Health, Pg. 8
The New School
FREE PRESS
Issue 6, Nov. 13-Dec. 10
Adventure, Pg. 9
1
Copyright © 2007
Published by the Eugene Lang College Writing Department
Loeb Evicts Students
Halloween ‘joke’ backfires
By Julia Davidson & Kevin Dugan
On October 25, Lang freshmen
Maxwell Wolkin and Nicholas Engel posted a picture of the burning Twin Towers on their door in
Loeb Hall. Above the poster, they
put up a “Happy Halloween” sign.
This was their entry in the doordecorating contest sponsored
by the Loeb Hall Council, which
called for residents to create the
“most scariest door” in the dorm.
By Friday afternoon, the poster
was gone. “Someone tore that
down and left a note up on our
door calling us douchebags,” said
Wolkin.
In response, the two roommates
put up two more pictures: one
Nazi propaganda poster, and an
anti-Semitic flyer depicting a hideous man with a Star of David on
his forehead. Alongside the posters was a note defending their
freedom of expression and calling the person who had removed
the 9/11 photo “an asshole and a
coward” who should “get a sense
of humor.” Both of the students
are Jewish.
Since then, the posters have been
taken down, and both roommates
were evicted on November 7 for
disorderly and harassing conduct.
While the students claim that the
university is suspending their
First Amendment rights, school
officials have censured them for
creating a hostile environment.
The aftermath has revealed a complex question on the boundaries
of a student’s freedom of speech
and the school’s responsibility to
create a safe space for its pupils.
Administration officials declined
to discuss the case because it is
protected by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). As a matter of policy, the university does not disclose specific
information about any student’s
disciplinary records.
“In my six years at the University, I do not recall a similar incident which could be cited as
precedent for reviewing this,” said
Roger Ward, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs. “The University, however, is committed to
a careful and thorough review of
the incident to ensure that our
educational values and principles
are respected and upheld.”
Wolkin said that the 9/11 poster
was intended as an “offensive
Continued on Page 5
Sam Lewis
Lang Students at the New York City Marathon
Last Sunday, students of the Lang Marathon class lined up on 1st Avenue and 60th Street in
orange ponchos to hand out water, quenching the runners’ thirst. See pages 8 & 9 for more
Vintage Village in Decline
Residents blame New School, NYU
By Darya Marchenkova
In the gymnasium of a local
school last week, worried Greenwhich Village community members met to discuss how their old
neighborhood is quickly being replaced. But with almost 200 seats
members concerned that their
neighborhoods are losing character, disappearing altogether. Two
of the principle nuisances are the
expanding campuses of New York
University and The New School,
speaker. Berman had just finished
a meeting with Bob Kerrey about
the new 65 5th Ave. building.
NYU has expanded dramatically
over the past several decades, Berman said, adding, “I don’t think I
Lee and Dan Provost
created the installation for their class,
Major Studio: Interface. The assignment
was to change the
interaction of users
in some way, tying in
with ethnography lessons from the course,
they said. Lee and
Provost intended to
Installation outside 65 5th Ave. Julia Davidson
increase interaction
between strangers,
especially smokers
and
non-smokers,
since the front of the
By Julia Davidson
GF is a place where
many smokers congreOn Monday, October 29, punc- gate. They then observed what and
tuation marks graced the outside how people wrote on the boards.
By the end of the day, the boards
of the GF building. There were
three white foam boards on the were decorated with many doodles
wall that faces Fifth Avenue: one and scribbles. Only one marker
with a period, one with a question was stolen. Lee felt that the conmark and one with an exclamation tent was “a mixture of positive
point. Five dry erase markers were and negative.” They observed that
available beside the boards. There users tended to write in groups.
was no explanation visible of ei- “We came to the conclusion that
ther the boards or the markers. users felt more comfortable writThroughout the day, New School ing on the boards if they saw other
students and other passersby people writing on them,” said Lee.
wrote on the punctuation boards Some examples of drawings on
the boards are an elephant and a
with the markers provided.
Parsons graduate students Mike stylized ejaculating penis.
Go Ahead, Tag Me
A problem for some, East Village graffiti exemplifies local charm for others.
set up for the event, fewer than 25
people occupied them.
Rents have sky-rocketed in
this neighborhood over the past
decade,forcing long-time residents to move out, and rapid
development has community
residents say.
“There is no bigger opponent
in the neighborhood than NYU,”
said Andrew Berman, executive
director of the Greenwich Village
Society for Historic Preservation
(GVSHP) and the evening’s guest
Sam Lewis
need to tell anyone here that.” The
room murmured with laughter.
“It’s very exciting for this neighborhood to be so dynamic, but
how is it going to affect the qualContinued on Page 16
Prefix F irst M id Last
Ad dress_1 , Add ress_2
C ity , S tate Z ip
Cou ntry
Editorials
2
The New School
Free Press
Published by the Eugene Lang
College Writing Department
Eugene Lang College,
The New School For Liberal Arts
Room 071
65 West 11th St.
New York, NY 10011
212-229-5100 ext. 2212
[email protected]
Staff
Editor in Chief:
Hannah Rappleye
Managing Editor/
Advertising Director:
Linh Tran
Business Manager:
Madeleine Damon
Production Chief:
Kayley Hoffman
Production Deputy:
Cosette Bruhns
Photography Editors:
Sam Lewis,
Cameron Paine-Thaler
News Editor:
Kevin Dugan
News Deputy:
Julia David
Arts and Culture Editor:
Amber Sutherland
Arts Deputy:
Joe Veix
Opinions Editor:
Elisabeth Garber-Paul
Opinions Deputy:
Julia Schweizer
Copy Chief:
Next Thursday, Meet Your Academic Future
If you are even remotely curious
about the future of your university’s programs and curricula, you
should attend Provost Ben Lee’s
presentation on the university’s
academic initiatives on November
29.
The New School’s Provosts have
always been overshadowed by
the outsized personality of New
School President, Bob Kerrey,
and all of his outrageous controversies. But for the most part, it
is the Provost, not the President,
who takes the lead in initiatives
that are absolutely integral to
the university’s academic operations. Over the past several years,
the Provost’s Office has risen to a
prominent position here, having
developed full-time faculty governance rules, introduced a plan to
hire full-time faculty at multiple
divisions and narrowly avoided
a part-time faculty strike during
negotiations over the terms of
their union contract.
Lee, who replaced Arjun Appadurai as Provost in Summer
2006, now pilots a plan to revolutionize, for better or worse, our
university’s curricula. He has
worked with New School Deans
to develop a series of university-wide, interdisciplinary and
project-based programs that will
tackle complex issues like global
warming and urban renewal. In
his presentation next week, it’s
expected that Provost Lee will
discuss the complications administrators have seen so far in
bringing Parsons and Lang stu-
dents together for lecture courses,
and the latest developments in
creating the Environmental Studies program.
Administrators say that the
university-wide programs will be
a more efficient and effective use
of our university’s resources—and
we are inclined to believe them.
But so far, the project has seen
serious challenges. The university plans to hire more faculty that
will work at multiple divisions
here, and university officials have
told the Free Press that scheduling courses for joint faculty can be
mind-boggling in its complexity.
This year, after Lang forced its
Social and Historical Inquiry program into the new model by turning two core seminar courses into
Social Thought lectures 1 and 2,
a lot of Parsons students greeted
their new lectures on liberalism,
sociology and economic theory
with a resounding “So what?”
The few Lang students taking
these courses, meanwhile, have
suffered through dumbed-down
discussion sections where their
classmates struggle to define
terms like “class” and “capitalism.”
Last spring, Provost Lee presented the university-wide plan
to a crowd of officials and a few
students. By this fall, he said,
the plan should be in a more advanced state. If not, he added,
“this process has failed.”
The project, indeed, has been
coming along, but the progress
has given officials more problems to solve. Now, it looks like
Lee is walking a tightrope during
a Chicago windstorm. If you are
wondering how he intends to pull
off this bold undertaking—which
will hugely affect your education,
of course—you need to be in the
Orozco Room next Thursday.
-Peter Holslin
Josh Kurp
Copy Editors:
Adam Solomon
Staff Writers:
Peter Holslin, Darya
Marchenkova, Amelia
Granger, Josh Kurp,
Courtney Nichols, Ben
Kelly, Lauren Taylor
Reporters:
Erika Allen, Wendy
Biddlecombe, Ashley Burritt,
Christine Calvo, Lauren
Cuscuna, Nicholas Darmstaedter, Julia Davidson,
Kristina Delatour, Elisa
Deljanin, Samuel Denlinger,
Pamela Di Francesco, Sara
Gartman, Lauren Gautier,
Justine Harrison, Jessica
Heyman, Eric Hollerbach,
Mathew Kennedy, Marisa
Kreiss, Yuki-Jennifer Kurumi, Charlie Leveridge, Eric
Marchese, Robb Maynard,
Kyle McGovern, Kate
Murray, Emily Nelson,
Katrina Norvell, Jon Reiss,
Tracey Rogovin, Adam
Solomon, Alexandra Sourbis,
Jake Weingarten
Faculty Advisors:
Neil Gordon (Chair, Lang
Writing Department),
Rob Buchanan, Sean Elder,
Sarah Saffian
Except for opinions expressed herein
are those of individual writers and not
of The New School Free Press. Please
send any letters and submissions to
[email protected]. The New
School Free Press does not publish
unsigned letters. Letters & submissions will be edited for length and clarity. The New School Free Press is not
responsible for unpublished letters or
submissions.
Health and Adventure, Special Supplement
This issue features a special two page Health and Adventure section. Many New School students would call themselves adventurous, but healthy? Please. Most of you probably swallowed your cigarette reading the above sentence. With this section, we wanted to
provide some ideas for staying healthy on the cheap, eating well and even going for a walk in the woods. Being healthy doesn’t mean
slaving on an elliptical machine; it should be fun, too. So check out pages 8 & 9, get inspired and get out! - Adam Solomon
Letter to the Editor
Re: Lang Struggles to Keep Freshmen, News, Issue 5, Oct. 30-Nov. 12
We are writing in response to the
recent article on attrition at Lang,
“Lang Struggles to Keep Freshmen” (Issue 5). Your reporter did
a commendable job of opening up
a complex and important topic.
Attrition is a serious concern, and
numerous efforts are underway to
understand and reduce it.
The first step to reducing attrition is understanding that students leave for a lot of reasons.
Some are preventable, many are
not. Some students leave because
of personal, health and financial
problems. Others decide to pursue a specific major not offered
at Lang. Some find Lang’s seminar pedagogy or urban setting
less congenial than they expected.
Many take a leave of absence,
and many return. Distinguishing among the causes and kinds
of attrition will help us minimize
it, ensuring that students come
to Lang for the right reasons and
have successful and rewarding experiences here.
To move beyond anecdotes and
abstractions, we are gathering
information about each student
who has not returned this year.
The Dean has convened a task
force which brings together admissions, advising, faculty and
administration. We consult with
peer advisors, first-year faculty
advisors, class advisors, and,
where available, student self-reports. By analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data, we are
well on our way to understanding
what’s working at Lang, but also
where and why it breaks down.
It is too early to announce final
results of these inquiries—many
widely held assumptions based
on anecdotal evidence are being
challenged. We will, however, be
happy to share them with the Free
Press readers.
Ultimately, the best way to reduce attrition is to draw students
who will thrive at Lang, and ensure
that each one has the best possible
experience here. As a task force,
we are examining how to prevent
attrition and promote satisfac-
tion. We cannot do this alone, and
depend on student support and
suggestions. We invite students to
contact us with insights, concerns,
frustrations and success stories!
Maude Bond
([email protected])
Kathleen Breidenbach
([email protected])
Nevin Cohen
([email protected])
Nicole Curvin
([email protected])
Mark Larrimore
([email protected])
Robin Mookerjee
([email protected])
Bertha Peralta
([email protected])
Jennifer Riegle
([email protected])
Shireen Rizvi
([email protected])
Jonathon White
([email protected])
Fall 2007 New
School Meetings
on Academic and
Space Planning
University Seminar:
Academic Planning
Presented by
Provost Ben Lee
November 29,
3:00-4:30 p.m.
66 W. 12th St.,
Orozco Room
Town Hall Meeting: Use
of Space in the Signature
Building: A Report from
Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill (SOM) and IDEO
December 7, 10:00-3:00
p.m. (break between
12:00-1:00 p.m.)
66 W. 12th St.,
Tishman Auditorium
News & Features
3
ULECs Boggle Students and Profs with Mixed Standards
Administrators Discuss Problems More Often Than Classes Meet, TAs say
By Darya Marchenkova
This fall, almost 200 students,
ranging from Parsons freshmen
to Lang seniors, are registered
for some university-wide lecture
courses (ULEC) causing frustration among students and professors who see few
options in reconciling the wide
gap in academic standards.
Among 191
students registered in Social
Thought I: Social
Change,there are
approximately 25
Lang students.
The rest come
from
Parsons,
and are primarily Design and
Management majors. The Design
and Management major requires
its students to take this course.
“The course’s general structure
and administration is dysfunctional,” said Ritchie Savage, a
teaching assistant for the course.
“The syllabus is too tough and
the lectures are too advanced,” he
added. Another TA, Anna Toczylowska, said the TAs and professor have had more administrative
meetings than classes to discuss
the problems.
In general, Lang students feel
the discussions are too elementary, and Parsons students consider
the readings too many and too
complex, said Jose Casanova, the
professor teaching Social Thought
I.
“Everyone wants less reading,”
said Stella Yi, a freshman in Design and Management.
Weekly discussions among 25
students, each led by teaching assistants, were instituted to supplement the large lectures. Yet some
students say the discussions are
not operating properly.
“The discussion class is pretty
quiet,” said
Yi. “Only a
few
people
talk.”
“The seminar is acting
as a second
clarifying lecture, but the
point of discussion is to
get everyone involved,” said Dan
Schulman, a Lang sophomore.
The proportion of Lang to
Parsons students in the Social
Thought discussion sections is
uneven, according to three TAs,
who said that Parsons students
make up nearly 90 percent of their
classes. There is no uniformity of
academic experience among the
students—sophomores, juniors,
and seniors are registered along
with freshmen.
“TAs are forced to walk a line that
is bound to frustrate one group or
the other in a discussion,” Casanova said.
TA Aron Hsiao asked his students, mostly Parsons freshmen
with very few Lang upperclassmen, how they came to register
for the course.
“Parsons
students make
up 90% of the
discussion
sections”
“Overwhelmingly they answered
that they were told by advisers
that it was required for them, and
they also said that their impression was that their advisers had
little knowledge of what might be
in it,” Hsiao said.
In their freshman years, Design
and Management students take an
interdisciplinary curriculum with
social theory, critical reading,
economics and math or science.
TAs have offered a solution.
“There is one simple solution: put
students at different levels in different courses,” Hsiao said.
“I would love to either teach a
completely introductory class, in
which all parties know what to expect of each other, or if I’m teaching a fairly advanced class like this
one, be able to do it in a proper
way,” said Toczylowska.
Social Thought was offered in
the same structure last year and
taught by Ronald Kassimir. Casanova said he did not find out about
problems with last year’s course
until weeks into the semester.
Ben Lee, Provost of the New
School, said that administrators
“have been working hard on academic planning,” but declined to
comment further. A town hall
meeting on the issue is scheduled
for November 29.
“The administration wants us to
teach students how to be better
designers, managers, etc., how to
understand their future audiences
better,” Toczylowska said in an
e-mail. “But that is not what we
do, for there is no communication
between the administration and
us.” The course syllabus includes
selections from Karl Marx, Adam
Smith and Edward Said, among
other high-profile theorists.
“[Bob Kerrey] assumes that the
goal of the school in general is to
be a better business, whereas our
goal is to be an academic community which indulges itself with
theoretical speculations,” Toczylowska said.
