shop records showing them selling Laubach’s possessions, photos of Laubach’s property on one of their cell phones that were taken after Laubach’s death, and data from the couple’s cellphones showing web searches made after Laubach’s death in English and Spanish for “antiques,” “collectibles,” “antique coins,” and other topics that suggest they were hoping sell Laubach’s property. There is other evidence linking them to the crime.

The prosecution is hoping jurors will infer from this mountain of phys-ical evidence –– over 150 exhibits –– and police and expert testimony that Faulkner and Martinez-Herrera are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Faulkner gave a lengthy statement to police, but he implicated Martinez-Herrera in the crime in that statement, which creates a confrontation prob-lem. The only way Martinez-Herrera could refute the statement is by call-ing Faulkner to the stand. The US Constitution bars compelling a defen-dant to give evidence against himself, as Faulkner would likely have to do if he took the stand.

After the prosecution rested, the defense moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the prosecution had not proved that the couple placed the

tape on Laubach’s face, and that one charge, depraved indifference murder, was also not supported by the evidence or the law.

“The people have not really pre-sented any evidence as to how the tape arrived over the victim’s mouth,” said Lori Cohen, who is working on the defense team. “There’s no theory the people have presented that would sustain depraved indifference…As to the other charges, the evidence is insuf-fi cient.”

In decisions dating back to 2006, the Court of Appeals, the state’s high-est bench, has sharply limited the use of the depraved indifference murder charge, going so far as to suggest that it cannot be used in a crime where there is a single murder victim.

“The Court of Appeals has also said a number of times recently that depraved indifference doesn’t apply to single victims,” Cohen said.

Lanita Hobbs, the assistant district attorney who is prosecuting the case with Juan Abreu, disagreed.

“They wrapped his head so tight that it was bursting like a watermel-on,” she said. “I call that depraved indifference.”

Bonnie Wittner, the judge in the case, was aware of the prior decisions on depraved indifference and said she would rule later after reviewing those decisions. She declined to dismiss the other charges.

The defense case will begin on Oct. 16.

Two Incriminating Statements In Evidence in Laubach Murder Trial

Photo courtesy NYPD DCPI

Edwin Faulkner and Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera at the time of their 2012 police booking.

October 15 - 21, 2015 19.com

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

BY CHARLES BATTERSBYScience fiction has been a part of theater history

since the early 20th century. Even the first use of the word “robot” dates back to “R.U.R.” — a Czech play from 1920. Although these early works used their futuristic themes to address serious issues, modern sci-fi theater tends towards parody and camp. The upcoming “Honeycomb Trilogy” of plays by Gideon Productions bucks the trend of campi-ness, and instead takes an earnest and thoughtful look at life on Earth following an alien invasion.

The “Honeycomb Trilogy” consists of three full-length plays. “Advance Man” takes place in the near future, following the first manned mission to Mars. “Blast Radius” is set 12 years later in a world where mankind shares the Earth with aliens. The story is concluded in “Sovereign,” which takes place even further into the future as humanity struggles to cre-ate a new society after a devastating war.

The trilogy was performed in 2012, each play coming a few months after the previous. Audiences who enjoyed the first play had to wait six months to find out how the story ended, and people who missed the first two couldn’t catch up on the story when “Sovereign” rolled around. In its current run, the three shows are performed in repertory, including weekend marathons where audiences can see the entire trilogy in one sitting — with breaks for meals.

An epic interplanetary conflict might seem inher-ently unsuited to the intimate nature of theater, but playwright Mac Rogers explains how he addressed these concerns.

“Don’t try to imitate film, or television, or liter-ature. Make it a theatrical experience. And one of the definitive theatrical styles is the Living Room Play,” he says. “How could you tell an entire story like this? Take the American Living Room play and

explode it. Use it to tell a story of an epic, sweeping the whole world. The only way to make that work was to make that living room have three different functions over three different plays.”

