downtown ®
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 19
JAPANESE TWIST ON GREEK CLASSIC, PG. 25
express THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN
SEPTEMBER 21 - 27, 2011
City Council wants cancer added to Zadroga law
Downtown Express photo by John Bayles
Rob Diaz, who has been serving up cannoli at the Feast of San Gennaro for 32 years, serves another pastry and puts another smile on a customer’s face.
BY ALINE REYNOLDS Cancer is still not covered under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, per a decision by the law’s health program administrator, Dr. John Howard. In July Dr. Howard determined there was insufficient evidence linking the disease to exposure to Ground Zero toxins. City politicians are now urging Dr. Howard to reconsider his decision based on a recent scientific study that suggests such a link indeed exists. On Mon., Sept. 19, the City Council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor voted unanimously in favor of a resolution calling on Dr. Howard and
his team to review a 9/11 cancer study published in the Sept. 3 edition of The Lancet medical journal as soon as possible rather than wait a year as planned. The resolution, which follows a Congressional petition also requesting Dr. Howard’s immediate review of the data in the Lancet study, is scheduled to go before the full City Council on Wed., Sept. 21. “New persuasive evidence has been compiled [indicating that] first responders who were at ground zero are getting cancer at a much higher rate than ones who weren’t,” said Council Member and Committee Chair James Sanders, Jr. Scientific data reveals
Continued on page 19
Two booths at San Gennaro serve food, with a side of history BY JOHN BAYLES If there’s one booth at the Feast of San Gennaro that needs no name, no sign on the front, no marketing material whatsoever, it’s the booth on the southeast corner of Spring and Mulberry Streets. What it sells and what graces its display counter is enough to make any passerby stop on a dime: fresh baked cannoli. The booth has been at the same location for 32 years. It’s one of the oldest booths that still takes part in the feast and was started by the Rimesso family. It continues to remain “in the family” to this day, run by Nancy Rimesso and Rob Diaz. While much has changed since the feast started 85 years ago,
there is at least one constant. “This is the original cannoli,” said Diaz on Monday evening. “It’s still the feast’s best seller. They’ll invent a new one, but they can’t reinvent the original.” Across the street from the Rimesso’s booth is Chachi’s Hot Sausages. Like the Rimesso operation, the Chachi booth has remained, since 1975, at the same location and is still “all in the family.” Before it became known as Chachi’s, it was simply known as the best sausage the feast had to offer. Joe Lacorazza is currently running the booth. But, like his neighbor across the street, he never really had a choice; it was a family duty. The name came
as a result of Joe’s older brother’s striking resemblance to Scott Baio, who played Chachi in the old sitcom “Happy Days.” Joe’s father lived above Rocky’s on the corner of Spring and Mulberry and his mother lived one block north at 278 Mulberry. The way Joe’s mother, Louise, tells it, the Monsignor from the old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street came to her father and uncle one day, back when the church still allowed gambling and when beer and wine were sold at almost every booth. At that time, the block in front of old St. Patrick’s had no streetlights, and they needed some
Continued on page 2
Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Folk singer Tom Chapin headlines “Harmony on the Hudson.” Turn to page 16