“It’s all about money. They don’t
want to pay established
professors to teach
twenty students
a pop, and they
cloud this economic motive in
a flowery rhetoric about more
opportunities for
teaching assistants,” said Savage.
By midterm, the class had four
cases of plagiarism. The offenders
were all Parsons students, according to Casanova.
Parsons Design and Management students are also required
to take Introduction to Microeconomics and Macroeconomics,
but these courses have not suffered similar problems, according
to Microeconomics TA Michelle
Holder. Almost all students registered in these economics courses
enter with an introductory level of
understanding regardless of division, Holder said.
“I’ve seen very little difference
between Lang and Parsons students, although [the proportion of
Lang to Parsons students] is very
disproportionate,” Holder said.
After hearing numerous complaints from Parsons students that
his lectures were too complex, Casanova adjusted his lecturing style
to a more simple and straightforward one. “I enjoy lecturing,” Casanova said, “but only when I can
contribute something of myself.”
Nonetheless, he reduced the
amount of his own vision and
ideas in his
teaching, he
said.
“I think I’ve
missed out on
really engaging
with the material,” said
Schulman,
who is one of
Casanova’s students. “I’m missing
out on
something I should be learning,
helping me to conceive my own
ideas.”
“There’s no
communication
between the
administration
and TAs”
Have Any
Thoughts?
Let us know!
freepress@
newschool.edu
Hurricanes, Wildfires, Tsunamis: How to Prepare for Disaster
NSSR conference mulls role of infrastructure, politics in catastrophes
By Tracey Rogovin
mies and impoverished people.
It was a critical social analysis of
international disasters, ranging
from those considered natural,
like earthquakes, and those manmade, like bio-terrorism. The
conference addressed the need
to acknowledge that disasters are
occurring more frequently and severely than ever before and how
people contribute to them.
In the session entitled, “What
Really Happens When Disasters
Happen,” Elliot Aronson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the
University of California, Santa
Cruz, lectured on the effects of irrational fears. Often enough, he
said, people find themselves in denial when disasters hit. “Human
behavior is not always rational—
it’s not often rational—much to
the consternation of policy makers, because people don’t always
behave the way they’re supposed
to behave. But simply because human behavior is not rational, it
does not mean it’s unfathomable,” he said.
Robert Ursano,
Professor and Chair
of Psychiatry at the
Uniformed Services
University of the
Health Sciences, gave
a neurological and
psychological
perspective, focusing on
post-traumatic stress
Hurricane Archive.org
disorder as a response
A house in New Orleans after Katrina
The California wildfires have destroyed more than 500,000 acres
of land and over 2,000 homes.
Seven are dead. 115 firefighters
are injured. On the second day,
the fires continued to burn and
more than a quarter of a million
people were urged to evacuate
their homes.
After disasters like this, Katrina
and the droughts in the Southeast,
environmental and policy experts
agree that natural disasters can
no longer be ignored. On November 1 and 2, The New School for
Social Research hosted a series of
lectures called “Disasters: Recipes
and Remedies”, to educate the
public on how to ensure the least
amount of harm in the face of similar catastrophes.
The lectures concentrated on the
ways in which failing infrastructures and poor environmental
conditions foster unsatisfactory
responses to disaster and increase
the damage to vulnerable econo-
to disaster.
“The most successful cure for
post traumatic stress disorder is
the seat belt,” he said, explaining
that preparedness is the crucial
element to reducing damage after a disaster occurs. He said that
mental illness as a result of disaster appears as problem that must
be cured, but can also be prevented. By improving public health
through social solidarity, he said,
it can be possible to strengthen an
individual’s psychological condition so that they may better re-
“Politics are
what, fundamentally, has destroyed the city
of New Orleans”
spond in the case of disaster.
Michael A. Cohen, Director of
the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School,
proceeded by saying that more often than not, people attribute poor
response to disaster to nature itself, rather than the failing infrastructure and the governments
neglectfulness. “Major natural disasters are not events, but they’re
processes,” he said. “Can we say in
the case of New Orleans, that because the levees were a concern for
generations, that this was truly a
Tracey Rogovin
Panelists at the Disaster Conference speak at The New School
disaster by design? If we really do the public in terms of profit rather
deny failing infrastructure, then it than people. He also pointed out
is true, that in the case of disaster, that only 11% of New Orleans
businesses and schools have been
they will be designed to fail.”
William Morrish of the Universi- able to re-open since Katrina.
“Everyone says hey, this can’t
ty of Virginia examined the infrastructure of New Orleans before happen in our country. But the diand after Katrina. “Infrastructure saster continues on. No one wants
is a cultural ecology,” he said, and to talk about the politics, but the
“local resilience is the next global politics are what, fundamentally,
has destroyed the city of New Orprotocol.”
Morrish explained that es- leans.”
sentially all of the issues related
to
urbanism
are
becoming privatized.
Sewage plants,
power lines and
basic forms of
infrastructure
have been relinquished from
government
responsibility, and turned
over to comChris Doolittle
panies that see
Wild fire over San Bernardino County, CA
4
Free Press
Goes Online
News & Features
How Much Did You Spend This Week?
By Julia Schweizer
The Free Press, finally catching
up with the rest of the world, will
soon be available online.
A new class, “Inprint on the
Web: Community Media Design,”
has been working on forming a
site this semester. Karl Mendonca, one of the class’ professors,
says that although “the students
in the class have done a great job
so far,” they are currently wrestling with technical issues. The
class did not require any previous
programming or managing experience. The other professor, Mike
Edwards, is the only web professional assisting the class.
Hannah Rappleye, the Editor-inChief of this paper, finds it important to have a go-between person
who is registered for both the Free
Press and the web design classes
next semester.
Jon Reiss, a writer for the paper,
stressed the importance of making the site “interactive” in the
meeting. The web class hopes to
include videos, photographs, an
RSS feed and even writer and editor profiles on their site. This will
make it more like an online magazine than just a blog.
The web class was just approved
for a second semester and hope to
hear more input in the creation of
the website. Mendonca encouraged students to fill out a survey
at http://creator.zoho.com/cmd_
fall07/form/17.
Free Press Staff Monitor Their Weekly Expenses
Cameron Paine-Thaler
Groceries: $16.30
Eating Out: $25.10
Transportation: $59.75
Vices: $7.99 (vodka)
Home: $0
Clothes: $0
Entertainment: $6
Other: $0
Total:
$118.14
Josh Kurp
Elisabeth Garber-Paul
Groceries:$82.88
Eating Out: $18.85
Transportation: $106
(Metrocards and
MetroNorth)
Vices: $0
Home: $0
Clothes: $0
Entertainment: $0
Other: $30 (Doctor)
Groceries: $66.50
Eating Out: $135
Transportation: $84
Vices: $40 (cigarettes) +
$47 (drinks)
Home: $27
Clothes: $85
Entertainment: $2
Other: $0
Total:
$501.50
Total:
$222.50
Student Spending at a Glance
Money isn’t really important for
most students until they reach
college. Back in high school, groceries were something parents
bought, and spending extra money on name-brand cereals had
no importance in daily life. But
once out of your parents’ house,
you find yourself going out of
your way to go to Trader Joe’s in-
stead of Whole Foods because it’s
cheaper. Or sneaking condoms
out of Health Services because
they’re too expensive to buy at the
drug store.
Over seven days, three Free
Press writers tracked every purchase they made, and added the
total at the end of the week. The
categories were Groceries, Eat-
ing Out, Transportation (this includes MetroCards, taxi rides and
Metro North tickets), Vices (cigarettes, alcohol), Home (detergent,
laundry), Clothes, Entertainment
(movie tickets, CDs, books) and
Other.
One week is a short amount of
time, and these numbers may
not reflect each students’ average
spending for various reasons (one
writer went on a camping trip,
while others decided to spend extra money for Halloween). Either
way, it’s a telling snapshot of how
students spend their money.
-Josh Kurp
Homophobia At Lang
By Amelia Granger & Pamela Di Francesco
In mid-October, the Lang
First Year Experience program
held a mandatory workshop on
“Healthy Relationships.” One of
the exercises involved an anonymous worksheet with prompts
like: “Bisexual students at Lang
are __” and “If you had to tell
your parents that your new date,
whom you were bringing home
for Thanksgiving, is the same sex
as you, they would __”
Across the top of one of the worksheets, one freshman scrawled,
“He’s kinda fag.” The derogatory
remark was ostensibly aimed at
Eric Garrison, a New School
health educator and clinical sexologist who led the workshop.
Garrison reported the incident
to the Office of Student Rights
and Responsibilities. He did not
take the comment as a personal
attack, he said, but was upset by
the student’s action.
“It’s not like a noose up at Columbia,” said Garrison in an
interview, referring to when an
anonymous student hung a noose
above a black professor’s door in
October. “But not to downplay it,
either.”
Rumors of this incident spread
rapidly through the student body,
and has exemplified the perceived
changing climate of Lang towards
less progressive values.
The University prides itself on
a reputation for diversity, and
Lang was recently ranked by the
Princeton Review as one of the
most queer-friendly campuses in
the nation. But some members of
The New School’s queer student
group OPEN, the Out and Proud
Environment at New School, do
not think New School is free of
homophobia.
“It’s not the school people think
it is in a lot of ways,” said Harper
Keenan, Lang senior and OPEN
member. “There’s certainly homophobia in this school.”
To Keenan, this homophobia
does not come in the form of violence or “rampant disparaging remarks,” but in what he calls a general heterosexism. Keenan cites
the administration’s reluctance to
have gender-neutral bathrooms
and dorms, and a lack of sexually
diverse studies reflected in the
curriculum as examples.
“We have, anecdotally, seen
more students with less progressive views about life in general,”
said Garrison, responding to the
issue of homophobia being a trend
among incoming students.
“I can’t imagine administrators
here tolerating homophobia in
any form,” said Tom MacDonald,
the Student Rights and Responsibilities Director. He said he sees
the homophobic slur in the workshop as an isolated incident, because there has been no pattern of
similar reports to the office.
“Unfortunately, I think it may
just be a sign of the words ‘fag’
and ‘gay’ as mainstream, and students having a hard time shaking
them from their vocabulary,” said
MacDonald.
The Office of Students Rights
and Responsibilities is responding
to the incident by sending a representative to speak to the First Year
Experience class and explaining
that this kind of homophobia is
unacceptable and will not be tolerated by The New School under
any circumstances.
Commenting on the specific remark, “He’s kinda fag”, Garrison
laughed. “I think every freshman
should have to write 1,000 times:
‘He’s kind of a fag.’ Can that be
part of the freshman writing curriculum?”
News & Features
5
Offensive Posters Oust Two Students From Dorm
Continued From Page 1
joke” and that they hung the latter pictures to spur “intellectual
discussion,” although he was not
clear in what forum, if any, such
discourse would take place. “Some
have suggested that we didn’t
make that explicit enough in the
note,” said Wolkin. “If the Borat
movie had a huge banner across
the screen saying ‘Just Kidding!’ it
would dull the impact.”
“If you want to facilitate discussion about racism or xenophobia,
or the use of offensive words or
images, this isn’t how to go about
it,” said Kate Goff, a senior BA/
MA candidate. “There needs to be
context.”
Wolkin believes that, while students have the right to not feel
threatened, the administration
has no authority to evict them
for being offensive. He described
the woman who filed a complaint
against him and Engel as a “conservative Christian” and that she
couldn’t “possibly take that strong
of a personal offense” at the posters.
“The main intent was just to say,
‘Yes, this is provocative imagery.’
We don’t see anything wrong with
using that,” said Engel.
On the Tuesday after the antiSemitic posters were removed,
Bertha Peralta, the First Year Advisor, pulled Wolkin and Engel
out of their Freshman seminar
class and escorted them to a disciplinary review meeting with Tom
McDonald, the Managing Direc-
tor for Student Affairs. Shortly
after the meeting, McDonald sent
each student a letter explaining
that the two were found in violation of the University Student
Code of Conduct for Harassing
and Disorderly Conduct. They
would be removed from student
housing indefinitely, and would
have to make arrangements to get
all of their belongings out of Loeb
Hall by Thursday, November 1,
which was before any decision
would be made on an appeal. In
the meantime, they were moved
to the Marlton dorms and had all
guest privileges suspended.
“It was intended
as an offensive
joke”
Wolkin and Engel immediately
appealed to Ward, explaining that
they felt remorse for any harm the
posters had caused, but that their
intentions had been misunderstood. While both said they would
not have put up the posters if they
had known the administration’s
reaction, they said that they had
a right to display the posters, referring to the “Free Exchange of
Ideas” section in the University
Code of Conduct. They also asked
that the move-out date be extended until a final decision is made on
the appeal, which Ward granted.
Prior to this incident, Wolkin
and Engel said they had not had
any encounters with the administration. However, in a separate interview with a different reporter,
Wolkin said that he had one previous, but unrelated, write-up for
smoking in the dorm. Because of
this incident, neither Wolkin nor
Engel plan on staying at The New
School past this year.
The roommates found out on
November 7 that they have been
evicted from Loeb. Wolkin plans
to pursue legal action against The
New School. “I find your interpretation of the concept of ‘discrimination’ quite misguided, as
it seems to ignore the very basic
concept of what defines satire,”
wrote Wolkin in a letter to Ward.
At Loeb, residents had varying
reactions.
“I hope they are kicked out,”
said Freshman Jenna Whittington, before the decision had been
made. She said the posters were
“absolutely disgusting.” Patrick
Hughes, a freshman, called the
administration’s actions “ridiculous” and that the RA should have
asked Wolkin and Engel to take
the posters down and give them
a warning, rather than evict them
from housing. Women from three
different suites on Wolkin’s and
Engel’s floor declined to comment.
On November 6, Wolkin had
one of the anti-Semitic images as
his Facebook profile picture and
captioned it, “’The Eternal Jew.’
I almost got
kicked
out
of
school
housing for
this.” After
one student
commented
that the image looks like
“the bad guy
from Aladdin,” Wolkin
responded,
“Yeah, but he
was a towelhead, not a
kike.” That
day, Wolkin’s
status read,
“Maxwell
Wolkin
is
stickin’ it to
the man.”
After Wolkin was notified that he
had been expelled from
Loeb
Hall,
he changed
his
profile
picture
to
a black and
white
image that read
“censored” in Two students, both Jewish, displayed this
bold capital poster. They intended it to be ‘satire.’
letters.
“If a full
reversal of said decision is not investigating my legal actions
enacted, I will most definitely be against the school,” said Wolkin.
Brooklyn Residents Shout Down MTA Fare Hike
New Proposals Could Cost New Yorkers $2.25 Per Ride, $81 for Monthly Pass
By Kevin Dugan
At the end of a long, chandelier-lit
ballroom sat a dozen well-dressed
and uncomfortable Metropolitan
Transportation Authority board
members on November 5. They
stared out at over 100 public and
private citizens, mostly Brooklyn
residents, and were charged with
explaining why they, and everyone else in the city, should pay
more to use buses, subways and
bridges.
After they made their statement, audience members came
up to a podium to give their own.
Over thirty speakers addressed
the board, and each had their
own way of telling them the same
thing: Fare hikes should be a last
resort.
The MTA plans on raising prices for use of subways, buses and
bridges by 2008 to stave off a projected $6 billion deficit, and are
holding a series of public meetings this month to hear feedback
from New Yorkers. At the first
meeting, held at the Marriott near
Borough Hall in Brooklyn, residents responded entirely in the
negative and called for increased
funding from the state and city
government.
The MTA has two proposed budget increases. The first would raise
single-ride subway fares to $2.25,
and monthly passes to $79. Express bus fares would also rise to
$5.25. The second proposal would
introduce peak and off-peak rates.
Peak hours would be from 6 to 10
a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. on weekdays.
