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Volume 2, Number 22 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | February 29 - March 06, 2008
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The Buzz
CALLING GIFFORD MILLER The last time we saw former City Council Speaker and failed mayoral candidate Miller, he was at the Hudson Guild greeting old friends like State Sen.Thomas Duane, our photographer Jefferson Siegel, and Quinn aide Danielle Decerbo at Community Board 4’s December Hudson Yards forum. Miller was there with the team of Brookfield Properties, whose make-city-blocks proposed plan was the popular favorite, but long rumored to be already out of the running. We’re sure Decerbo, like us, wants to ask Giff why Brookfield—unlike Steven Ross’ Related Companies, Stephen Roth’s Vornado Corporation, Tishman Speyer, and Steven Holl’s Extell Corporation—did not submit answers to the MTA’s second round of “60 questions,” all of which focused on leasing the Yards instead of buying. We’d ask if Brookfield is sated, given its two surreal towers just announced for Ninth Avenue, or if perhaps it plans on being invited to join one of the others if they win, thus becoming the Eve Harrington of developers.
Florent gossip: Ever since the announcement that historic Meatpacking District restaurant Florent might shutter after a spat with its landlord, rumors have swirled about the famed Gansevoort St. eatery’s future — and the broader future of the increasingly upscale neighborhood. A recent item on Web site Eater.com quoted an anonymous source who reported overhearing one of the restaurant’s staff intimating to a patron that the space would, in fact, remain operating as is, despite recent legal troubles. An e-mail response from owner Florent Morellet to The Buzz would neither confirm nor deny the scuttlebutt, with Morellet maintaining he intends to stay open past the end of his lease on March 31. He also plans to celebrate the culmination of Gay Pride Week on June 29. So customers can at least hold out hope that the restaurant will last until summer. “I believe we will have a clearer answer once Judge Matthew Cooper makes a decision, which he hasn’t done yet, three weeks after we appeared in his chamber,” Morellet added of the suit filed by his landlord to collect back rent payments. Morellet has responded with a countersuit claiming overpayment of real estate taxes. An employee at the restaurant backed up Morellet’s claim that they’re trying to keep the restaurant running at least until Gay Pride Week. Either way, The Buzz imagines Florent has received a boost in business as patrons scramble to get in one last bite before Florent possibly bites the dust. Mon dieu!
…WE WILL LEARN IT THE HARD WAY So said the late civil rights hero, gay icon and Penn Station resident Bayard Rustin, warning against divisiveness among fighters for social change. But those words might also apply to the high school that bears his name on 18th St., helmed by principal John Angelet, which has been recently plagued with rumors of gang violence and which reportedly received an initial “F” on their fall Progress Report from the Department of Education (the DOE has yet to issue a revision). Chelsea Now’s efforts to follow up on either our December story about a stabbing involving a Rustin student, or the six months without a “report card” have been slow. We were barred at the last minute from covering the “community safety” meeting in January between Angelet, Fulton Youth for the Future director Miguel Acevedo, local principals like the Museum School’s Darlene Miller, reps from the DOE and NYPD, and Kate Seeley-Kirk of Speaker Quinn’s district office. No one seemed to want to talk much about it afterward, though one participant said when asked if there was a gang problem at Rustin: “I don’t think anyone is denying that.” But thanks to the patience of many current and former Rustin teachers, our follow-up is finally taking shape. Stay tuned.
Way to go! David Spett, who interned with us here at Community Media two summers ago, has made national news after nailing the dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for allegedly fabricating quotes. The dean, John Lavine, wrote two articles for the school’s alumni magazine that included some quotes by anonymous students praising the school and saying how wonderful the program was. The quotes sounded odd to Spett, a Northwestern senior and columnist for the Daily Northwestern; plus, Spett didn’t understand why these sort of quotes would need to be anonymous in the first place. Spett interviewed all 29 students in the program and none fessed up to having given the quotes. In an interview on NPR, Spett said he confronted Dean Lavine, who told him the quotes were e-mailed to him but that he no longer had the e-mails. Lavine subsequently was reported saying the anonymous statements were similar to comments made by students in a videotaped interview. Medill professors are reportedly calling the Lavine exposé “a crisis” and “embarrassment.” Ah, nailing your own journalism dean. We teach our interns well here. Just kidding — it sounds like we could learn a few pointers from Spett!
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