On Monday, Dec. 3, 11 students locked themselves in the Peter Cooper Suite at the top of the school’s Foundation Building. They originally intended to remain there (fueled by food, water, a bathroom and laptops) until three major demands were met: Free education must remain, a stronger democratic decision-making process must be implemented, and the current president, Jamshed Bharucha, must resign.

The administration remained tight-lipped throughout the ordeal, issuing a single statement: “The 11 art students who have locked themselves in the Peter Cooper Suite do not reflect the views of a student population of approximately 1,000 architects, artists and engineers.”

On Monday, Dec. 10, the students ended the stand-off, citing the media attention and large turnout at a rally held on Saturday in Cooper Square, and telling reporters that they felt their stunt had made enough of a differene to possibly affect the school’s tuition decision. Cooper Union administration issued no statement.

Menin Seeks Borough President’s Seat
Julie Menin, former chair of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan, has officially announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Manhattan borough president, following months of buzz about her potential run. Menin said in a statement that she is “running for borough president because I believe my strong track record of leadership and solution-driven approach is what is needed in the challenging times our borough faces.”

She also cited a desire to guarantee the opportunity of great schools, parks and playgrounds to all families and give a stronger voice to the average New Yorker.

Her leadership and practical-solution approaches have lead her to many successes as a lawyer, owner of a small business and community leader. Her track record includes helping with downtown’s post-9/11 revival, attaining three new K-8 public schools in Lower Manhattan and working with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to allocate over $200 million to job-creating infrastructure projects.

Menin, a mother of three, has already finished her fundraising for the 2013 race and has picked up endorsements from over 200 grassroots community leaders all over Manhattan, including from judges, CEOs, activists and former elected officials.

Although Menin has been the first to formally announce her campaign, other candidates in the sure-to-be competitive race are expected to include Council Members Gale Brewer (Upper West Side), Robert Jackson (Washington Heights) and Jessica Lappin (Upper East Side). As in many Manhattan races, the likely contenders are all Democrats and no Republican challenger is imminent, so the winner of the party primary can expect an easy ascendency to the position in November, forcing the real battle to play out earlier in the year.

Menin has announced that she will be spending her campaign time meeting with potential constituents around the borough to garner support.

Compiled by Jessica Mastronardi

Interior of the East Village's St. Mark's Bookshop. Photo by James Kelleher.

By Paul Bisceglio

St. Mark’s Bookshop has been a literary fixture of the East Village since 1977. It’s where Allen Ginsberg met Philip Glass, where Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz spent Sunday evenings and where William S. Burroughs hung out. Since the economy took a turn for the worse, however, the shop has struggled to stay open. Co-owners Robert Contant and Terry McCoy now seek funding to relocate from their iconic spot at 31 Third Ave. to a smaller store with a cheaper monthly rent.

Contant explained to Our Town Downtown that the move is “speculative.” The bookshop has applied for a highly competitive $250,000 Mission: Small Business grant from Chase and Living Social, which aims to support the growth of small businesses across the country. In September, a committee will select up to 12 businesses from a pool of thousands based on a lengthy application that outlines the applicant’s importance to the community and plans for development, as well as a preliminary online voting period that ended last month.

“The grant is, realistically, a long shot,” Contant recently admitted.

If St. Mark’s beats the odds, it will have no difficulty transferring its business to a smaller venue, where it will continue to focus on niche markets like small press poetry, literary criticism and theory and mid-list books. If it fails to win the award, the bookshop’s future location—and future in general—will be unclear, though Contant assured that they are in the middle of exploring a number of options to stay afloat.

One thing is certain, he said: “We are not thinking of leaving the East Village.”

Last fall, the burden of the bookshop’s $20,000-a-month lease at its present location forced Contant and McCoy to request a rent reduction from their landlord, the tuition-free college Cooper Union, which refused due to its own financial strain. East Village residents and a local community group called the Cooper Square Committee rescued the bookshop by circulating a petition that garnered 40,000 signatures. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer held a meeting with the co-owners and Cooper Union to reach a compromise.

“When an independent bookstore goes out of business, a part of us goes with it,” Stringer told the New York Times after a deal was reached.

Cooper Union agreed to forgive a $7,500 debt and promised to lower the bookshop’s monthly rent to $17,500 for about a year. Though the college set no official date for when the reduced rate will end, Contant and McCoy know they need a more permanent solution soon.
Until they find one, their message to the community is clear—posted on their door, in fact: “Find It Here. Buy It Here. Keep us Here. Thank You for Your Continued Support.”

St. Mark’s Bookshop seeks a new home. Established in 1977, the bookshop is a literary fixture in the East Village that has attracted cultural luminaries like William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass and Susan Sontag. According to Crain’s, however, the store hopes to find a more affordable location when its rent increases toward the end of the year.

“We’d like to stay in the East Village,” co-owner Bob Contant told the business

Photo by Wendy Cohen, courtesy of Flickr Commons

news website. “We understand the print book business has declined, but we’re still doing enough business to keep going, if we had a smaller space with less rent.”