During off-peak hours, commuters would pay $1.50 per ride, but
bonus rides for purchases of more
than $10 would be eliminated,
and monthly cards would rise to
$81. Bridge tolls would also go up,
some to as high as $10 per round
trip.
According to the MTA 2008 Preliminary Budget, the “major risks”
for the budget include “changing economic conditions” and
“growth in controllable expenses.”
The budget does not explain these
concerns further.
New Yorkers currently fund 56
“Not is not the
time for any MTA
fare increases”
percent of the MTA’s budget, according to a New York State press
release. Commuters in Los Angeles and Chicago currently pay
about 30 percent and 44 percent
respectively, according to the Los
Angeles Metro website and Railway Age magazine. There are
roughly 4.9 million subway rides
in New York City every weekday, according to the New York
Times.
The first person to address the
board was Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Markowitz set the tone for the evening by
saying early into his speech that
“now is not the time for any MTA
fare increases.” Markowitz said
that the majority of straphangers
come from Brooklyn, and “Brooklynites contribute more than their
fair share.”
A common refrain throughout
the night was that the economy
is currently on a downturn, and
with rising inflation, residents are
having more trouble making ends
meet. “Families have two breadwinners, and nobody’s really winning,” said Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President.
New School students also expressed concern over the rising
prices. “The problem with an increase like that is that it’s a tax on
the working people,” said Danny
Ruben, a sophomore Jazz student.
But he also added that “it’s hard
to gauge how much [an increase]
will affect students” who work
their way through school.
Another concern was that the
increased fares would “drive residents into cars,” Markowitz said.
Stringer said that if more commuters drove to work or school,
this would increase traffic and endanger the health of city residents.
This would be at odds with Mayor
Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC,
which proposes to increase tolls
for anyone driving into Manhattan below 86th Street, he said,
forcing residents to pay more to
go to work no matter how they get
there. According to PlaNYC, 34 %
of New Yorkers drive to work, and
all bridges and highways are nearing or at capacity for traffic.
New York State Senator Eric
Adams echoed these complaints.
“The common denominator is
that [the working poor] have no
other way to get where they need
to go.”
Stringer asked the board to wait
until April 15, when the state will
release its budget proposal, to decide on any fare hikes. Policymak-
ers and MTA officials alike hope
that Governor Eliot Spitzer will
endow New York’s public transit
more generously than the previous administration did.
“I certainly hope to get more
funding from the state and from
the city,” said Ed Watt, MTA
board member and Secretary
Treasurer of the Transportation
Worker’s Union, in an interview.
“The MTA is bearing a large load
of that freight.”
There are currently two identical
bills in the New York State Assembly, A9424 and A9425, which propose subsidizing the MTA. “Since
1995, the MTA has not received
funding proportionate to the increased costs of service delivery,”
according to the bills, which were
sponsored by NY Senator James
F. Brennan. “It is necessary and
prudent at this time to restore the
state funds...to increase state and
local assistance the MTA.”
During the meeting, City Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol seemed
to make a veiled political challenge to the MTA. “The Democratic Party I believe in would
never endorse this fare increase,”
he said.
MTA Hikes at a Glance
The MTA has proposed fare hikes to
fund a projected $6 billion deficit.
New Yorkers currently fund about 56 percent
of the MTA’s budget.
For more information, visit
www.straphangers.org.
Proposal
One
Proposal
Two
Raise base fare to $2.25
Raise 30-day pass to $81
Increase cost of 6-ridesfor-5 card from $1.67 a
ride to $1.88
Eliminate 6-for-5 card,
replace with $2 pass for
peak hours and $1.50 for
off-peak
News & Features
6
Panel Condemns Israel Lobby Book
By Hannah Rappleye
On Monday, November 5, the
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research hosted a discussion on The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy, the recently published book
by foreign policy scholars Stephen
Walt and John Mearsheimer. The
controversial book argues that the
influence of the “Israel Lobby,”
a group of organizations and individuals that are pro-Israel, on
the United States government is
damaging to U.S. interests in the
Middle East.
The discussion was moderated
by Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the
Columbia School of Journalism,
and included Jeffrey Goldberg,
author and frequent contributor to the National Review, and
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author
of Hitler’s Willing Executioners:
Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
Lemann began his introduction
by saying that if the panel served
to weaken “the argument posed
in the book,” it would be a “good
thing.”
After introducing the authors,
Lemann expressed regret about
his initial support for Walt and
Mearsheimer’s work. After the
September 11 attacks in 2001, Lemann published an article praising Walt and Mearsheimer’s “realist” approach to foreign policy.
Lemann’s support for Walt and
Mearsheimer, he said, “empowered them to speak out.”
“I wrote the first article in good
faith,” Lemann said. But after the
two authors wrote their first article about the Israel Lobby, which
was published in the London Review of Books in earlier this year,
he said he “discovered that in their
minds, this was all about Israel.”
The book contends that the Israel Lobby pushed the United
States to invade Iraq and that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian
people has contributed to antiU.S. and anti-Israel sentiment in
the Arab world.
Goldberg prefaced his commentary by saying that he was there
“to argue that the book is antiSemitic, and Danny is here to argue that it’s really anti-Semitic,”
which drew a long round of laughter from the audience.
“Nut job Nazis make up most of
the book’s buyers,” he added.
He then said that it has been
“a momentous couple of years in
the history of anti-Semitism,” citing the speeches of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and
the movement among English
academics to boycott Israel. He
explained that The Israel Lobby
“The book argues
that the lobby
pushed the U.S.
into Iraq”
and former president Jimmy
Carter’s recently published book,
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,
presented a challenge to Jews in
the United States because the two
books had come out of the American mainstream, rather than the
far left.
Goldberg said he disagreed
with the book’s “falsification of
history.” He said that Walt and
Mearsheimer wrongly analyzed
the recent history of the Middle
East, the role of the Israel Lobby
in provoking war, and the Amer-
ican-Israel Political Action Campaign (AIPAC) itself, and argued
that AIPAC’s power is rooted in
American consensus.
“It is to Middle East foreign policy what the NRA is to gun control,”
He said Of AIPAC. But, he added,
“It’s effective because Americans
like Israel. An honest book would
have blamed Americans [for supporting Israel], not the lobby.”
Goldberg concluded by saying
that The Israel Lobby “presents
the largest challenge to Jewish
political enfranchisement since
Charles Lindbergh.”
Goldhagen expressed many
of the same ideas, although he
placed the book in a broad, historical context of international
anti-Semitism.
“It’s always the Jews,” he said,
adding that the book’s focus on
the Israel Lobby is “a classic antiSemitic move, turning individuals
into an organized group.”
Goldhagen also said that the
authors’ scholarship did not adequately prove that there is an organized Israel Lobby in the United
States, and said that in his opinion, such a lobby did not exist.
In the question and answer session that followed, Goldhagen said
that anti-Semitism has increased
throughout the world, and that
“Europe has become hostile to
Jews.”
When asked whether Israel’s
policies have contributed to discontent in the world, Goldberg
said that illegal settlement building in the West Bank has “driven
a wedge” between Israel and its
supporters.
But Americans support Israel
for many reasons, Goldhagen
said, adding that Americans sympathize with Israel because of the
Holocaust and its “democratic
nature.” Goldberg also added that
the stories of the founding of Israel and the United States are
similar—groups of people escaping religious persecution in Europe and building a nation out of
the wilderness.
Goldhagen finished his remarks
by saying that despite the authors’
insistence that their book is not
anti-Semitic, “It’s one of the tactics of anti-Semites to deny antiSemitism exists.”
Price of Birth Control Explodes on College Campuses
By Wendy J. Biddlecombe
The price of birth control has risen rapidly over the past two years
for students across the country
who use college health clinics for
their prescriptions. The inflated
cost, buoyed by a 2005 Senate bill,
has given students few inexpensive options for contraceptives.
The New School charges between
$10 and $20 for a month’s supply
of birth control pills, depending
on the brand. According to The
Villager, the cost of birth control
is between $15 and $45 a month,
up from $5 before the bill. The
school also offers the ring ($2060), the patch ($20-50), IUDs
($4-500, for ten years) and Implanon, a hormonal implant that
lasts three years ($250).
The Chickering Group offers health insurance plans for
The New School and NYU. New
School Health Services could not
comment on the price increase
for birth control; The Chickering
Group is entirely responsible for
exact prescription rates. Representatives at Health Services said
they were not aware of a rapid in-
Around the Courtyard
What Do You Do To Stay Active?
By Mathew Kennedy, Photographed By Nick Darmstaedter
Andre Singleton, Freshman, Lang
I’m a messenger, so I walk a lot. I also do
push-ups and sit-ups in the mornings.
Cici Zhang, Sophomore, Lang
I do yoga, and I take dance classes at Lang
twice a week. I’m not a sports person, no
intense sports for me. I like painting and
drawing, that’s also physical.
Karen Shakerdge, Senior, Lang
I walk up and down the subway steps. I
dance sometimes.
Devon Morgan, Sophomore, Parsons
I do photoshoots. I carry equipment, move
lights, everything.
Average Price of Birth Control:
Ring: $20-$60
Pill: $10-$20
Shot: $50 per shot
Patch: $43.50 per box
(3 patches per box)
crease in price, or the Deficit Reduction Act’s affect on prescription prices for college students.
“We used to get it from a distributor and sell it to students, a
generic form of ortho tri-cyclen
[the pill], and sell it for $7,” said
Lupe Larez, the Physician’s Assistant at Student Health Services.
“But then they wouldn’t sell it to
us anymore. That was probably
seven years ago.”
“I used to have student health
insurance, but it is expensive and
I wasn’t really using it,” said Lang
Senior Samantha Penturf. “I decided to waive my health insurance and use my mom’s insurance
for birth control. Through her insurance, birth control costs $30 to
$60 a month, so I eventually went
off of it entirely.”
In multiple interviews, students
said that they have private insurance, either their own or their parents, that pays for their birth control. Students who have no health
insurance receive their birth control from outside sources, like
Planned Parenthood. Some students have waived their student
health insurance, preferring the
refund check over coverage. Most
said that student health insurance
is good in theory for unforeseen,
unexpected health problems.
The rise in birth control on college campuses comes from the
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005,
which President Bush signed last
year. The act “cut discretionary
spending not related to defense or
homeland security,” according to
the Act. After the bill was signed,
there was dispute whether over
the House and the Senate had approved the same bill, and several
lawsuits declared the new law unconstitutional. The lawsuits are
still pending.
A year and a half later, the Deficit Reduction Act is responsible
for the increase in birth control
prices at college health centers.
Prescription drug companies offer
rebates to “safety net” health providers, like college health centers.
The federal government partially
regulates these rebates in order to
give prescription drugs to people
who could not otherwise afford it.
The Act made it more costly for
prescription drug companies to
offer rebates on all prescription
drugs, not just birth control, to
“safety net providers.”
If a student is covered under their
families plan, private insurance
may or may not offer more affordable contraceptive prices. Planned
Parenthood charges about $40 for
an initial consultation fee, and between $15 and $35 a month for
birth control pills, although they
have a sliding scale depending on
the person’s income.
Senator Hillary Clinton and
Representative Nita Lowey introduced two bills that, if passed, will
amend the Social Security Act to
make contraception more accessible for people who qualify for
Medicaid. These two bills focus
on contraceptive access for low
income men and women, not just
college women.
Additional reporting by Kevin Dugan
Arts and Culture
The Sneaky Chef
Did Jessica Seinfeld reheat a
New School professor’s
leftovers?
By Lauren Taylor
The power of the press is a sticky
wicket these days, and Missy
Chase Lapine seems to want nothing to do with it. A faculty member of The New School, Lapine has
become well known as the author
of The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in
Kids’ Favorite Meals (Running
Press, March 2007).
Controversy arose when news of Jessica
Seinfeld’s, wife of Jerry Seinfeld,
cookbook, Deceptively Delicious:
Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids
Eating Good Food (HarperCollins, October 2007), went to press.
Seinfeld’s book is being accused of,
well, being deceptive. When readers on Amazon.com and Oprah.
com began writing concerned
blog posts about the similarities
of these health-conscious cookbooks, bloggers were out to position Lapine as the underdog, lapping up the celebrity of Seinfeld.
What did she do again? For one
thing, she’s
not talking.
After Lapine’s
book
was rejected
twice by HarperCollins,
the publishing
house warmly welcomed Seinfeld,
who landed her book deal with the
house shortly thereafter. Lapine
was well positioned as the good
guy in all of this, even conceding
to the New York Times that, “it’s
possible it’s a coincidence.” Resisting the suggestions of readers
around the country that Seinfeld
may have plagiarized, Lapine said,
“I’m not going to accuse anyone
of anything.” This is a bold statement from a woman who could
have seen dollar
signs glistening on
the horizon. Alas,
not everyone can be
the bigger person,
and the Seinfeld
squad has assumed
the role of defense
in a game they seem
to be playing alone.
As Mrs. Seinfeld
quipped in an interview, “I don’t
need to copy someone’s idea. I’ve got
enough going on in
my life.” Guilty as
thesneakychef.com
charged. Life must
be busy as a million- Missy Chase Lapine, a faculty member of
aire’s wife.
The New School, has become famous for
Lapine has kept her book The Sneaky Chef: Simple Straterelatively quiet in gies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’
regards to the con- Favorite Meals
troversy. This would
have changed, one might think, ment, she said, “She doesn’t work
after Jerry Seinfeld exacerbated from here. I guess she works from
the issue when home.” This is odd, considering
he turned a another representative in the culiDavid Letter- nary department said she couldn’t
man appear- give out Lapine’s New School ofance,
meant fice address. When Lilanda was
to promote his pressed further, she said, “Look,
new film, into we passed your e-mail onto her
a Lapine bash- and it looks as though she’s read
ing session. Referring to Lapine it. The best we can do is re-send
as “wacko” enough times to make it.”
It is quite possible that Lapine
Seinfeld look like the wacko, it
remains unclear why Lapine still is waiting for a big interview down
won’t speak. It is not unusual for the line, but since the Letterman
New School departments to keep taping, she has only said that, “It
mum on certain issues, but the was painful to be called names on
secretaries at the New School Cu- national TV when I am just a mom
linary Department must be get- who wrote a cookbook to help
ting paid to keep their mouths parents get their kids to eat well.”
shut. When the New School Free Missy, don’t hold your breath for
Press phoned Sylvia Lilanda, ex- that Oprah interview. She’s on
ecutive manager of the depart- Team Seinfeld.
“Lapine has kept
quiet in regards
to the
controversy”
By Erika Allen
7
Chelsea Gallery Crawl
By Ashley Burritt Aster
The brisk wind slapping your
face is a sure sign that winter has
arrived. Instead of wandering
around with a numb nose, take a
gallery crawl in the warmth and
solitude of one building. There is
an eight-story labyrinth of galleries throbbing with modern and eccentric art at 522 W. 25th Street.
Here are the best from each floor:
First Floor: Cue Art Foundation Butch Hancock’s “Finding
the Unexpected” is on exhibition
through December 1. A collection of pen-and-ink drawings and
photography reveals the artist’s
mastery of the gray tones between
the deepest black and crispest
white. The contrast and detail in
Hancock’s works set curvaceous
yet architectural designs in otherworldly and magical landscapes.
Second Floor: Mitchell Algus
Gallery
The Canal Street exhibition, open
through November 24, is a collaborative effort of sculptural and
decorative designs by Nancy Arlen, Dike Blair, Steve Keister, Judy
Pfaff, Tom Rankin, F.L. Schroder
and Taro Suzuki. Neon lighting
rods suspended from the gallery
ceiling cast shadows that lead the
eye to colorful and intricate sculptures on walls and tables.
