The Buzz

THEY’RE HERE, THEY’RE QUEER, THEY’RE NOT GONNA SELL SOCKS: After nearly a year’s courtship, C.B. 4’s Transportation Committee finally accepted the proposal from Heritage of Pride to relocate Pridefest, the annual street festival that ends GLBT Pride Week in June, to Eighth Ave. between 14th and 23rd Sts. H.O.P. president Brian O’Dell, arriving at the meeting with a posse of about 10 people, announced he’d already enlisted the Chelsea Cultural Partnership, which includes Dance Theater Workshop, the Joyce Theatre, The Kitchen, and the Rubin Museum of Art, to volunteer and fundraise at the fair. Skeptical committee members agonized, lest Pridefest resemble the plague of summer street fairs, with their tube socks and massage tables and smoky food booths, while Martin Treat asked, “Why have the event if you might lose money?” A little dumbfounded, O’Dell stood up again: “The point of Pridefest is to have the event — to be here!” And Committee member Carmen Matias, just as she was exacting an agreement to involve even more local nonprofits in the day, told O’Dell, “I’m planning to volunteer — so get ready!”

TRY 25 YEARS: So read a letter to Chelsea Now from “Unfortunately, Anonymous,” who enjoyed our coverage of the illegal rentals at the Chelsmore Hotel. While the letter agreed that the building has seen a lot of traffic in recent years, it went on to exclaim: “Did you say there have been ‘foreign tourists lately’? Try 25-plus years! P.S. We tried to stop this a long time ago.” Interestingly, neither Assemblymember’s office with jurisdiction over the bullding — either Deborah Glick’s or Richard Gottfried’s — could even remember the building, let alone any complaints. We encourage Anonymous to give us a call or another letter, with confidential contact information, and perhaps invite us in to see for ourselves.

Another Close call: Up in Morningside Heights, right by what used to be known as the “Dead Man’s Curve” on the old El, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is letting AvalonBay construct a new 20-story, 296-unit apartment building on the southeast corner of its grounds, which are known as The Close. Of course, they’re not letting them build it for free. The developer will pay for a 99-year ground lease. This project, a so-called 80/20 building, with 20 percent affordable units, is proceeding without opposition, unlike another project on another Episcopal property — The Brodsky Organization’s planned tower in the General Theological Seminary’s Close on Ninth Ave. in Chelsea, which is facing intense community opposition. It seems, however, that there’s a trend of the Episcopal Archdiocese trying to use its property to generate income.

CHELSEA ORAL HISTORY: Thirty-year Chelsea resident Kathy Casey is seeking people who want to be interviewed for a local oral-history project. Said the former librarian and book editor, “I’ve been wanting to do this for decades. I think I should start before I get any older.” In her spare time, mainly through library research, she has collected many stories about life in New York City prior to 1920, including a few about people who lived in Chelsea. Now she wants to gather some recollections of people who have lived here since the 1920s or during the ensuing half-century, with a focus on third-generation Chelsea-ites; people of African, Greek and Irish descent who lived in Chelsea before Penn South was built; and descendants of the French, German, Spanish and Cuban people who had flourishing enclaves in Chelsea for decades before 1960. Casey can be contacted at 212-255-6436.