That idea is realized by using the same basic living room set in all three plays. In the first play, it looks much like a modern living room. In the second, humanity has regressed to an unindustri-alized state, which is reflected by the items in that same room. By the third show, the once-humble living room has become the throne room of a newly formed government.

The aliens are revealed to be massive insectoid creatures — too large to fit inside human houses, and therefore they never actually appear onstage. “We don’t show very much of the invasion,” says the director of the trilogy, Jordana Williams. “Our

Photo by Deborah Alexander

By “Sovereign,” the trilogy’s final part, the humble living room set has transformed into a throne room for a post-alien government.


Science Fiction Theater Triple Feature ‘Honeycomb’ chronicles an alien invasion through the years

20 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

BY REV. JEN MILLERA lot of people think that, because

I wear costumes and elf ears, I must love Halloween. Truth be told, I hate it. My father ruined the holiday for the whole family when he died the night before Halloween six years ago. In fact, I hate October entire-ly, given almost everyone I’ve ever loved who passed away did so IN OCTOBER. My sister and I are both terrified of turning the calendar page come October 1st. I suggested we make little advent calendars count-ing down to November with a Xanax or a nip of vodka in each window.

Amazingly, October now has a new rival for worst month ever: July, which has always been my favorite month. First, my birthday is July 24th, which according to “The Book of Birthdays” is “The Day of Exciting Instability.” Apt, when you consider the fact that Zelda Fitzgerald, J-Lo, Amelia Earhart and Ruth Buzzi were all born on July 24th. Like all good Leos, I like sun, surf, hair products, attention and excitement. But some-times there’s too much excitement, too much instability — and it breaks you even if you’re a fierce Lioness.

There are only two ‘C’ words I hate: the first is continuity, the second, cancer. Hearing the second produces a lump in your throat and a heartache that lasts for months. On July 12, while visiting his sister in Boston, my fiancé, Joe (who you might remember from previous col-umns as the light of my life and the fire of my loins) suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and it was discovered he had a brain tumor, which I am told resembled a large flan. Luckily, Mass General (rated the #1 hospi-tal in the nation) is in Boston, and as they continue to radiate him, I know he’s in great hands. Plus, even though he no longer has long, blond Viking locks, he’s got Viking blood, which goes a long way.

Obviously, the secondary tragedy here is that I’ve had to go to Boston several times. If I seem weird in New York, everyone in Boston thinks I’m two cans short of a six-pack. There is no room for eccentricity in Boston. Just wearing a Yankees cap there is considered rebellion. Hence, I’ve been sneaking off to Cape Cod and

staying with friends’ parents.Even though I am the least prep-

py person alive and Cape Cod is swarming with whale pants and polo shirts, it’s peaceful there. Rarely do I need nature (I prefer industrial waste), but the ocean and stars are there to remind us that we’re part of a bigger picture, oneness and love. Sometimes, in NYC, we get so caught up in trying to “make it” here that we forget how important love is.

Apparently my boss forgot about love and kindness — or she is actu-ally a reptile, which I suspected all along — because she fired me for taking (unpaid) leave to visit Joe. See everyone back in Housing Court! Looking for work — but in the meantime, hedging my bets on scratch-off tickets, a dollar and a dream.

My birthday came and went with-out a party, a piñata or a pizza (though a random fan sent me a Cookie Puss). Though all I really wanted was Joe, his touch, his laugh-ter and his willingness to take out the garbage and refill the ice trays.

Having recently been called a “chronic complainer” by an employed person whose fiancé doesn’t have brain cancer, I hesitate to even elab-orate on more woes, but it would

be dishonest were I not to share the icing on the cake. While on one of my various trips to Boston, I got a bladder infection! I’m guessing it’s either from the velour of the $15 bus, or being so miserable that I for-got to bathe. Off to Bellevue I went, where they gave me an unfamiliar antibiotic.