Third Floor: Daneyal Mahmood Gallery
An exhibition by Farhad Moshiri,
“Sweet Dreams”, runs through
November 24. Moshiri’s paintings
and petite sculptural desserts create a vibrant, sparkling scene that
converts the gallery into a candy
store.
Fourth Floor: Amsterdam
Whitney Gallery
Amsterdam is more like a minimuseum. It generates an anachronistic atmosphere with a permanent collection of eclectic antique
chairs, tables, vases and other
objects scattered throughout the
gallery’s current exhibition of
contemporary sculptures and
paintings by various artists. Using
oil on canvas, Katherine McNeil’s
works capture landscapes during
their most luminous hours. The
sunlight emanates through nature
in red and yellow tones also seen
in an antique urn sitting nearby.
Fifth Floor: Fotosphere Gallery
William Giles’ “Mother of Pearls”,
a collection of photographs taken
throughout California, is currently on exhibition through November 24. Giles captures extreme
close-ups of animals, objects and
nature, giving the illusion of a
photographed textile, or graphic
pattern, until the eye adjusts.
Sixth Floor: Soho20 Chelsea
“Once More, With Feeling…” and
“Embodiments” are must-see
exhibitions running through November 24. “Once More” sculpturally illustrates the emotional,
uninhibited nature of every adult.
The simplistic interactions between artist Ruth Gilbert’s primitive and playful figures expose
profound human relations and
emotions. In contrast, “Embodiments” by Susan Case reveal the
structured and linear evolution
of the human as she enters adulthood through plaster, screen and
fiber sculptures.
Seventh Floor: The Alan Klotz
Gallery
Recently on exhibition, Andreas
Feininger is one of several emerging photographers featured in the
Alan Klotz Gallery. Feininger’s
ominous photographs dichotomize man as both a minuscule
presence and an eminent threat
to nature. The gallery has not yet
announced its next exhibition but
has proven to make strong selections in the past with photographers like Feininger and Melissa
A. Pinney.
New School Division Rankings: Who’s On Top?
Here at The New School, we have an open, caring and deeply competitive intellectual community:
#1 Drama School faculty got even more impressive with Olympia Dukakis teaching classes this fall. Turns out the Steel
Magnolias star and Oscar winner is also a master and teacher of the plays of Russian writer, Anton Chekhov. Who knew…?
(Up from #5)
#2 Parsons kicks of its Design With a Conscience program as the hopefully lasting trend of sustainability in design picks up
steam. Even companies not known for their conscience, like Nike, are jumping on the bandwagon—using recycled rubber for its
new line of shoes—and will be represented at the schools first panel discussion.
(Down from #1)
#3 Social Research’s conference on environmental and economic disasters could not be more timely. As the wildfires on the
west coast have the country’s attention, the fear of natural and man-made disaster is fresh in our minds.
(Up from #4)
#4 General Studies is teaming up with PBS to honor the 20th anniversary of the P.O.V. documentary film series. The event will
host some of the more revolutionary independent documentary filmmakers, and will give all students the chance to preview the
new docs, including Election Day by Katy Chevigny.
(Down from #3)
#5 Milano will host New York Times “Metro Matters” columnist Joyce Purnick as moderator for the school’s panel discussion on
NYC fiscal policy as the Financial Emergency Act of 1978 expires, after 30 years of oversight by the state. The event is free but
seating is expected to be limited.
(Up from #6)
#6 Mannes’ “Master of Music” Daria Rabotkina, an ’04 alum, is a winner of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild International
Competition. Along with the honor and management offers, she’ll perform at Carnegie Hall and receive a cash prize.
(Up from #7)
#7 Jazz’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra spices up the school’s Sweet Rhythms schedule, performing with “the father of conga
drumming” Candido Camero as the featured soloist. The performance will showcase the 23-piece orchestra led by Grammy nominated faculty member Bobby Sanabria.
#8 Lang’s Skybridge curatorial programs are getting increasingly more interesting. Two classes, one revolving around student
work on the 3rd floor bridge and the other showcasing the school’s art collection on the 4th floor, are giving students a hands-on
art education.
(Up from #8)
(Down from #2)
Health & A
8
Gothics Mtn. By Storm
Gothics Mountain cable, as seen on a sunny day
Flickr.com
By Mathew Kennedy
Five years ago, my family decided we would take my mother
hiking for the first time in her life.
She was nervous, so we assured
her that the trip would be light:
minimal hiking and great views.
My father and I chose a mountain that would provide enough
adventure for all of us while keeping the entire hike below 12 miles.
Six miles per day for two days was
nothing, even for an amateur. So
on an ordinary weekend in November, after the weather reports
ensured sun or light rain, we departed for Gothics Mountain in
upstate New York, part of the Adirondack Mountains. We reached
the trailhead on a Friday night,
bedded down in a nearby lodge
and prepared to rise early.
The beginning was easy: flat
ground with trees. My mother
chastised my father and I for not
packing wool hats and gloves, but
we assured her that the weather
wouldn’t drop under 50 degrees
Fahrenheit, and our polypropylene would insulate us adequately.
When it neared dark, we found a
technically illegal campsite, but it
was far enough off the trail that a
ranger would not notice our tents.
This portion of the trail was unwise to camp on, signs told us. We
cared not for signs. We were experienced. I slept between my mother and father for the first night in
a long time.
We awoke to find that it had
snowed, and the temperature
had dropped to 30 degrees. My
mother panicked. My father and
I grumbled, dressed and went
outside to see the damage around
us. The snow neared 1 1/2 feet
deep, dangerously deep when you
lack the proper clothing to combat snow in the wilderness. My
mother was practically in tears,
but my sister calmed her down,
reminding her that every member
on this trip besides her had been
hiking and braving the wilderness
for at least a decade, and that we
wouldn’t let anything happen to
her. Our heads nodded vigorously
at this point.
We arrived at the hardest part
of Gothics Mountain to find that
it was steep enough to be a prob-
lem. There was a cable that was
normally used to hold on to as you
“walked” up it, one that we had
been told was always usable and
essentially the only feasible method by which to scale the barren
rock face. It was covered in ice. I
went ahead to find a safe path up
the icy wall, lying on my stomach
the entire time, using a combination of rocks, Leatherman pliers
and fingers to pry holes in the ice.
We had packed extra socks that
we were forced to use as mittens.
We were all too worried about my
mother to worry about ourselves,
but the fear was palpable. At any
minute, one of us could’ve slipped
and slid down this sheer face, into
another member of our party or
worse, off the side into a gully.
What should’ve taken one hour
Fear the Microwave
By Katrina Norvell
It seems every week, a new cancer-causing agent is exposed. Soon we’ll have no other option but to use rotary
telephones and eat raw garlic out of clay pots. Here is
this week’s focus on the newest perilous carcinogen:
As a child, my mother made me stand three feet from
the microwave when it was running, because she feared
the radiation would do me harm. Turns out, her maternal fears may not have been so off base. CancerIQ.org
reports that microwaved food may be a cause of cancer.
Plastic, when microwaved, releases strong carcinogens
that blend with the food. My advice: use your microwave as little as possible; anything that can be cooked
in a microwave can also be cooked on the stove. Also,
use ceramic rather than plastic containers when microwaves are unavoidable.
WARNING:
Lauren Gautier
Bring It,
Bitch
Cheap
Options
for a
Healthy
Lifestyle
By Eric Hollerbach
One great way to stay
healthy is to bring your own
lunch wherever you go; it
saves money and is better
for the environment. Invest
in a reusable lunch box and
snack-sized Tupperware, so
you don’t just toss out all that
packaging. To stay healthy,
you can pack some fresh fruit
and vegetables. Cut up an apple, or rediscover baby carrot
sticks.
You can also get sandwich-sized
Tupperware for your main course.
Think of a good cold sandwich, as
reheating is often not an option.
Tuna or chicken salad backed
with broccoli and fresh lettuce is
always good.
A reusable juice container is
also smart. And when you’re grocery shopping, be sure to buy only
100 percent juice. Check the
label above the nutrition
facts. You’ll be surprised to
find just how many beverages are nothing more than
flavored water and sugars. Look
for Juicy Juice, Adam and Eve and
Dole. They all make great tasting,
100 percent juice that provide
lasting energy, unlike sodas.
It takes some effort, and might
b e
hard at first, but bringing your own lunch
can save you a
bundle. Places
like
Murray’s
Bagels, Cosi and
Six & Twelve charge
Adam Solomon
eight dollars and
up for a sandwich.
Take
Murray’s
Classic Club for
example. It costs
$8.25 when you
get turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Add a small OJ and a fresh
fruit cup, and we’re up to $14.95.
If you don’t buy it from a restaurant, that same sandwich
should cost: 75 cents for
the bagel, $2 turkey, $1
bacon, plus an eighth of
a tomato would be $3.80.
Bottling your own juice and cutting your own fruit (cantaloupe)
would cost an additional 70 cents.
Even using retail ingredients, you
have a sandwich costing $4.50,
and a total savings of $10.45. Do
you really want to pay $10.45 for
someone to make a lunch?
And make a wish on that brown
bag, ‘cause when it blows onto a
highway, maybe it’ll catch some
Indian tears.
By Kate Murray
For many people living in this
city, physical activity is limited
to running from the subway to
school or work. One of the biggest
problems is expense: exercise and
physical activity on a tight budget
can be daunting. If you’re looking
for something to do in the city and
don’t have a lot of cash to spare,
here are some ways to get out
without breaking the bank.
If you’re into yoga, but can’t
wrap your mind around the $15
they charge for classes at some
places in the city, go to Yoga to the
People at 12 St. Marks Place (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue) for
free yoga. The instructors encourage you to go at your own pace,
and the other people are there to
do yoga, not show off their tanned
and toned bodies. Check out the 7
p.m. candlelight class on Sunday;
it’s the perfect way to get away for
an hour and slow down. There is
a suggested donation of $5, and
if you want to rent a mat, it’s $2.
Call 917-573-YOGA, or visit yogatothepeople.com.
At mile 20, marathon runners plough through a disarray of empty wat
To experience
New York City
from a new perspective, make
your way down
to the piers. On
the water, the
overwhelming cement and
steel is replaced
by the horizontal line of the
water
spread
out around you.
Adam Solomon
And you get a Yoga for the People at 12 St. Marks
work out too!
The Downtown Boathouse has and skating at their outdoor ice
three locations: Pier 26, Pier 96 rink. For more information, call
and Riverside Park, where you the Bear Mountain State Park ofcan take advantage of free kayak- fice at 845-786-2701.
Check out the New York Parks’
ing. Scared of the river in winter?
They also offer winter classes to websites for different activities
throughout the
teach
kayaking
year.
Battery
basics in the pool
Park
(www.
at Riverbank State
bpcparks.org),
Park. Call 646Bryant
Park
613-0375 for more
(www.bryinformation.
antpark.org),
For those seeking a true escape, head up to Bear Central Park (www.centralpark.
Mountain. Take the Metro-North nyc.org) and Hudson River Park
Railroad to the Peekskill or Gar- (www.hudsonriverpark.com) all
rison stations. Round trip tickets have different fun activities rangwill cost $17-23, visit mta.info ing from volleyball, in-line skating
for more information. The hik- lessons, walking tours, tango, saling trails are always free, and you sa and swing dance. With only a
can pack a lunch to have in one of little bit of motivation, you can exthe many picnic areas around the pose yourself to a plethora of new
park. When it gets even colder, activities and people throughout
you can go sledding, snowshoeing the city.
“Exercise on a
tight budget can
be daunting”
Adventure
took four, and we arrived at the
peak without even bothering to
take a look around. Our hands
were frozen, my mother discussed
her will at length and my sister’s
boyfriend (by far the most experienced hiker, he had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone, the Western equivalent of the Appalachian
Trail) informed us he was getting
frostbite in his toes, saying he’d
meet us at the car before taking
off. The hike had looked so simple, and the weather so perfect,
that he had worn nothing but New
Balance sneakers.
After convincing my mother
that the worst was over, we set off
down the far side of the mountain
into a winter wonderland of sorts.
Unable to find the trail again, we
settled for bushwhacking down
9
the mountain using our compasses.
When we reached flat ground,
the sky darkened early. Thunder
cracked, followed by rain. This was
not a welcome change in weather,
as we were all already cold and
tired. Becoming soaking wet held
“The mountains
let you
experience
nature”
the very dangerous potential for
hypothermia, something I myself
had fallen victim to in Alaska only
two summers before.
We arrived at the car around
10 p.m. amidst
cries of joy to
whatever
deity might hear
us. My sister’s
boyfriend was
asleep in the
backseat, and my mother sobbed
with gratitude as she threw her
pack in the trunk and got in. My
father and I shared a knowing
look, silently communicating that
the next hiking trip for my mother
(if she ever cared to take another
one) would involve no mountains
whatsoever. Maybe something on
the plains of Montana...
To everyone considering a hike
any time outside the classic summer months: the weather can
change drastically at any moment,
particularly at higher altitudes on
top of mountains. Whatever the
weather predictions, you should
always pack a wool hat and warm,
durable gloves. Neck warmers
don’t hurt, either. Cotton kills,
polypropylene saves lives.
The Adirondack Mountains are
beautiful, and between the mountains lie many rivers and lakes
that are also great for canoeing.
The mountains are dangerous,
too, but exploring them lets you
experience nature, and people, on
a whole new level.
City Sports in Lang’s Neighborhood
Basketball at The Cage on W. 4 and Sixth Ave.
Sam Lewis
What’s the Healthiest Cigarette?
We
could
offer
statistics
of which
brand’s
individual cigarettes
have
the least
amount
of tar
and
nicotine, and light cigarettes would win out.
However, studies have shown that smokers of
light cigarettes compensate for the loss of nicotine by inhaling more deeply and smoking more
cigarettes. So we’ve gone to the ingredients lists,
and by referencing the USDAFood Pyramid, have
scored each cigarette according to its contributions to daily servings. -Adam Solomon
ter cups in the South Bronx.
Sam Lewis
Lang Outdoors: An Update
My Workout Playlist
By Adam Solomon
By Christine Calvo
Most traditional schools have
football teams and big stadiums
full of screaming fans. This is
clearly not the case at The New
School. The sports-minded at
Eugene Lang have options of
their own, however. In Lang
Outdoors classes, students get
outside the walls for fresh air
and exercise, while still challenging the mind. Here’s a look
at what some of them are up to:
Lang on the Hudson
Last semester, students transformed 12 sheets of marine plywood into a 26-foot rowboat.
This semester, they’re building a
second boat, and using the first
for a variety of excursions in
and around the harbor. In early
October, eight Lang students in
three boats rowed and sailed to
Alpine Boat Basin, 18 miles up
the Hudson, and camped there
for the weekend. The course also
focuses on the environmental
and political issues surrounding
New York Harbor.
Lang Cycling Team
In addition to the usual task of
bicycling around the city this semester, students are renovating
and, in some cases, entirely rebuilding bikes at “Recycle A Bicycle” headquarters in Long Is-
Design By Cosette Bruhns
land City, Queens. It is expected
that by the end of the term, each
student will be riding home with
a fully restored and operational
two-wheel vehicle.
Lang Urban Park Rangers
No, this has nothing to do with
Yogi Bear. The Urban Park Rangers course is about “acclimating
students to New York City,” says
Vincent Piccolo, one of the park
rangers who teaches the course,
and updating the old “concrete
jungle” image of the city. Students go hiking and birding in
parks in all five boroughs, hear
from guest speakers from organizations such as “PlaNYC” and
are planning an ice skating trip.
Lang Marathon Team
Lang Marathoners run all over
the city, sometimes on their own
training sessions and sometimes
to help others out. During the
recent New York City Marathon, for instance, students in
the course were on hand at the
16-Mile Aid station, handing out
liquids to help runners in the
competition. Course instructor
Rory Stuart says that the semester has been an active one, with
“time trials, a Central Park adventure and a pace practice session.”
