Courtesy of N.Y.U. A rendering of N.Y.U.’s plans for two blocks south of Washington Square Park that features the newly reduced buildings.Opponents of N.Y.U.’s expansion are hinting that they will announce new legal maneuvers to derail the project should it be approved the City Council tomorrow as expected.
An e-mail from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation notes that lawyers representing faculty opposed to the plan will speak tomorrow after the vote at City Hill “regarding their next steps.” Those opponents have long spoken about the possibility of challenging the land-use review process in court.
N.Y.U. A slide depicting the reduction of building’s in
the proposed project footprint.The executive director of the Greenwich Village Society, Andrew Berman, would not comment on the organization’s specific legal plans until tomorrow, but added, “Should they vote to approve this plan, we and our partners on the N.Y.U. faculty will be working closely with our counsel, Gibson Dunn, to look at every remedy available to right this wrong.” Read more…
Philip Ross Alfa Diallo at the Dias Y Flores Community GardenA vendor at the flea market at Avenue A and 11th Street is suing a former N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts student who disappeared after filming a short documentary about him. The t-shirt designer, Alfa Diallo, is demanding $5,000 in small claims court.
Mr. Diallo said that he agreed to show Matthew Swenson his t-shirt making process after Craig Atkinson, who is also named in the suit, approached his booth last summer and asked if he would participate in his friend’s graduate thesis project.
Mr. Diallo, a relaxed and amicable 60-year-old who was born in Senegal and educated in France, handcrafts the t-shirt designs using a French curve, a tool that creates curly, looped, and elliptical patterns. Mr. Swenson filmed him for two days, said Mr. Diallo – one day at the flea market and another at his apartment on 13th Street and Avenue A.
“They did all this shooting without me being able to see anything,” he said. “Matt said to me, ‘I’ll send you things by e-mail, you should be able to open it and see.’ But I was not able to see it.” Read more…
A housing court judge ruled last week that the eviction of Gathering of the Tribes should be settled in State Supreme Court. The decision led the founder of the homegrown art and performance space, Steve Cannon, to express guarded optimism that he could reach an out-of-court settlement with his landlord, Lorraine Zhang, because the scope of the case now goes beyond a standard eviction proceeding. Ms. Zhang had no comment on the latest development in the case, which hinges on the validity of a written agreement she signed when Mr. Cannon sold her the East Third Street building that houses Tribes in 2004.
Ruth Spencer Steve Cannon, founder of Gathering of the Tribes.Tribes is fighting back.
The landlord attempting to evict Gathering of the Tribes has no right to do so, and actually owes the founder of the quirky arts group at least $8,400, a new lawsuit alleges.
In December, Lorraine Zhang, the landlord of 285 East Third Street, served Steve Cannon, the blind poet, playwright and founder of Tribes with a notice that he must leave the building by Jan. 31.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday in State Supreme Court and reprinted below, says that the notice is “invalid” and that “Cannon is entitled to remain as an occupant of the second floor of the premises subject to the terms of the agreement” that the pair signed when Mr. Cannon sold the building to Ms. Zhang in 2004. Read more…
The East Village’s most well-known yoga studio, Yoga to the People, has been sued by the originator of the Bikram variety of yoga for stealing poses, DNAInfo reports. Bikram Choudhury, the creator of the yoga done in sweltering studios, alleges that instructors at Yoga to the People were illegally using his copyrighted poses. Mr. Choudhury is seeking over $1 million in damages.
A posh condo at 40 Bond is cited in a $50 million lawsuit involving Sly Stone and his ex-manager, Curbed reports. The $7.5 million condo, which will be foreclosed next month, is used in court documents as an example of the former manager’s alleged mismanagement of the music legend’s assets. Mr. Stone — yes, of Family Stone fame — sued his ex-manager back in January for $50 million, charging that he had used music royalties to fund an opulent lifestyle.