Next thing I knew, my body broke out in a neck-to-toe red rash and I developed a 104-degree fever! While I am always dishonest with potential employers, I am honest with medical professionals, given they can save your ass from death. I told them

that, yes, I am a heavy drinker and yes, if you ask me how many part-ners I’ve had, the answer will be, “I have no clue.” This was a bad idea, as they simply forgot about what was obviously an allergic reaction to medication and focused solely on my depraved lifestyle.

What followed were three days in Bellevue lockdown. Have you ever stayed in Bellevue? It’s crazy! If I were to write a Yelp review for Bellevue, it would say, “like a crack house without the benefit of crack.” First, no one in Bellevue is allowed to sleep. I was in a ward with four 90-somethings who screamed all night and day for no reason other than to torture me. If you do man-age a second of shut-eye, an orderly invariably appears to either jab you with needles or serve you food that looks like a rat ate and then puked it up.

But as the antibiotic left my sys-tem, I returned like a phoenix from the ashes and was released. There are plenty of good doctors and nurs-es at Bellevue but the best thing about the joint is leaving it and feeling the sun on your skin. Maybe this column, which I didn’t want to be full of rants and complaints, but is, can end on a high note.

How to end on a high note when things are whack? Here are my sug-gestions for recapturing joie de vivre in the face of adversity, thus making autumn “spooktacular.”

PUT ABSOLUTELY NO EFFORT INTO YOUR HALLOWEEN COSTUME

Because I’ve been doing shows for over 20 years, I have a million costumes. So often, on Halloween, I invite friends over and all we do is put on costumes and take pictures. Sometimes I discover rations of getups I wasn’t even aware of. For instance, who knew I had three “Wizard of Oz” Dorothy dresses, including one for a Chihuahua? Not me! But they looked great on Faceboy, Reverend Jen Junior and me and they required no effort! I’m also a fan of the plastic costumes sold at Woolworths in the ’70s. If you have two safety pins, you can still wear them by just pinning them to

Straight Outta Bellevue Rev. Jen, on joie de vivre in the face of adversity

Friends, of Dorothy: Faceboy, Reverend Jen Junior and Rev. Jen work the no-hassle Halloween gingham look.

Photo by John Foster

Pumpkin courtesy of Black Tree, curi-osity courtesy of a black cat.


October 15 - 21, 2015 21.com

BY SEAN EGAN“This actually isn’t a haunt-

ed house, it’s a performance. It’s a theater festival this year,” the woman running the box office at the Clemente explains to an inquisitive couple drawn in from the street. It will not be the last time she will recite some variation of this spiel.

Visitors to the Nightmare Horror Show could be forgiven for making that mistake. Psycho Clan, the cre-ative team behind the festival, are also responsible for the Nightmare New York haunted house, which has been a Halloween staple in this loca-tion for years.

This year, however, Psycho Clan chose to mount a theater festival com-prised of short, original horror works. The switch is not such a stretch for Timothy Haskell, Psycho Clan leader and Nightmare New York creator, who explains that he always saw Nightmare New York as a kind of link between theater and haunted house.

“My roots are in theater, but I love horror, so putting them togeth-er is the perfect combo,” Haskell says, noting that theater hasn’t real-ly attempted something like this before. “We’re growing, we’re learn-ing, we’re figuring out what horror theater really is.”

It’s a different and ambitious proj-ect to be sure, but one Haskell sees as being worth it, and ripe with unexplored potential for delivering “visceral and effective” scares.

“Films are quite successful at it, haunted houses are very successful at it,” he elaborates. “I felt like the-ater, live theater, where you’re sort of entrenched for however long and forced to watch this thing, whatever it is, and feel the sweat and the vibra-tions of the screams — you know, all that — I was like, ‘It’s gotta be more terrifying than any of it!’ ”

Haskell, for his part, is exceed-ingly busy, wearing multiple hats to ensure things are terrifying — curating the festival’s submissions, keeping everything running smoothly behind the scenes and at the box office, creating and directing his own piece, and, now that the festival’s in full swing, making trips to the laun-dromat around the corner to clean bloodstained clothing (he’s got the “really high quality” fake blood that

makes washing out of costumes a cinch). Despite the stresses of run-ning the festival, he still remains enthusiastic about the whole under-taking.