Whether you’re looking to fit
into some even skinnier jeans or
just trying to offset your smoking,
a good workout playlist is always
useful. Here’s my playlist for running and the gym:
"Teardrop" by Massive Attack: The theme
song for the show House.
Nice and simple, it lets me
warm-up and stretch in
peace.
"Play" by Mobb Deep:
It’s off the soundtrack
from Hardball (yes, the
movie where Keanu Reeves
coaches baseball) but it’s
a good transition from
warm-up to workout.
"Never Let Me Down"
by Kanye West: J. Ivy’s
verse will keep your heart
racing: "While my words
are heard and confined
to the ears of the blind/I
too dream in color and
in rhyme/So I guess I’m
one of a kind in a full
house/'Cause whenever I
open my heart, my soul, or
my mouth/A touch of God
reigns out."
"Crawling in the
Dark" by Hoobastank:
This song probably came
out when you were in middle school, and the band’s
name is ridiculous, but the
song still pumps me up.
"Upgrade U" by Beyonce: She’s hot, and so is
the song.
"You Don't Know" by
Jay-Z: The best cut off
The Blueprint, this is classic Jay-Z.
"This Way" by Dilated Peoples ft. Kanye
West: Who doesn’t run
faster with a choir in the
background?
"I'm Shipping Off to
Boston" by Dropkick
Murphys: They play it at
Red Sox games, but let’s be
honest: you go to The New
School, and couldn’t tell
Jason Giambi from David
Ortiz.
"Get 'Em High" by
Kanye West ft. Common:
Favorite
lyric:
“When the industry crash,
I survive like Kanye/Spittin' through wire and fire,
MC’s retirin’/Got your
hands up?/Get them motherfuckers higher then.”
"Daylight" by Aesop
Rock: Slow pace gets my
cool down started.
"Wet Sand" by Red Hot
Chili Peppers: My cool
down song. Most suggest
15 minutes to cool down,
but after the glorious guitar riff that starts four
minutes in, you’ll have quit
smoking and be shopping
at Baby Gap for your next
pair of jeans.
10
Arts and Culture
Pop Commentary
Misguided trends in consumer culture
By Lauren Cuscuna
Hallmark Gets Some Sympathy
As if Flag Day and Secretary’s ate, especially if they’re meant to
Day wasn’t enough, Hallmark be a comfort. A cancer card reads,
has discovered a new part of life “No one said it would be easy to
to exploit: social awkwardness. lose your hair.” One for divorce
Theresa Steffens, an assistant reads,“Whenever you need it, my
product manager for Hallmark, shoulder to lean on…my couch to
says customers couldn’t find sleep on…” Some of the serious
ones are unintentionalfitting cards for isly funny; a suicide card
sues like cancer or
reads, “It’s hard enough
depression. Steffens
to lose someone when
said consumers told
you’re expecting it, but
Hallmark, “I don’t
this…this is beyond
know what to say durwords.”
ing a difficult time, so
It’s not just the writI don’t say anything at
ing that’s bad, the conall.” From that came
cept alone is tasteless.
Journeys, a collection
If a friend has cancer,
that covers issues like
hallmark.com
visit him or her in the
infertility, dieting and
hospital. A mass-proserving in the military.
The 176 cards officially went on duced, impersonal Hallmark card
will only show that you care just
sale in February 2007.
While amusing, the humor in enough to take five minutes out of
some cards is often inappropri- your day to stop at CVS. Instead of
giving someone a card for military
deployment, buy them a plane
ticket to Canada. Plus, no one suffering from depression wants to
hear, “When the dark clouds hang
over your head day after day, how
do you build a rainbow? One color
at a time.”
Having these cards just makes
a difficult situation that much
worse. With any luck, Journeys
will be the last Hallmark collection that has a suicide card in it.
Capitalism or
Whatever
Hasbro just released, like, a totally new game, Monopoly: Pink
Boutique Edition and it’s “all
about things girls love!” The box
says so. And you can buy boutiques and malls instead of places
with boring boy names like “Kentucky” and “Boardwalk.” Gross.
So, like, the board and the cards
and the dice are completely pink,
so it like mesmerizes me, right, so
I don’t have to think about capitalism or whatever. And the box
turns into a jewelry box with a
mirror, so I can stare at my reflec-
Vitamin
Water
tion when I’m not shopping or
talking on the phone. So that’s,
like, totally multipurpose or
whatever, right? Anyways, us
girls don’t even have to read as
much. They changed the Chance
and Community Chest cards to
Instant Message and Text Message cards. OMG WTF, sooooo
GR8.
And plus, like, this is like totally social gold. The other day,
I was talking to Tiffany—yeah,
Tiffany, the most popular girl
in school, and she has like cool
hair or whatever. So, anyways,
she was like, “You have the new
pink Monopoly?” And I was like,
“Yeah, it’s totally cool.” And she
was like, “Yeah.” And then we
went to the girl’s bathroom and
threw up our lunch together.
There are very few
beverages that have
a great taste, a funny label
and just over 100 calories in a
bottle. But there is one: the
common favorite, Vitamin Water.
The drinks feature fruit flavors that
range from dragon fruit to guava, and
also have more traditional flavors such
as strawberry and orange. Vitamin
Water not only quenches your thirst,
it also provides a fruity taste senstion.
With a selection of 15 flavors, one
might wonder which is the best flavor to drink and when to drink it. After waking up late, while hightailing
it to class, grab the “Essential” flavor.
Without all the additives of OJ, it gives
you a morning boost, satiates your
cottonmouth and gives the illusion of
eating an orange. If you are a sourpuss
in the morning, perhaps because of
your night-owl tendencies, “Multi-V”
may be the best choice. It has a tangy
taste, like lemonade, and transcends as
a lunchtime accoutrement. When you
want to impress that special someone,
or just want to look classy, pour some
“XXX” into a wineglass. The purple
color is easily mistaken for Merlot. Instead of wasting calories like alcohol, it
actually has three antioxidants (blueberry, pomegranate and acai), hence
the name. And you don’t have to worry
about getting sloppy because it’s nonalcoholic. Now choose a time, flavor
and enjoy!
-Justine Harrison
hasbro.com
Cool New
Websites
By Jon Reiss
www.Going.com
Tired of searching blogs and
websites hoping to find out where
to find the cool parties you’re
missing? Going.com is like having
a friend that is way more popular
and social than you are.
www.Pandora.com
Pandora starts by asking you
for a band you like, and then offers you another band that sounds
similar. Based on whether you
like or don’t like the recommendation, more bands are offered.
The website will even tell you why
it thought you would like a particular band.
www.Punknews.org
When I was a young buck, only
computer nerds knew HTML.
Punks most certainly didn’t know
it, so the only way to find out about
shows was to walk 20 miles in the
snow to the nearest VFW hall and
hope! Now, sites like Punk News
know that Hot Water Music is
back together before they do!
www.StumbleUpon.com
If Google were a control freak, it
would be Stumble Upon.
www.Iminlikewithyou.com
There’s no longer a stigma attached to dating someone you met
on the Internet. Or at least that’s
what you convince yourself if you
actually end up dating someone
you met on the Internet. On this
site, you bid on games made by
people you want to hit on. It’s as
dumb as it sounds, but in a fun
way
www.Rentometer.com
If you’re paying as much as your
friend who lives in the East Village
and you’re living next to a poop
factory in Greenpoint, you may
want to reconsider. If something
about your monthly dwelling dues
seems off, go to Rentometer and
find out whether you pay more or
less than the people who live near
you.
www.Digg.com
Digg lists the information people
most “dig” on the Internet in order of popularity. It even received
a back handed plug on The
Colbert Report.
From left to right: The chicken after a successful Step 4; The dinner party enjoys the fruits of their labor
Photos By Hannah Rappleye
How To Kill A Chicken (And Eat It, Too)
By Hannah Rappleye
I used to be scared of chickens.
When I was a kid, I got pecked by a
rooster and never really recovered
from the incident. But after an experienced chicken-killing friend
told me you could buy live poultry
in New York, we decided to cook
some for dinner. For many people
around the world, slaughtering
farm-raised animals for food is either necessary or an alternative to
eating factory-farmed animals. Of
course, a chicken from a market in
Brooklyn does not taste as good as
a chicken from a farm in the Midwest, but I’m probably biased. If
you’re interested in learning how
to cook fresh chicken, read on.
But if you don’t believe in eating
animal at all, I’d turn the page.
1. Buy the chicken. Look online before you buy, because there
are live poultry places all over the
city. At La Gallina market, located
at 214 Humboldt Street in Brooklyn, all the animals are farmraised and organically fed. The
staff will help you pick out your
chicken and package it for you
to take home. The price depends
on how much the chickens weigh;
for two medium-sized chickens, it
costs $12. Most poultry markets
also carry fresh eggs.
2. Prepare your chickenkilling area. You probably want
to keep your apartment clean,
so make sure you have a piece of
cardboard on the floor that the
chicken can sit on. Otherwise,
they will crap all over your floor.
You can also use masking tape
to tape down the chicken’s wings
right before you slaughter it.
Bring a large-sized pot of water
to a simmer, but be careful not to
let it boil. You’ll use the water to
soften and pluck the feathers after
the chicken is dead.
3. Kill the chicken. Whatever
you do, don’t cut its head off. The
old saying, “running around like
a chicken with its head cut off,”
exists for a reason. If you cut a
chicken’s head off, it won’t die
right away and it will run around.
The chicken will suffer and make a
mess. Breaking the chicken’s neck
is the best way. There are different
ways to do this. Essentially, you
wrap your hands around its neck
and snap it by quickly pulling in
opposite directions. If you do it
right, the chicken will be dead
near-instantly.
4. Cut its head off. There’s
no easy way around it. You simply take a sharp knife and saw
through the chicken’s neck. Cut
the head off and let all the blood
drain into the sink. A good way to
do this is by hanging the chicken
upside down over the sink. When
all the blood has drained, cut off
the chicken’s feet and open its
bottom with your knife (like a turkey).
5. Gut it. I don’t know which is
harder: killing the chicken or gutting it. You have to reach inside
its body and pull everything out.
Make sure to check the base of the
chicken’s neck, because chickens
store food in their gizzard—a tiny,
secondary stomach that grinds up
the chicken’s food before it is digested. If there is food in it, you’ll
feel it and will have to take it out.
Gizzards also taste really good
fried with lots of spices.
6. Pluck and wash. The easiest part. Soak the chicken in the
water for a bit and the feathers
will loosen up. Then pluck them
out, wash the chicken’s skin with
water and you’re ready to cook.
So you just killed your first chicken! Congratulations. Now it’s time
to eat. We baked ours with a mustard sauce and some onions and
peppers. In case you’re too traumatized to come up with your own
recipe, I included something my
Mom always used to make: Southern Oven-Fried Chicken. Keep in
mind that this chicken may taste a
little different to you. Because the
chicken is allowed to move around
and is usually fed real grain, unlike poultry in a factory farm, the
meat will be a little tougher. But
it’s still mighty tasty.
Recipe
Southern Oven-Fried
Chicken
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
3 to 3 1/2 pound chicken pieces
1 egg beaten
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup grated parmesan
cheese
1/2 cup crushed Post Toasties
corn flakes
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) melted butter or margarine
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix flour and seasonings,
coat chicken. Dip chicken in
combined egg and water, coat
chicken in combined cheese
and corn flakes.
Place chicken in a 13 x 9-inch
baking dish; drizzle with melted butter. Bake 1 hour or until
chicken is cooked through and
juices run clear. Yields 4 servings.
Arts and Culture
The NSFP Guide To Decoding the Curriculum
By Robb Maynard
As another semester of silly, pointless courses at Eugene Lang College
draws to a bitter end, a new batch of
useless, impractical courses takes rise
in our class schedules. The NSFP takes
a look at what the wiz kids who design
our curriculum have concocted for us
spring semester.
Humans, Quasi-Humans and
Non-Humans
This class attempts to define exactly
what it is to be human, and what it
is to not be human. If the aim of this
class could be broader and vaguer, it
would be called “Things and Things
That Are Not Things.” The description explains that “students discover
that animals really can talk,” and after
completion of the course, you can get
your doctorate in Dolittle. “Likely topics: pets, zoos…” Likely field trips had
better be to a zoo, or at least the Sixth
Avenue puppy store.
Introduction To Poetry
The only thing I like better than reading poetry is reading amateur poetry.
Women, News and
Knowledge
“This course explores the gendered
aspects…” You’ve lost me. “…role of
emotions for knowledge, theories of
sex…” And I’m back. “Course work
includes two research projects…”
And you’ve lost me again. This course
seems deceptive. They won’t talk about
the type of women I like. They’ll talk
about the type of women I don’t like.
The kind with self-esteem. Next.
Algebra
There’s nothing better than taking
a math class at a liberal arts school.
“Topics include simplifying algebraic
expressions, solving linear and quadratic equations…” Topics also include the gendered aspects of polynomial functions in a patriarchal society.
While algebra is one of the more practical courses available at Lang, taking
math here still won’t help you feel like
this is a real school. Oddly enough, the
required reading still includes Foucault.
11
Lang On The Hudson
During this course, “students build
a 26-foot Whitehall gig, a traditional
four-oared rowing vessel.” I can see all
my future job interviews flash before
my eyes. “Why, no sir, I didn’t learn
anything applicable to market analysis
in my secondary education, but damn
if I can’t build the best 26-foot rowing boat you’ve ever seen in your life!”
Well, at least I won’t need to be worried about being unemployed AND
trapped on a desert island.
Women’s Spirituality and
Contemporary Religion
God is a woman. There, I saved you
an entire semester.
Women and Gender in
America: The 20th Century
While I’m a huge proponent of
Women’s Studies (I study women all
the time), I must have flipped past the
Men’s Studies classes. Granted, women have done a lot for society, such as
the invention of windshield wipers
and white-out, but men must have
done something to deserve at least
one course. We aren’t asking for a lot;
we just want our fair share of credit in
herstory.
Introduction To Tibetan
Languages
I always wondered what I would
do if I ever needed to converse with
a co-worker who only spoke Tibetan.
“This course introduces students to
elementary features of Tibetan grammar and everyday speech.” You know,
the usual daily banter I make with Tibetans. I do that all the time. All the
damn time. “It prepares them to read,
speak, and write basic colloquial sentences in modern standard Tibetan as
spoken in Lhasa.” Good. I was going
to spend this summer building boats
and talking to animals in Lhasa. I
certainly wouldn’t want to have poor
grammar when I discuss the role of
gender in poetry with the Yaks in Lhasa, or they might not help me with my
algebra homework. And if you think
this course is great, wait until you take
Intermediate and Advanced Tibetan
Languages. It’ll change your life.
And the administration wonders why
attrition rates are so high.
Additional Courses
By NSFP Arts & Culture Staff
Talking About Your Feelings
Professor: TBA
Time(s): M/W and T/Th and E/O
Friday – 12:00-4:00
CREDITS: 0-19
Born of a glaring lack of opportunity for self expression at Eugene
Lang College, this course affords
students an outlet to discuss what
they have been factoring into discussion for years: themselves. Any student demonstrating an ability to be
self-referential even in what may, at
first, seem like totally inappropriate
circumstances will be automatically
enrolled. Mandatory for musical theatre and womens’ studies concentrators, closed to students of the hard
sciences.
TK Journalism: Projects in TK
Professor: TK
Time(s): TK
CREDITS: TK
In this course, students take a TK
approach to the fascinating arena of
TK. Enhanced by weekly field-trips
to TK, students will begin in-depth
reporting on TK, in the style of TK.
Readings include TK, as well as
screenings of classic documentary
films on the subject TK by renowned
journalist TK.
