The Villager

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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

November 3, 2016 • $1.00 Volume 86 • Number 44

‘De Blasio must go!’ Group demands mayor resign for rezoning snub By Kari Lindberg

W

ith passionate chants of “Racism No More,” “New York City Not For Sale” and “De Blasio, Step Down,” members the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side kicked off their protest outside City Hall last Wednesday. Around 100 protestors,

mainly older Chinese and Latinos, came out alongside activists, wearing signs in English, Spanish and Chinese saying “De Blasio, Step Down” and “Stop Ethnic Racism.” They called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to leave office for failing to protect Asian, African-American and Latino communities from being displaced. The push to rezone a 100Rezoning continued on p. 18

West Village man using common-law marriage in uncommon estate fight BY PAUL SCHINDLER

I

t was 1958, and 27-year-old Tom Doyle was working at a Manhattan advertising agency. A colleague, whom he had immediately struck up a friendship with, asked him to join two other friends out one evening, but the colleague paused after extending the invitation and asked, “You are gay,

right?” Doyle answered in the affirmative, but recalls that he was a bit awkward in doing so. It was the ’50s, after all, and apparently both men were cautious types. The bond took, and in time, the colleague invited Doyle out to a beach house he had inherited in Breezy Point in the RockEstate continued on p. 8

Photo by Bob Krasner

Looking like a macabre model, one of the marchers in Monday’s Village Halloween Parade made her way up Six th Ave. See Pages 6 and 7 for more photos.

L.P.C. ‘No’ on ‘Political Row’ causes a row in East Village By Dennis Lynch

T

he Landmarks Preservation Commission recently decided not to landmark a handful of threestory 19th-century homes on E. Seventh St. to the dismay of local preservationists who argued they were deserving for their architecture and place in New York City political history. Preservationists launched

their effort to landmark the buildings in September after the owner of 264 E. Seventh St. applied for a permit to demolish the entire structure. L.P.C. had determined eight years ago that all five of the buildings “appear to be an L.P.C.-eligible historic district,” yet never designated them, according to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. executive

director, wants to know why. “Nothing has changed since then,” Berman said, “and they haven’t offered an explanation as to why, unsolicited in 2008, they found those buildings to be worthy of designation then, but now do not think they should be saved.” According to an L.P.C. spokesperson, the buildings were part of an “environmenlandmarks continued on p. 12

At long last, ‘The Cube’ comes back! ���������������p. 20 Skenazy: Will robots replace us at work? ��������p. 24 Carmen’s garden reopens! ���� p. 21

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