“The thing about horror in gen-eral, as an artistic form, is that it has the fewest rules and restrictions artistically,” he asserts. “Whatever the medium, it can be as creative as you are.”

The festival’s lineup certainly supports that thesis, as it features an eclectic program of seven shows, which run the gamut of horror subge-nres and theatrical styles. “Eddie” is an unnerving sketch about real-life serial killer Ed Gein’s internal dialogue, which employs a gorgeously macabre puppet as its central figure, while “Me_irl” is a wordless piece involving a man eating lunch near a disconcert-ingly interested crow, brought to life via metallic, steampunk puppet (both puppets were created by “War Horse” alums, Haskell notes).

“Broken,” is a haunting and beau-tifully choreographed dance piece that chronicles a woman’s unraveling men-tal state to a layered, pulsing score.

Elsewhere, the zombie flick sendup “Night of the Touching Zombies” pro-vides a respite from the chills, as does “Necromancer,” whose audience-par-ticipation séance serves some dark humor. Meanwhile, “Bane” is a tense and fully realized character-based liv-ing room drama, which examines the relationship between a married couple in the aftermath of an accident.Best of all, however, is Haskell’s own piece, “Smile.”

An immersive “4-D” work (inspired, in part, by Dario Argento), “Smile” tells the story of a deranged photographer who goes to great lengths to capture disturbing pic-tures. This brief description does little to prepare the viewer for the insane, overwhelming sensory expe-rience of the piece — which features, amongst other things, killer clowns, flying viscera, and an eerie Dresden Dolls cover.

It also takes full advantage of another benefit of theater Haskell cites: the ability to take its time to create tension and ambiance that heighten fear.

“I think that theater can play on

the anticipation of fear, if they do it, better than a haunted house or any-thing else,” he says — and the scares found while held captive here are a different beast from any other horror experience.

Still, with the festival, Haskell has his sights set on more than just scares.

“I’m hoping that I can intro-duce a non-traditional theater-going audience to an art form that I know that they’ll enjoy, and that might turn them into theater-goers, theater lovers,” he says. “I think when they come, they’ll realize ‘Wow, this really is entertaining.’ ”

And judging by the gasps and screams emanating from audienc-es, it seems highly likely that he’s accomplished just that.

The Nightmare Horror Show runs through Fri., Oct. 30 at the Clemente Soto Vélez (107 Suffolk St. btw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.). Tickets are $25 for each program (and $15 at the box office for any subsequent program). For the full schedule of shows and artist info, visit night-marenyc.com.

Nightmare Horror Show Brings Terror to the Theater Seven short plays scare on Suffolk St.

Photo by Michael Blase

In Timothy Haskell’s “Smile,” society’s most primal fears are prodded — including a visit from monsters under the bed.

22 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

October 15 - 21, 2015 23.com

sound designer creates an alien invasion through sound. There’s a little bit of lighting that’s happen-ing, but you hopefully believe it from the sound and the actors believing it themselves.”

The only physical representation of the aliens ever seen on stage is a severed alien leg. This pro-vides, as Rogers explains, “Just enough so that we can understand the scale of what we are talking about. By far the better representation of the aliens outside of the house is always going to be in how the actors are reacting to the idea that they are out there. Your best special effect in theater is always going to be human bodies. Actors’ faces and actors’ bodies.”

Sean Williams, the trilogy’s producer, who also plays a lead role in “Advance Man,” adds, “The most important thing that we don’t do, is that we don’t make light of the genre. When people talk about comic books, that is a word that is loaded for some people. They think it’s for children.” Jordana Williams points out, “There’s an assumption. When people hear about sci-fi plays, they think it’s going to be ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space.’ ”

Because the story takes place over 20 years,

some of the roles are played by multiple actors. Ronnie, the leader of the human resistance, is played by Becky Byers as a teenager — but in the third play, she is portrayed by Hanna Cheek as a battle-scarred veteran.