WASPs: The True Victims of
Gentrification
Professor: Dr. Whitey McWhitey
Time(s): Sundays 10-12
Credits: .5
This seminar explores the growing
racial fissure plaguing communities like Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy.
With gentrification on the rise, New
York’s White Anglo Saxon Protestants find themselves increasingly
alienated in a world they have come
to trust as culturally dynamic. Texts
include Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the Bible, along
with writings of Charles DeGaul and
George Carlin.
12
Reviews
Theater
Special
Cabaret Convention
2007. Rose Hall at
Lincoln Center.
By Eric Hollerbach
Rose Hall at Lincoln Center is
confusingly located in Time Warner’s Columbus Circle building.
The venue, though hard to reach,
is a real gem. Its endless balconies
are perfectly sculpted for acoustics, crowd control and ambiance.
Rose Hall recently hosted the
18th Annual Cabaret Convention,
produced by the Mabel Mercer
Foundation. The foundation was
formed to perpetuate the memory
of beloved cabaret artist, Mabel
Mercer.
Before any music played, a waft
of eau de old people accumulated
under the heat of stage halogens.
A field of gray hair excitedly dozed
in anticipation, while ex-Broadway performers lined up to give
them classic American numbers.
It was retail cabaret at its worst:
this performance was to cabaret
what Abercrombie and Fitch is to
rugby. During the show, the phony
stage banter evoked WWII more
than the Truman Administration,
to thunderous applause.
Go for the venue, leave for the
music.
Not Recommended.
Arts and Culture
Naked Comedy.
People’s Improv
Theater.
By Jessie Heyman
Anyone who’s watched a Will
Ferrell movie knows that nudity
can be amusing; jiggling body
parts can make up for what’s
lacking from the plot. At the
People’s Improv Theater, comedians bare it all in hopes of
garnering a few laughs. Unfortunately, they come up a little
short.
The Naked Comedy Showcase is held in an intimate black
box space. Comics of different
styles (some shaved, some not)
perform in front of an audience
that comedian Rob O’Reilly
describes as, “Very liberal and
smart.” And for the exceedingly
liberal who need more of an interactive experience, they can
strip down, too.
Showcase felt like an awkward gathering in a locker room.
The nudity didn’t enhance the
comedy; in fact, it was more of
a distraction, obstructing the
humor.
Perhaps if the content was better, the nudity could have found
its place among the jokes. There
was nowhere to hide poor structure and uneven performances;
some acts appeared thrown together, while other performers
seemed overly rehearsed.
However unspectacular the
comedy, audiences are intrigued by the concept. “We almost always sell out,” O’Reilly
said. Audiences find the comics’
bravery a lot more impressive
than their jokes. According to
O’Reilly, “People respect you
more for having the balls to
show your balls.”
Political Idol. Triad Theatre, 158 W. 72 St.
Playing Tuesdays, 9 p.m. to December 18.
By Joe Veix
Few lamented the death of
vaudeville after the Palace Theatre
switched to film. It had suffered
exponentially, with each advance
in entertainment technology trimming its audience, the invention
of film loudly hammering the final nail in its coffin. Given the irritating neo-vaudevillian fashion
choices of various hipsters, is it
wrong for one to dread a possible
resuscitation of this antiquated
genre of theatre?
The Triad Theatre on the Upper West Side is taking a stab at
the genre with the Off Broadway
production of Political Idol. It’s
a musical parody of American
Idol, with the candidates singing
and dancing in order to gain votes
from the audience. Four actors
share the spotlight, each covering multiple popular candidates
by switching characters between
scenes. Each candidate has his or
her own musical number, backed
by light piano and drums.
The numbers are parodies of
popular show tunes (regrettably
with a few pop hits snuck in, as
well), with the lyrics changed to
satirize the candidates, accompanied by loosely choreographed
dances. Your reaction to the prior
sentence, whether incessant gag-
A Name in White
Film festival features New School students
By Guest Contributer Rebecca Carriero
Anthology Film Archives, the
intimate repertoire theatre known
for its preservation, study and exhibition of American independent
and avant-garde cinema will be
hosting a festival for up and coming film makers organized by current New School student Reuben
Meltzer on November 18 from 1-3
p.m.
The festival, A Name in White,
features film makers who are students and alumni from the School
of Visual Arts, the New School undergraduate division and the New
School Graduate program.
The films in A Name in White,
are diverse documentaries, music
videos, experimental films and
plot driven works.
Imara Barret, a recent graduate
of The New School will be screening her thesis film, Confining
Thoughts, a documentary about
the treatment of female prisoners
in the United States.
Undergraduate Reed French will
be showing his film, Distant Romance, a voyeuristic treat about
a man’s obsession with a woman
who he spies on from a parking
deck.
Jonathan Ellis, a New School
Graduate student who runs his
own production company called
Leaping Tall Buildings, will showcase Invader Falls, a sci-fi flick
about an alien invasion from the
perspective of the invaders.
Icelandic filmmaker and New
School student Karl Newman will
be showing three films. The Queen
of Astoria, a brutal film that deals
with sexuality, Simon and Manuel, about a meeting between two
people on a park bench, and The
Bird Watcher, an experimental
film that focuses on shifting identities.
Reuben Meltzer will be showing
his work, a 20 minute piece that
took two years to make called A
Second Life, a love story that takes
place in Purgatory, which happens
to be a supermarket.
Graduate student Tawania Pettus will showcase her award winning film, Day Of My Birth, a
pensive film about a lonely office
worker on his birthday.
Christopher Mastronardi of SVA
will show his epic music-videomovie for Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible album.
For specific screening times
and
additional
information,
please contact Reuben Meltzer at
[email protected].
google.com
Max Bemis of the band
Say Anything
mTV-U Tube
By Mathew Kennedy
The MTV Woodie awards, sponsored by MTV’s little brother,
mtvU, are upon us again. Airing
November 15 at 8 PM on mtvU
(or streaming at mtvU.com), the
awards are nearly identical to
those offered at the VMAs, with
some exceptions. Two new awards
include the Viral Woodie Award,
for bands that were made famous
by internet sites like MySpace
and YouTube, and the Left Field
Woodie for bands that difficult to
classify in a genre.
A teleconference was held on
Tuesday, October 29 with an
mtvU executive and select bands
ging or eager anticipation, will
likely determine whether you
would enjoy the performance.
The jokes are easy (Bill Clinton
and blow jobs! Hilarious!), but
the audience cheered and laughed
through the performance.
Near the middle of the musical, Hillary Clinton, played by
Lara Buck, sings a parody of W.S.
Gilbert’s “The Modern MajorGeneral.” She runs through the
frenetic
lines
without missing
a beat until purposely
messing
up and switching
to a chilling parody of the Pussycat Doll’s “Don’t
Cha.” With the
politicalidol.com change, her dancing switches to
something resembling a striptease
at an old folks home. Watching
Hillary Clinton floss her ass with a
microphone stand will forever be
burned in your brain. Another low
point is Barack Obama, played by
Enga Davis, rapping a parody of
“Ice Ice Baby.”
Despite the many lows, the impressions are, for the most part,
spot on and the singing is excellent. It’s a shame that the actors’
talents are wasted on flat caricatures and easy humor. One must
be reminded that, somehow,
MADtv and SNL still have a devoted following—two programs
that do some of what Political
Idol does—and theatre-goers were
clearly enjoying the show, proving
there is an audience for this.
Somewhat Recommended
who were nominated for awards.
Student journalists from other
colleges were invited to call in
and ask questions. The interviewees consisted of Travis McCoy of
Gym Class Heroes, Max Bemis of
Say Anything, Meg Frampton of
Meg and Dia and Brad Delson of
Linkin Park.
Early in the teleconference,
a brilliant question was asked,
gaining a brilliant response from
Travis McCoy: “The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to keep my
zipper up, not to be vulgar. When
you’re touring, you can make a
very messy and tangled web, in all
these cities, meeting all these different people. All these girls, it’s
like ‘Awesome!’ I’m single now, I
want girls to have to work for this.
Don’t get your gentle hearts broken, girls.”
Max Bemis then joined us. I
spoke up:
NSFP: Hi Max, you’ve gone
through 7 band members in the
past 6 years and have produced
only 3 albums. You’ve admitted
that you are a control freak as well
as a dick in previous interviews.
Did those band members leave, or
did you fire them?
Bemis: Uh...I’d say it was 50/50,
and uh...I don’t know, I wouldn’t
say I’m a dick. I’d say I’m definitely a control freak, and that’s
something I warn people about
as soon as they join the band. It’s
sort of a 50/50 thing. It wasn’t all
on bad terms, but there were a few
sketchy ones.
Rock ‘N’ Roll
Revisited
The Velvet Underground and Nico
By Josh Kurp and
Kyle McGovern
There are some great debut albums out there—Marquee Moon,
The Clash, My Aim is True—but
none as good as The Velvet Underground and Nico.
The first song, “Sunday Morning,” was the last song recorded
for the album, which gives it a sort
of hindsight. Lead vocalist Lou
Reed sighs more than he sings:
“Early dawning, Sunday morning/ It’s just the wasted years, so
close behind.” “Sunday” captures
the strange partnership between
feeling elated about what you did
last night and fearing the consequences.
The Velvets never dressed anything up, and with “I’m Waiting
for the Man” and “Venus in Furs,”
they’re leaving everything in plain
sight. “Twenty-six dollars in my
hand /Up to Lexington, 1–2–5/
Feel sick and dirty, more dead
than alive.” The piano’s percussive shuffle on “Waiting” lends to
the sense of urgency and paranoia
that can’t help but be felt when
waiting for your man.
One of the most impressive aspects of the album is the way the
VU could go from scenes of grime
and desperation in “Run, Run,
Run,” (allegedly written on the
back of an envelope on the way to
a gig) to hiding the seduction of
“There She Goes Again” behind a
hook that could have been written
by the Beatles.
German singer/model Nico,
forced upon the VU by Andy Warhol, lends her ghostly voice for lead
vocals on three songs, “Femme
Fatale,” “All Tomorrow’s Parties”
and “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” “Fatale”
reveals itself to be a heartbreaking
pop song; its cold delivery is just
a ruse. The last twenty seconds,
when Nico simply sings, “Oh oh,
oh, oh,” exposes her vulnerability.
It’s not often that a song can
scare the shit out of you, but try
listening to “Heroin” in the dark,
and not feel like John Cale’s
screeching viola is piercing your
skin while Moe Tucker’s drumming is following the heartbeat of
someone on the title drug.
The final two songs, “The Black
Angel’s Death Song” and “European Son” end the album on a
disappointing note. Both feel a bit
thrown together, and rely more on
making noise than being a good
song—something that would be
rectified on their second album,
White Light/White Heat.
There’s a saying that although
only 100 people bought this album, those 100 went on to form
their own band. This is the kind
of influence that the VU had on
music, and with albums like The
Velvet Underground and Nico,
it’s easy to see why.
Opinions and Columns
Save the Urinals
Fabios and Fried Chicken
By Eric Hollerbach
In Defense of a Gym-Free Lifestyle
By Christine Calvo
There is a reason why gym was
my least favorite class in high
school. I mean, who wants to run
around in circles for hours on
end? This doesn’t mean that I’m
unhealthy. Some of us who don’t
belong to the Toned to Perfection
Club have better things to do with
our time. Some things that you
can do instead of going to the gym
are reading, watching a movie, going for a stroll, running amok, doing homework or procrastinating
on homework.
There is a convenient and free
method of exercise in which we all
participate—living in New York.
And if, like me, you can’t afford to
pay $76 for a membership that in
reality you’ll only ever use maybe
once or twice, living in the city can
give you just as good of a workout.
But, let’s say, you’re rich and hop
cabs instead of walking. You’d still
want to avoid gyms, because they
are awkward places to go. In one
corner, you have the Fabios lifting
weights to make sure they look expertly fit. In the other, the Barbies
stare you down if you’re even an
inch smaller than them. You and
everyone in the place are sweating beyond the necessary amount,
and all the while checking one
another in hopes of a date. Yeah,
that’s a good place to find your
mate of the month, while they’re
sticky and sweaty.
Why the obsession with fitness,
anyway? The fact is, the less you
obsess about your weight, the
more you can enjoy the wonder
of life that is food. When you get
hung up trying to make your waist
the size of a plastic mannequin’s,
because of the new tomato diet or
something, you miss out on some
of the world’s greatest things:
fried chicken, greasy pizza, and
everything else that is extremely
bad for your heart, but tastes so
very good.
Remember when it was all right
for women to have curves? Why
do men have to try to look like a
Greek Adonis? What is it about
this society that has made us
so afraid of shape? Sure, looking healthy and having hard abs
and being ripped-to-the-max is
cool, but there are other ways of
developing an appealing figure.
Most woman back in the 19th century were loved because they had
curves. It’s frightening that there
are actresses like Scarlett Johannsen who were loved for their
Getting Choosy
The Pro-life Movement’s Shift
By Lauren Cuscuna
Jeane, a drug addict, is pregnant
with her sixth child and choosing between adoption, abortion
or keeping the baby. Kayla is a
pregnant college student with an
absent boyfriend, and Brooke is
married and pregnant with a sick
child who will die hours after birth.
The three women were chronicled
in the Fox News special, “Facing
Reality: Choice,” which aired October 27. The documentary was
more personal than political, and
emphasized a woman’s right to
choose. Most reviewers agreed it
was very un-Fox like.
“The film keeps undercutting
any assumptions that blue-staters
(or red-staters, for that matter)
might bring to it,” wrote Mick Hale
in the New York Times. However,
the film’s message is in line with
some of the new perspectives
coming out of the pro-life camp.
Evangelical leaders steadfastly
maintain they will not vote for a
pro-choice candidate. Dr. James
Dobson, host of Focus on the
Family, wrote a New York Times
op-ed stating he will support neither Rudolph Guiliani nor Fred
Thompson because of their prochoice positions.
In general, Evangelicals have
tired of Republicans. “The profamily and pro-life community is
very much like a mistress for the
Republican Party,” Dobson said
in October at the Values Summit
conference in Washington, D.C.
“They really like us to come in the
afternoon for a little conversation
at election time and then they
leave and they want us, if we meet
them on the street, to not act like
we know them.”
Essentially, “Republicans run on
platforms they can’t deliver on.”
As a result, pro-lifers are taking
a grassroots approach to preventing abortion, rather than working
through the legal system. The Focus on the Family Institute, for instance, established Option Ultrasound, a program implemented
in women’s clinics throughout the
country. It encourages women to
see their baby’s sonogram before
getting an abortion. Seventy-nine
percent of the participants choose
to keep the child.
Earlier this year, Senator Dan
Patrick (R-TX) proposed a bill that
would pay $500 to every woman
in Texas who chooses adoption,
rather than abortion. The reward,
however, doesn’t compare to the
delivery costs, which can exceed
$10,000.
Even the most militant antiabortion advocate is aware that
illegalizing abortion will only lead
to dangerous back-alley operations, as has happened in the past.
Simply enforcing a ban on the
procedure is not the answer.
These new perspectives and disappointment with the Republican
Party may aid the Democrats in
2008. Recently, Hillary Clinton
proposed “Baby Bonds,” a system
that pays every newborn $5,000.
She claims the intention of the
program is to ease college costs
and generally improve the child’s
quality of life. But there’s an obvious connection to the pro-life
agenda and many have criticized
her for it. “She now softens her
image with the pro-lifers,” Rob
Haney, an Arizona Republican
Party committeeman, told the
Washington Times. Clinton’s proposal may be more political than
sincere, but the Democrats finally
have a chance to benefit from the
pro-life voting base. If the Democrats want to win in 2008, they
should stop criticizing Clinton
and start taking notes.
13
Sam Lewis
natural bodies and then, as their
fame increased, their waist band
decreased.
