Volume 2, Number 10 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | December 14 - 20, 2007
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The Buzz
MOVIN’ ON OUT:
Just two weeks after Chelsea Now reported on the challenges to Chelsea’s place in the international art community, the Dia Foundation announced last week the sale of its four-story warehouse building at 548 West 22nd St. for a reported $38.55 million. Dia director Jeffrey Weiss confided in Chelsea Now that the commercial encroachment into the area has forced the foundation to look to a more “diversified neighborhood,” including casual glances toward the Lower East Side, Financial District and Harlem. While the Dia is “determined to try to stay in Manhattan,” Weiss said, it has also looked at space in the Bronx and Brooklyn. “Dia has never sought to occupy space in districts that are devoted to gallery and museum culture,” he said, adding the foundation would also prefer to take a “standalone” building not part of a larger development. “We’ve seen possibilities in a number of neighborhoods that I would say are outside the art mainstream.” Chelsea Now’s expansive Nov. 30 report spotlighting the neighborhood as a global art capital prominently featured the Dia, which moved to its 40,000-square-foot digs on West 22nd St. between 10th and 11th Aves. in 1987, blazing a trail for the hundreds of galleries that followed. The move further illustrates the affects of recent rezoning in West Chelsea, as well the clustering of galleries that played a part in the non-profit’s departure, Weiss noted. “[Some of] the galleries in Chelsea are doing the kind of work that almost obviates Dia’s presence,” he said, “and that’s another factor for us to consider.”
FOUL BALL:
Chelsea dog owners might want to put dog-run safety instead of play dates and pampering at the top of their pets’ priorities list. Someone out there just doesn’t seem to like man’s best friend—with a vengeance. While playing a round of “catch” with her owner, Joe DiThomas, recently, terrier Sophie began to sport spots of blood—surely not a terrier trait. The perp? Half of a rusty needle, the remaining end of which had been forcibly driven into an old tennis ball. DiThomas had found the ball the night before, tossed it into a bag, and didn’t give it a second thought until the next day, when Sophie wrestled it out of hiding for playtime and, sadly, the bloody deed. Sophie and Joe were lucky: They’re fine. But the willfully motivated incident has unfortunately become part of the dog run’s recent jinxed history. You might recall the events of June 2007, when several dogs ingested methamphetamine sprinkled throughout the dog run, resulting in the death of one pet and the hospitalization of dozens more. Whoever is behind the snarky venture operates Ninja-style: No one has been spotted in the dog run without a dog or acting suspiciously, nor have any of the daily dog run cleaning team found any suspicious objects. August Costa, head of the ad hoc Chelsea Dog Run Coalition, e-mailed members: “Please watch your dogs carefully and examine balls and toys before your dogs play with them.” DiThomas has filed reports with the 10th Precinct as well as informed our local representative officials about the incident. He, and the rest of the coalition, has high hopes for finding out who must be put in the doghouse once and for all.
BLAMING BAYARD:
Not civil rights icon Bayard Rustin himself. But the school that bears his name on 18th Street hit the news Wednesday, when three Rustin students had a knife fight on 17th Street. The three were taken to Saint Vincent’s Hospital with superficial wounds, according to the TV station NY1, which was told by the Department of Education that the boys face unspecified “disciplinary action, after the police investigation is complete.” What they will find, said Miguel Acevedo, director of Fulton Youth for the Future, is that Wednesday’s stabbing is just one of numerous violent incidents on his block involving “kids from Humanities” [the small school inside the Rustin complex] “and that it’s all gang-related.” Acevedo told Chelsea Now that he had met with Humanities’ dean and wouldn’t stop till he talked to Principal John Angelet. “I know there are 3,000 students [at Rustin],” said Acevedo. “They come from all over the city, too. I know things happen.” But Acevedo said he was concerned for his neighborhood, especially about the youths’ gang involvement. “We have no gangs at Fulton Houses,” Acevedo said. “I don’t want these kids from outside the neighborhood bringing them in.”
ONE–CLICK SHOPPING ABOUT THE RAIL YARDS:
Too busy to stop by the MTA’s Hudson Yards diorama on 43rd Street? Kicking yourself because you missed both the Dec. 3 Cooper Union display of the plans or the Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee event at Hudson Guild on Monday, hosted by Community Board 4’s Anna Levin, State Senator Thomas Duane, and the rest of the gang? Don’t despair: Thanks to Robert Hammond and Katie Horan at Friends of the High Line, one click will now get you all the info you need, at http://railyardsblog.wordpress.com. You’ll find plans, reports and video of the architects’ presentations, and all of FHL and HYAC’s nifty fact sheets on the competing plans, including one close to the heart of CB 4’s Christine Berthet, which asks: How many parking spaces are they allowing? And since it’s a blog, you can leave comments and suggestions, or link to it from your own cutting-edge Website.