“Each show stands alone, remarkably well,” Cheek notes. “I love each of these plays, together as a whole and separately. They remind me that you never know just how far theater can go.”

Even though the onstage events are themselves epic, the cast and crew can still discuss in detail what happened in the intervening years that aren’t shown.

Ms. Cheek recounts the unseen origin of her character’s limp, Sean Williams describes the meticulous timeline of the offstage war, and both Rogers and Jordana Williams explain the painstak-ing decisions in creating the alien leg.

All of these efforts create a world as richly defined as what would be expected in science fic-tion cinema and literature.

“The Honeycomb Trilogy,” presented by Gideon Productions, runs through Nov. 14. Individual plays run Tues., Thurs. & Fri. at 8 p.m., and the whole trilogy runs Sat. & Sun. starting at 2 p.m., at The Gym at Judson (243 Thompson St., btw.

W. Third St. & Washington Sq. South). For tickets ($25, $75 for marathon packages) and artist info, visit gideonth.com.

Confined to a Living Room, ‘Honeycomb’ Looks to the Cosmos

Continued from page 19

Photo by Deborah Alexander

“Advance Man” (part one of the trilogy) takes place in the near future, following the first manned mis-sion to Mars.

the outside of your clothes. I recently acquired both a “Barbie Princess” and an “Alf” costume on eBay. The great thing about these costumes is that if you are a Barbie Princess, no one will mistake you for anything else because it says “Barbie Princess” directly on the costume.

HAVE A PUMPKIN-CARVING PARTYBecause there are so many new

“pumpkin spice” products on the market, we often forget the sheer joy of carving these festive members of the genus Cucurbita family and trashing one’s home in the process. Recently, I threw a party where guests turned pumpkin-carving into an art form. I made a “Trumpkin,” simply by gluing a bad wig to the pumpkin. Aside from mopping, the only real effort required when throw-ing a pumpkin party is finding pump-kins. Traipsing three blocks and find-ing none, I sat down for a drink at Lucky Jack’s (129 Orchard St.) where I noticed the chef from Black Tree,

(131 Orchard St.) taking a break. Frenzied, I ran outside and asked him where all the pumpkins had gone. Graciously, he then gave me one. Go there because the food is good, but also because they gave me a pumpkin.

WATCH FOOTBALL AT GRAYSONReally, the only good thing about

October is football, my favorite excuse for sitting on my ass and yell-ing at the television. A lot of chicks don’t dig football, and I will never understand why, given it features hot men in tight pants playing with balls. Having grown up around the Beltway, I have the great misfortune of being a Redskins fan, and yes, the slanderous

name should be changed. Because everything in D.C., down to the last square of toilet paper, is now named after Reagan, they’ll probably just call them “The Reagans,” but I suggest they call them “The Hogs” in honor of the nickname given to the Skins’ early ’80s offensive line (football trivia!). These days, I spend most Sunday and Monday nights watching my favorite team lose at Grayson (16 First Ave.) where my dear friend, Matt, (formerly from Lucky Jack’s) now bartends. Go there and over-tip him, because his cat just died.

Upon writing this, I have had a catharsis normally only induced by Willie Nelson songs, and am suddenly crying. I’m not wise, especially when I’m watching football. I’m also not one to give advice, not even to myself, but here goes: Don’t take one second of this shitshow for granted. Try to look at the stupid, asshole fall foliage and not think about the impending hell of another Polar Vortex and your radiator not working. Think about the warmth of the person next to you. Give them a (not creepy) kiss, and tell them you love them.

Rev. Jen’s Spooktacular Seasonal TipsContinued from page 20

Photo by John Foster

Rev. Jen on the Cape with King Foster, who daringly wears a Yankees cap while commandeering the waters of Massachusetts.

24 October 15 -21, 2015 .com

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