So let’s recap: gyms are awkward
and expensive, New York City is a
place where you can easily lose
weight just by walking and, last
but not least, shape is good. So
grab that cheeseburger as you
walk to a train station that is
three miles away and maybe stop
in front of a gym window while
you’re passing by.
Unisex bathrooms have been
springing up like Starbucks, and
they’re cluttering our halls with
sexually neutral propaganda! But
here’s the worst part of it: None
of the women’s bathrooms have
made the switch, there have only
been man-to-unisex conversions.
The New School shrugs this important issue off. “I can’t give you
a history to tell you if it used to
be a men’s room,” said Thomas
Goldsmith, Director of Facilities
Services. But I can. I’m taking a
stand.
One of the problems here is that
there isn’t enough bathroom space
for men now. If the unisex is occupied, we sometimes have to scale
two flights to pee. Another issue is
that men and women have different standards for cleanliness, and
putting them in the same bathroom can only lead to conflict.
“Boys are just gross, and they pee
everywhere,” says Veronica Miles,
a senior at Lang. “And I’m sure it
smells in there.”
Here’s the truth about the unisex
lavatory movement: It came about
because people who feel they
don’t fit into a particular gender
(or, in this case, stall) believe they
shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable. But accommodating the need
of everyone to be unashamed in-
Hunting for the Hum
By Ben Kelly
Bay Ridge isn’t known for much.
It has a large population of senior
citizens. Fort Hamilton, an active
military base, is in Bay Ridge. And
there’s the Bay Ridge Hum.
That’s the local name for a noise
that’s been annoying Ridge dwellers for years. There aren’t a lot
of facts on the Hum (part of its
appeal). A 2006 New York Sun
article describes it alternately as
a “low-frequency vibration,” “unlike anything you’ve ever heard,”
and an “awful noise.” Everyone
seems to agree that’s it’s loudest
near the water. One theory claims
the Hum is organic, a throbbing
mating call produced by the male
toadfish. I googled “toadfish.” The
thing is hideous, a cranky, liverspotted bottom-feeder. Another
theory says, UFOs.
I set out to get the real story. I
got off the R train at 9:15, eager
to hear the Hum. I followed a
sidewalk that led me over the Bay
Parkway to the Shore Road Promenade, adjacent to the water. The
path twisted and curved along the
edge of Brooklyn, the murky estuary to the right, eight lanes of traffic to the left. The Promenade was
lit by the headlights of passing
traffic and by occasional sodiumphosphorous lights. A shadowy
moon hung over the scene. The
lights’ after-images burned in
the Lethe-dark water; I could see
enough to follow the path, but not
enough to tell where I was going.
Soon, I passed a fisherman.
He was almost directly under
the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge,
crouched by the railing, drinking a can of Budweiser. On either
side of him, propped against the
promenade’s railing, were eight
foot fishing poles, lines floating in
the Bay.
I gave him a friendly nod from
ten feet away. “Excuse me,” I
said, strolling up. “Can I ask you
a question?” He weighed me in
the scales of his eyes. “Have you
heard a sort of humming sound?”
He looked out at the Bay through
the metal railing. “Just the waves.”
His accent was the slow nasal outer-borough type that turns ‘waves’
into ‘ways.’ It fit his slight build,
the boozy grain of his face.
“Nothing like a drone, a lowpitched droning
kind of thing?”
“No, nothing
like that. I’ve been
out here fishing for a while....
Why?”
I fibbed, said
I lived down here
and had been
hearing
some
noises. “It might
be from a fish,” I
added.
Hearing the
word, he perked
up. “I see all
kinds of fish down
here,” he said,
and launched into a couple stories.
His friend had caught that classic
fish, the one “this big.” And just
yesterday, he himself had caught
something, a word that sounded
like shark and which was as tall as
his knee. “It’s like a bluefish. It’s a
good fish, expensive—about $10 a
pound on the market.”
I asked him if he’d eaten it.
“Sure, yeah,” he said. “It’s a
good fish.” Putting aside the questions of benzene, PCBs, mercury,
I wondered more simply where
he’d taken the thing to gut it. A
fish that big had to have a mess of
organs beneath its scales.
“So, no humming noises, then?”
I wondered aloud.
“The only sounds I hear are
from traffic, from boats. And, you
know, people jumping in the water.”
“Oh yeah? Taking a dip?”
“No—suicide.” I think a streetlight shorted out then. “A few
weeks ago, there was one down
evitably creates double standards,
and forces administrators to make
sketchy judgment calls. A protestor might reasonably scream,
“Why don’t we also have smaller
doorways for little people, black
and white rooms so the colorblind
aren’t missing out, or flaming dead
squirrels for pyro-necro-bestiacs?
After all, you moved walls for the
trannies...”
Goldsmith, the Director of Student Services, would like you to
believe that the whole thing is
part of “an effort to accommodate wheelchair bound students,”
And that the building in question
(65 W. 12th Street) is particularly
challenging because of its splitlevel stairs. But if the bathrooms
are for handicapped people, we
shouldn’t have a line of boys and
girls blocking their way--it should
just be for handicapped people.
Don’t take this the wrong way. I
have no problems with transgendered individuals, and just happen to think that having their own
bathrooms further separates them
from society. A better idea would
be if they were allowed the bathroom of their choice, and be able
to own their new or wanted body.
Having Boys, Girls and Unisex
puts a heavy label on an already
marginal group.
there,” he pointed up the path.
“And the other day, on the bridge—
you see that scaffolding up there
on the edge?” He asked me a few
times, making sure I saw exactly
where he was pointing. “There was
a construction worker? Fell off.
Headfirst. Hit the concrete, died
on the spot. It was on the news.”
He paused to light a cigarette, and
I did too. “So what do you do?
You’re a photographer?” noticing
the camera I was holding.
Kayley Hoffman
“No, I’m a writer,” I said. “A journalist. But to tell you the truth,” I
inhaled, “I don’t know how much
of a story there is down here.”
He laughed ruefully. Just then
his right fishing pole trembled.
“Something’s biting,” he said. “It
must be small. If it was bigger it
would pull the pole down the rail.
Really big fish, might jerk the
whole thing into the water with it.”
I wondered what invisible thing
was biting the end of the line.
“Are you going to reel it in?” I
asked.
“No—it’s too small.”
“Alright,” I said. “Well, I’m going to keep listening for this humming.”
“Alright,” he grinned.
“Maybe I’ll see you on my way
back,” I said, walking away.
“Maybe,” he said, and started
fooling with the rod’s reel.
I walked around for a few more
hours. But I never heard that
Hum.
Opinions and Columns
14
Lo Mein and
High Maintenance
The Fruit
Fly Life
Why Lang Boys Are Still Single
Lactation Ruling the Nation
By Robb Maynard
I’ve heard guys at Lang complain
of the lack of datable girls at our
school. Maybe it is true some of
the girls at Lang aren’t exactly the
flowers of femininity that Lang
boys are looking for. Luckily there
is an untapped natural resource
available: Parsons. There is a high
population of single, heterosexual
females there, as well as a high
population of homosexual men
not interested in dating them at
all. Parsons is a veritable buffet
of single girls. Not having had a
Parsons girlfriend (that I knew of,
at any rate), I ventured into the
wilds of the design
school jungle to
find out why.
Locating the girls
isn’t too difficult;
they tend to gather
at computer labs or libraries, trying to complete their enormous
course load. One interesting fact
I happened upon in my reporting
is that a great percentage of these
girls are of Asian descent. I suddenly began wondering if perhaps
the cultural divide was too much
for Lang boys to overcome, and if
that was the cause for the lack of
inter-divisionary dating.
When I asked what kept the
girls from dating the boys at Lang,
those who would talk to me said
that they simply didn’t know any.
A lot of Parsons girls don’t dorm,
but instead live in expensive apartments paid for by their parents.
“If you don’t go to Parsons,” explained Kristin Walker, a Parsons
student, “you have no interaction
with these girls.”
“Also, a lot of them don’t talk to
white boys, and they probably already have arranged marriages,”
added Olivia Wadsworth.
Some of the Asian Parsons women I did talk to mentioned having boyfriends back home. When
I asked what
made,
say,
me
different
from their boyfriends, I was
told I wasn’t
Asian and, in one case, wasn’t a
“hip-hop dancer.” Others simply
said they didn’t find Lang boys
very attractive.
“A lot of guys at Lang tend to be
laid-back stoner types, and these
Asian girls are very high maintenance,” offered Parsons student
James Freedman.
“A lot of us are just looking for
different types of guys,” countered
Parson student Amy Hur. “Like
NYU guys who are rich and have
“Parsons is a
veritable buffet
of single girls”
You wish.
cars.”
But maybe money has nothing to
do with it. I made a point of asking a number of Parsons women
whether they’d be interested—
hypothetically of course—in going
out with me, a typically impoverished Lang boy. Of the 35 women I polled, 19 said yes. I’m not
concentrating in Mathematics or
anything, but that’s 54 percent of
the sampling who dig what I have
going on. In short, fellow Langers,
the door at Parsons seems to be
open to anyone interested.
Since that initial survey, several Lang boys I have interviewed
have expressed an interest in dating Parsons women—particularly
Asian women. By way of illustration, one pulled up a video on
YouTube entitled “ridiculously
hot Asian girl dancing.”
“Parsons girls look so damn good
all the time, I feel like a hobo,”
lamented Lang girl Charlotte Pe-
World News Matters
I Care...Why Don’t You?
By Julia David
Three years ago, as a freshman,
I came to the conclusion that conversations held in courtyards defined a university. My first year of
college was spent at the University
of Arizona, surrounded by mindnumbingly inane talk about short
skirts, football, hookups and frat
parties. My second year, at the
University of East Anglia in England, was shrouded by drunken
conversation about birds, blokes,
beer and occasionally Shakespeare. After all that, coming to
Lang was refreshing...at first. The
conversations leaned towards Wilde, Thompson and Brodsky. But
my enthusiasm quickly vanished
when I tried to engage in conversations about what was going on
in the world. Many students—
and even teachers—did not want
to talk about such topics because
they knew little about them.
Such a smart, liberal school with
such inadequate knowledge of the
world? Rather deplorable, to say
the least.
Recently, I was engaged in a
discussion of such quandaries
with an academic adviser whom
I choose to keep anonymous. He
plainly told me that the reason
for such aloofness was that “it
just isn’t sexy enough.” Well, duh.
Millions are homeless because of
floods in Africa, monks are being
beaten in Burma, the Blackwater
scandals, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict...You’re right, not sexy.
But imperative!
The problem is that there are
scores of people who don’t give a
crap about what’s going on in the
world. Relentless and futile acts
of violence get to me, hundreds
of displaced children due to a
botched kidnapping get to me, the
rapid decay of the environment
gets to me. I know what you want.
You want a piece on a New York
neighborhood you’ll probably
never go to. Scandals! You want
more Presidential elections (how
many of you are really even going
to vote?) You want vagrant trustees. And you want Bob Kerrey,
Britney Spears, the Pick Up Artist, Tila Tequila, witty and contradicting digressions on how damn
hard it is to be different.
And maybe that is what we
should be giving you. After all, it’s
about readership. That’s the business. So who is our readership?
Well, I agree with that particular staff member: the majority
population of The New School is...
drum roll please...rich white girls.
Don’t deny it.
All I’m asking for is for us, as
a newspaper and as a university,
to stand behind our own claims.
We are intelligent folk, capable of
many great things. And, believe it
or not, we’re even capable of caring. We say we’re liberal. We argue about the stupidity of Bush
and how global warming really
does exist. Good. That’s the first
step, but it doesn’t stop there.
Maybe, one day, I’ll end up in
some country, trying to tell the
world why they should pay attention to and care about people dying and killing for no reason. But
I know all I can really hope for is
a few tears and maybe a check.
Maybe I’ll get into all that because
I’m an adventure junkie. Maybe I
want a life a bit crazier than most
rich white girls.
Or, maybe, I just give a shit.
Rankings
and Writers
Where to MFA in NYC
By Jon Reiss
If you’re a graduating writing
major, and you don’t hate the writing and/or workshoping process
after these past four years, you’d
better buckle down and write your
novel. Otherwise, it’s time to try
and get a job, or figure out where
you’re going for graduate school
and what kind of degree you’re
going to get. For those of you who
are thinking about going the MFA
route—More Fucking Academia—
and want to stay in Lady Liberty’s
pretty city, here’s what you need
to know.
Columbia University, Brooklyn College, New York University, Hunter College and The New
School all offer MFAs in Creative
Writing programs. The Village
Voice recently listed Hunter as
the best MFA writing program in
the city, citing low cost as a big
factor. This, however, is quite a
controversial claim. CUNY’s other
school, Brooklyn College, is considered the big up and comer,
boasting impressive writers like
Lynne Tillman on the payroll.
However, Hunter and NYU require you submit GRE scores with
your application. While NYU’s
program is in the top-ten on the
U.S. News list, it’s also one of the
more expensive programs. While
there are ultra-specific paths of
study like “Dramatic Writing,”
none of the faculty struck me as
impressive.
If you want to avoid taking the
Facebook.com
ters.
Other guys I talked to said they
found Parsons girls to be attractive
but “bitchy and dumb”. One Lang
boy complained that Parsons girls
don’t know “how to read” and that
Lang girls don’t know “how to
shave.” The girls I talked to at Parsons seemed intelligent and polite
enough, and most Lang girls seem
privy to basic hygiene. It struck
me that the problem may lie in
the boys at Lang, and the absurdly
high standards they hold.
Aside from myself, I don’t know
any exceptionally good looking or
charming boys at Lang. As for the
others, until they learn how little
they have to offer, they’re going
to stay single. In the meantime,
I’m going to buy some designer
clothes, practice some hip-hop
dance moves and get better acquainted with the ridiculously hot
Asian girls at Parsons.
GREs and still learn from noteworthy writers, you need look no
further than The New School’s
MFA in creative writing program.
But, you must ask yourself what
we all asked ourselves in 2004:
After four years, can I really take
any more? Also, The New School
did not make U.S. News’ Top 100.
However, there are other lists,
with other criteria, that have put
The New School’s MFA program
on their top 20—so maybe you
should ditch the lists and just
walk up Fifth Avenue to check it
out for yourself.
After perusing every MFA program ranking list, plenty of discrepencies become apparent. It
is clear, though, that The New
School, Hunter, CUNY, Sarah
Lawrence and Cornell are the best
programs in and around the city.
However, there is one school that
is considered by most lists to be
the second-best school in the city,
and by some not even close.
Columbia University is very
selective, but students enjoy
the splendid Upper Manhattan
location—a big chunk of which
is currently being swallowed by
the school. Also, the clout behind
the Columbia name is important
to many students. Sam Lipsyte,
Columbia professor and Believer
Book Award winner stated of the
program, “The faculty is strong,
the curriculum is fairly unique.
The big problem is money. The
program gives out hardly any, and
our competitors give out tons.”
With a $50,000 a year price tag,
one might have to consider doubling as a teacher’s assistant/
street hustler to even think about
cutting it. But hey, what’s so bad
about being completely violated
by loony horndogs or street hustling, for that matter? At least
you’ll have something worth writing about.
By Courtney Nichols
Two weeks ago, I noticed an odd
stain surrounding my left breast.
Although the weather was warm,
it wasn’t a sweat stain. As I took
off my top, I realized the stain was
in fact caused by nipple lactation.
I went to the doctor the next day
and learned that I had a breast infection due to over stimulation of
the nipple.
I do not have a boyfriend nor do
I wear rough fabrics around the
areola.
However, one of my best gay
friends is obsessed with breasts
and caresses them whenever he
has a chance. His groping put me
on antibiotics. Naturally, the minute the pills ran out, he went right
back to abusing the mountains of
my womanhood. Shame on him.
