The Buzz

Messy garbage battle: Last week’s article on the proposed Hudson Square high-rise municipal garbage truck garage incorrectly stated that Community Board 2 recently reversed its late-1990s resolution in support of siting a Department of Sanitation garage on the U.P.S. parking lot at Spring and Washington Sts. In fact, Arthur Schwartz, C.B. 2 Waterfront and Parks Committee chairperson, at the end 2005, had proposed a resolution supporting the lawsuit by Friends of Hudson River Park to force the city to get its garbage trucks off Gansevoort Peninsula, allowing a park to be built on Gansevoort as part of the Hudson River Park. But Schwartz’s resolution failed after a discussion by the board, mainly because some newer members didn’t take kindly to the idea of the garbage trucks being relocated to the U.P.S. lot. Noting he grew up in Hudson Square back when “rats were as big as cats,” Phil Mouquinho, who owns the nearby P.J. Charlton restaurant on Greenwich St., said at the time, “The area is just starting to gentrify,” and that an influx garbage trucks could threaten further upscaling. The earlier C.B. 2 resolution supporting just one Department of Sanitation garage at the site — and some of the trucks from Gansevoort going to Chelsea — remains on the books. But the latest proposal by the city — for a Hudson Square garage for, not one, but three garbage truck districts, plus the U.P.S. trucks, and a jumbo fuel storage depot and salt shed on two other sites to boot — is likely to provoke even more opposition from the 50-member Greenwich Village board, only about five members of which remain from the late 1990s. Meanwhile, Schwartz and David Reck, who sparred over the initial resolution on the U.P.S. lot, are, eight years later, once again on opposing sides of the new proposal for a 150-foot-tall mega-garage. Reck is leading a coalition against the garage plan, which includes his group — Friends of Hudson Square — along with the Tribeca Community Association, the new Urban Glass House condo tower, the Ear Inn and other local restaurants and businesses, and the area’s “major landlords.” “I am a park supporter,” Reck said. “I just don’t feel that dumping it all [the garbage trucks and facilities] in one neighborhood is fair. They want to move three garbage truck garages down here — plus a salt pile. We’re going to become like the garbage center.” Reck added the fuel depot, located near the Holland Tunnel airshaft, would also be a terrorist target. “There’s 29,000 gallons of flammable stuff there,” he said. They will be filing a lawsuit, he promised. Schwartz countered that the only people negatively impacted would be the residents of the Urban Glass House just south of the site. “If David Reck wants to defend luxury housing Downtown — this is super-luxury housing — that’s fine,” Schwartz said, adding he’s sure Reck’s lawsuit will be well funded by developers’ money. “What’s David’s alternative — using the [U.P.S.] lot to build luxury housing?” he added. “The Urban Glass House people are very upset about this,” Reck assured. Reck can also count Donald Trump in his corner. On Tuesday, the New York Post reported that Trump, who’s trying to develop a condo-hotel a few blocks away on Varick St., said he’d offer the community his help in fighting the massive garage. Reck said he hasn’t personally talked to The Donald yet. As for Schwartz’s statements about real estate money behind his lawsuit, Reck said, “Arthur’s not relevant here. He doesn’t live in the neighborhood, and we’re going to do our own lawsuit.” Coincidentally, Schwartz, who’s thinking of moving, said that six months ago he looked at a unit at the Urban Glass House and the broker claimed to know nothing about the garage when Schwartz queried about it. “Either he didn’t know or wasn’t telling,” Schwartz said.

Gifts in the park: Justin Timberlake’s recent outrageous “Saturday Night Live” video, “D—k in a Box,” was shot in Chelsea Waterside Park and Hudson River Park at 23rd St. The video features Timberlake and an “S.N.L.” cast member extolling their boxed Christmas “gifts” — a part of their anatomy — for their girlfriends. The clip ends with the two cool dudes being arrested and handcuffed, not by Park Enforcement Patrol officers, but police officers.