When a straight man touches a
woman inappropriately, it is sexual harassment. Yet, when a homosexual man gropes a female, it
is shrugged off and ignored. Take
the 2006 Golden Globes when
Isaac Mizrahi awkwardly cupped
Scarlett Johansen’s breast.
Due to Mizrahi’s avowed homosexuality, few were outraged. Yet,
if a straight man had performed
a similar feat that night, women
across the world would have demanded castration. Like many
women in this city, I have fallen
into the trap of allowing the gay
population to gawk at my naked
self and grab any body part that
enters their peripheral vision. In
fact, I recently participated in a
contest where over 20 gay men
sucked my nipples.
So why do I continue to allow
such blatant and obvious invasion
of my personal property? It does
not turn me on, it always ends in
pain and many of the men grope
and then walk off without another word spoken. Yet, I cannot
help but laugh when it occurs and
raise an eyebrow when it doesn’t.
As for other women, who knows?
Maybe they approve of such conduct since it provides a slight ego
boost—even if the man is gay,
some compliment is better than
none at all.
In any case, the whole experience may someday prove to be
useful. If I have a kid and he or
she begins fondling my nipples
looking for milky nourishment, I
won’t be fazed. A scratch or two
from a newborn will pale in comparison to having blood drawn by
the many frisky hands of gay men
across New York City.
Opinions and Columns
15
Demolition or Disaster?
The 9-11 Truth Movement Gains Ground
By Eric Hollerbach
of the public have all expressed
serious doubts about the commonly accepted narrative. They
have banded together as the 9-11
Truth Movement. They feel that
the number of times the government’s account has been modified, and a close analysis of the
‘fallout’ dust and WTC Building 7,
all point to a massive conspiracy.
Not on the part of the 19 hijackers,
but of our own government.
Since that tragic day, there have
been three major studies of what
happened to WTC towers 1 and
2. Originally, the
Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA)
posited the “pancaking” theory.
This involves each
floor stacking on
top of each other
as core columns
fail. This was later abandoned as
the Silverstein/
Sam Lewis
Weidlinger
inOn the anniversary of the attacks Investigate
vestigation, con9/11 members gather at the world trade
ducted for insurcenter site the past September
ance purposes,
caused it are still buzzing over the concluded that inner and outer
Internet, in books and in grass- columns failed simultaneously
roots media mediums. Senator due to airplane impact. NIST (the
Mark Dayton, Congresswoman National Institute of Standards
Cynthia McKinney, Charlie Sheen, and Technology) later conducted
Tom DeLonge (of Blink-182) and their own investigation and came
many others prominent members to a separate conclusion: that the
Conspiracy theories have long
been a part of American culture,
but they seem to gain particular
momentum after surprising or
cataclysmic historical events. The
Roswell incident, the moon landing and the JFK assassination,
just to name a few, have all inspired explanations that diverged,
sometimes widely, from official
accounts. Some are more believable than others.
Six years after the events of September 11, 2001, alternative theories of what happened and who
towers fell because of fire,
which caused floors to sag
and pulled the columns inward.
The dust emitted from all
three buildings is considered
a major piece of evidence by
the 9-11 Truth Movement.
They contend pulverized From left to right- Oklahoma City, Department of Defense, FEMA first
concrete could not have official, Weidliner WTC Study, National Institute of Standards and
covered lower Manhattan Technology. Popular Mechanics debunking article.
by means of physical col- The names are engineers and firms used.
lapse alone. Popular MeEric Hollerbach
chanics ran an article in
March 2005, hoping to decritical column below floor 13 led
bunk the 9-11 Truth Movement. thorities.
For Jones, and other 9-11 Truth to a domino effect whereby the
They explained the dust by stating, “Like all office buildings, the Movement advocates, Building building collapsed. Top European
WTC towers contained a huge vol- 7 is the smoking gun—the great- demolitions expert Danny Joume of air. As they pancaked, all est piece of evidence they have. wenko corroborates claims of the
that air—along with the concrete “The specifics of the fires in WTC 9-11 Truth Movement. “It starts
and other debris pulverized by the 7 and how they caused the build- from below, they’ve simply blown
force of the collapse—was ejected ing to collapse remain unknown away the columns,” he says about
at this time,” FEMA’S May 2002 Building 7 for a Dutch television
with enormous energy.”
However, physicist Dr. Steven investigation stated. It also said, news program called Zembla InJones of BYU thinks that the dust “Although the total diesel fuel vestigates 9/11 Theories 2006. He
has more significance than just on the premises contained mas- added, “This is a controlled demophysical evidence. He tested a sive potential energy, the best lition, a team of experts did this.
dust sample using an electron mi- hypothesis has only a low prob- This is professional work without
croscope to find what the content ability of occurrence. Further re- a doubt.”
While awaiting for NIST’s final
of the residue was. In his opin- search, investigation, and analyion, the dust matched a sample of ses are needed to resolve this word on WTC Building 7, the 9-11
thermate, an explosive compound issue.” NIST is currently working Truth Movement is asking for an
used in demolitions, “like a glove.” on a WTC 7 hypothesis, and have open investigation with full access
There is no official analysis of the leaked a few PowerPoint slides to to WTC debris.
dust by FEMA or NIST, because the public explaining their posineither arson nor the Controlled tion. Their preliminary hypothDemolition hypothesis was ever esis is that it was a “progressive
considered a possibility by the au- collapse” in which the failure of a
Death of a Cameraman
One year later, Brad Will’s
memory lives on
Guess Who’s Calling?
Google Launches Bid for FCC Bandwidth
By Eric Marchese
By Julia Schweizer
of the mainstream media.
He was shot and killed by
paramilitaries employed
by Ruiz. The killers were
caught on Will’s own film,
yet still have not faced any
consequences.
The day before the first
anniversary
of
Will’s
death, a person on a bicycle—caught on camera, but
unidentified—threw two
makeshift grenades at the
Mexican Consulate. The
Sam Lewis
attack resulted in several Ruiz out of Oaxaca protest
windows of the building
breaking, but no further damage More Gardens! coalition that prowas reported. Starting the follow- tects and creates community garing day, law enforcement visited dens in the city.
or attempted to visit at least 15
At Will’s memorial service this
activists to question them about year, on October 27, there was a
the incident. Agents and officers march that went straight to the
were met by slamming doors and community garden on 9th and
a general refusal to speak with Avenue C, where crowds of people
them about anything.
remained until dark. Will’s parWill was an instrumental part of ents were present, and gave an
the Indymedia network, a world- update on their trip to Mexico
wide web of 150 “democratic me- and their continuing campaign to
dia outlet[s] for the creation of pressure the authorities into prosradical, accurate and passionate ecuting their son’s killers. Despite
tellings of truth.” The first Indy- the paramilitaries shown shooting
media site began in 1999 to report on film, the government mainon the WTO tains that they weren’t involved
protests in Se- and offensively suggests, without
attle and some any evidence, that Will was shot
of the first video by fellow protesters instead.
footage of those
In this country, several friends of
protests
was Will have been particularly active
taken by Will. in pressuring Congress to take acBesides the an- tion on the matter and demand an
ti-globalization investigation. So far, their efforts
movement, he haven’t yielded any justice.
also was active Visit www.friendsofbradwill.org
in the squat- for upcoming events
ter movement
flickr.com
in NYC and the
Last photo of Brad Will taken at Oaxaca
Long before the days of TiVo
and HBO on Demand, viewers
could turn a radio-style knob
to receive fuzzy “ultra-high frequency” (UHF) channels. In the
late 1980s came the rise of basic
cable, and consequently the death
of UHF. Their airwaves still exist but have become obsolete.
This analog spectrum, once used
for shows like The Munsters and
Green Acres, is now up for sale
by the Federal Communications
Commission, turning the heads of
many telecommunication companies.
Google, for one, has already conditionally offered $4.6 billion. According to Condé Nast Portfolio,
the company may use the airspace
to offer a “free, ad-based wireless
voice-and-data service.” In other
words, free cell phone service.
Think about it: no more $200
bills from Verizon. Ever.
If you’re thinking, there must be
a catch, you’re right.
By the time Google gets hold
of these airwaves, the company’s
thinking will be that most customers will have handheld devices with GPS and the whole nine
yards. This is where the advertisement based model comes into play.
Imagine driving down the street
and your cell phone starts beeping
to alert you that you could have
your favorite Double Tall Caramel
Macchiato from Starbucks if you
just make the next right.
We already see Google’s targeted advertising scheme in action
with their e-mail service, Gmail.
Let’s say you open an email from
a friend about a new bicycle he
found for cheap on Craigslist. At
The crowd shouts, “Brad Will:
¡Presente!” as two people lock
down the entrances of the Mexican Consulate on East 39th Street.
One of the 200 protesters scales a
lamp-post and the crowd pushes
over police fences.
This was the scene October 30,
2006, three days after Brad Will
was killed while standing with the
opposition to paramilitary forces
in Oaxaca, Mexico. A week later,
his St. Marks Church memorial
service ended in a march through
the Lower East Side and the occupation of a former squat on East
9th Street near Avenue C, once
called Charas El Bohio.
The unrest in Oaxaca reached a
peak last fall when demands for
the end of Governor Ulises Ruiz’
rule led to government forces being pushed out of established autonomous zones, and a non-hierarchical organization replacing the
local government. Brad Will, a 36
year old journalist from New York
City, had traveled to Oaxaca to report on the struggle ensuing from
the perspective of those behind
the barricades rather than that
the top or side panel of the screen,
you may see something like “Discount Bikes Online.” And why is it
that a link to a recipe for “Spam
Pasta Primavera” appears without
fail whenever I sift through my
Gmail spam box?
The thought of Google’s bid initially put wireless bigwigs up in
arms. Verizon and AT&T, for example, are already billions of dollars in debt from expanding their
networks. Even a small dent in
their customer base has the potential to wipe them out.
But after months of competition, Google has finally cemented
a partnership with 33 wireless
companies (T-Mobile and Sprint
Nextel, to name a few,) reports a
recent Wall Street Journal article.
The alliance will ideally provide
“open technology” to wireless users, such as low cost devices and
service plans.
The positives of the Google alliance winning the auction are
obvious and tantalizing: no more
crippling contracts or expensive
cell service. In a sense, Google’s
open-access wireless plan is the
way of the future. But, it’s important to remember the downside:
the chunk of privacy wireless users (that means all of us!) will
lose.
It’s awfully tempting to have
one less bill per month to pay, but
the long term implications of the
model are unnerving. If we allow
Google to advertise on our devices
in lieu of collecting monthly wireless fees, how long before they’re
interrupting our conversations
with targeting mini-ads?
Our Lives Now
16
Village
Residents Battle for Their Neighborhood
Greenwich Village
12
St
W
W
13
St
W
650
308
W
W
639
836
829
83
Horatio St
W
2
129
795
92
303
136
356
2
72
22
73
W
Gansevoort St
356
le
9A
v
Litt
W
46
1
Jane St
98
2
19
St
St
16
St
St
14
St
49
95
15
18
17
St
Av
371
8
en
Gre
366
W
S
416
417
117
131
St
W 11
1
485
138
W
12
St
482
Bank St
13
104t
7A
v
5
2
248
St
Bank
v
hA
1
2
249
2
Bethune St
wic
Washington St
1
50
43
2
E1
4S
t
77
St
Perry
ca
s
345
eA
m
54
1
17½
Sq
hin
gto
1
hin
gto
Wa
sh
n
Sq
St
en
e
Gre
S
Pl
as
hin
gto
n
Pl
Pl
ity
ive
Un
®
Bro
ia
4
wa
W
W
St
Sq
er
n
St
hin
gto
42
16
rd
St
St
rs
Me
ws
N
Gu
a
ke
r
3
E8
St
26
n
La
as
St
W
ett
a
5A
v
23
ing
ton
La
St
Ble
ec
ps
on
ning
Dow
St
W
Th
om
St
St
ine
45
E9
26 S
t
2
W
39
12
9
23
1
2
68
as
y
20
W
as
St
19
E1
24 0 S
t
ad
18
1
16
9
2
28
n
0
34
Min
Carm
St
51
4
y St
ga
l
57
64
W
ou
420
17
ford
W Houston
St
St
26
Lero
Bed
St Luke's
Pl
Clarkson
67
29
28
2
1
2
1
7 Av
59
Leroy St
n
Cor
St
elia
cD
Greenw
27 ton
Mor
10
2
Pl
E1
1S
t
1
2
1
2
1
10
1
n
2
2
30
70
St 14
1
9S
t
8S
t
E1
2S
t
1
2
S
447
ich St
60
73
ce
Pl
1
St
2
mer
hin
gto
W
erl
y
5
52
Com
t
sS
34
643
289
41
97
W
es
tW
as
69
256
Jone
9
av
17
2
186
1
2
100
Barrow St
13
4
1
W
68
W
2
Ma
117
St
10
W39
13
9
61
110
ve
Gro
69
St
98
St
Ga
y
pher
Christo
74
Su
lliv
a
260
139
144
2
W
rc
St
Hudson
126
11
75
1
Me
St
123
126
E1
3S
t
Av
Of
Th
St
2
Charles
9
10
122
2
1
er
Bleeck
738
703
149
eri
1
1
344
St
Photos By Sam Lewis
Av
en
ue
We
st
34
th
Str
ee
t
Br
o
Br
oa
dw
ay
Historic District Boundaries
West Str
eet
ad
wa
y
Eig
hth
Greenwich Village Historic District
Manhattan
Designated April 29, 1969
Peir 40 along the Hudson River at Houston Street. The GVSHP has come out strongly against Related
Companies’ plans to develop an enormous 10,000 seat, multi venue, mega entertainment complex at
the pier
Lauren Gautier
St. Vincent’s hospital, the largest development
proposal since the days of Robert Moses
Continued From Page 1
ity of life?” said George Davison, head of the Grace Church
School, where the community meeting was held Tuesday
night.
In an effort to curb burgeoning development in the Village and preserve the neighborhood’s history, character,
and scale, the GVSHP battles developers on everything from
height limits to billboards erected in residential neighborhoods.
In recent years NYU has opened several controversial
buildings that have been criticized as being too tall or out of
context with the neighborhood. NYU began a 25-year-long
planning process that will supposedly include input from
community members in its plans. The university periodically calls neighborhood town hall meetings in a process Berman called “transparent.”
This year NYU announced that it plans to expand by 5,500
students over the course of the planning period, according
to GVSHP. “I shudder a the thought of what that arc [of expansion] might look like,” said Berman.
NYU plans to create satellite campuses, including a graduate space in downtown Brooklyn, to absorb the growing
population. After images of The New School’s planned 65
5th Ave. building appeared on the architects’ and The Villager websites, the community reaction was “total shock,”
according to Berman. The building’s height, glowing façade,
and construction worried locals.
The GVSHP said the New School did not respond to their
concerns for six months after images appeared. In June
2007, the Society “reached out to The New School again to
express with added urgency the need to respond to concerns
about their design concept,” it said in a “Preservation Alert”
on the GVSHP’s website.
The meeting last Tuesday, requested by Councilwoman
Rosie Mendez, was the first between The New School and
community advocates. A New York State Senator, City
Councilwoman, and representative from Community
Board No. 2 were also present, according to Bob Kerrey.
“I think we’ll get a sense soon of how seriously they’re
taking our concerns,” Berman said of New School officials
after their meeting. He added, “they’re going to get feedback
whether they like it or not.”
Neon signs glow on a stretch of 6th Avenue, just south of W. 8th Street. Since last April, the GVSHP has
been gaining supports for rezoning this area as a historic district
The GVSHP has been closely monitoring New
York University’s latest plans for two major
development projects on the south side of
Washington Square Park, urging the University–through discussion and demonstration–to
respect the historic character of the park and
its surrounding neighborhood
NYU’s dorm
will rise to 262
feet above the
tower of St.
Ann’s Church
on East 12th
Street