Contant would not speak with New York Press about the prospective move, and asked us to check in later. As of now, details about exactly when and where the bookshop would relocate are unclear — even the store’s two salespeople admitted they had no idea what was going on with it.

St. Mark’s Bookshop is no stranger to the financial woes of the print book business. Last fall, the store won great publicity and support when its owners announced they would be forced close unless their landlord, the tuition-free college Cooper Union, cut their rent. Though the college initially refused due to its own financial strain,  public outcry that culminated in a 40,000-signature petition to save the bookshop and a meeting with Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer encouraged the college and the bookshop to reach a compromise.

“When an independent bookstore goes out of business, a part of us goes with it,” Stringer told the New York Times after the incident.

St. Mark’s deal with Cooper Union was only for one year, though, and a new lease period is now on its way. In April, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York organized a cash mob to buoy the floundering business. Now, the bookshop’s owners are gathering votes to qualify for a $250,000 small business grant from Chase and Living Social, which Crain’s says would fund their relocation.

Cooper Square Committee has circulated an e-mail to recruit votes for the grant, but could not confirm the money would fund a move. They said our conversation was the first they heard of the possible relocation.

Here’s the thumbnail sketch: starting in 1957, Rosset’s magazine, the Evergreen Review managed to popularize the Beats at a time when the literary establishment was under the thumb of such high-modernism worshipping mandarins as critic Edmund Wilson. Later, after he founded Grove Press he continued to promote the Beats as well as pieces of outré fiction in a more traditionally narrative vein, a push culminating in a legal victory allowing the publication of DH Lawrence’s formerly banned “pornographic novel,” Lady Chatterly’s Lover. This laid the groundwork for William Burrough’s Naked Lunch and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to be reviewed and discussed and the rest is history.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, beset by financial and union problems, and no longer as relevant in a field filled with counterculture imprints, Grove went into decline. But for many who were actually in Rosset’s orbit during the late 60s and early ‘70s, this fails to account for how dangerous Grove was seen by the Nixon-era political establishment. As well as how far these reactionary forces were willing to go to undermine it’s success.

Last night, Rosset’s former friend and confidante Mike Golden—writer and publisher (of the counterculture online magazine Smoke Signals)— referred me to an interview he conducted with Rosset years before his death. Golden, who describes Rosset as “possessing a jutting jaw, snow white hair, and the energy of a man 30 years younger,” quotes him placing the blame firmly on none other than the FBI for breaking into the back of Grove.

It’s a dark tale involving a flurry of strange events; a moribund informant riled up the printers union that worked out of his headquarters and agitated them into a long and costly strike. At the same time, a group of radical feminists baricadded themselves in Rosset’s office—smashing it to pieces—while he was traveling in Denmark.

When the dust settled Grove’s strength was sapped, its workforce slashed from 300 to 20. As he explained in the interview: “The FBI was responsible. I knew it was them. They destroyed us. It’s hard to explain it to people on the outside, but that takeover really was the end of Grove Press.”

The administration and the student body sit on opposite sides of the fence. Students claim that by charging tuition the entire culture of the Cooper Union will change. Bharucha, while concerned about this cultural shift, says that drastic steps must be taken for the school to continue to fulfill Peter Cooper’s mission. In a live interview with NPR Bharucha said “the most important thing is to create a sustainable financial model that enables Cooper Union to commit even more strongly to provide access to those with the least access today.”

Peter Cooper, born in New York City in 1791, was a businessman and inventor who made the bulk of his fortune through real estate investments and a profitable iron works company. Initially interested in helping the working classes succeed in business, he founded the university as a place of equal opportunity, where anyone could study, regardless of status or gender. This founding principle has remained Cooper Union’s mission to this day, and students fear this belief system will disappear if the administration starts charging tuition. “If The Cooper Union is going to be perpetuated as an institution for free-thinking students, then tuition can never be an option” commented one student on an online anti-tuition petition.  If attendance is based on financial means then the college runs the risk of losing the diversity that is distinctly Cooper Union.

Although Bharucha agrees that the implementation of a tuition fee could possibly and irrevocably change the school, he says that his hands are tied. He arrived at Cooper Union this past July, and inherited a dismal financial situation left to him by the previous administration. According to a message from Bharucha on the Cooper Union website, “As of this year, [Cooper Union] has an annual structural deficit of close to $16.5 million. With expenditures of $59.7 million, this represents a deficit of approximately 28%.”

In his open letter Bharucha outlined his plan for creating a sustainable Cooper Union.  His four point plan mirrors the philosophy of Peter Cooper and relies heavily on intellect and innovation, while carefully avoiding any mention of tuition fees. In fact, the point plan he laid out in the letter was vague at best, citing things like intellectual curiosity and global perspective as solutions to the issue. “There is enormous unrealized potential at Cooper Union,” wrote Bharucha, “Peter Cooper wanted this institution to be ‘equal to the best,’ and his writings offer a wealth of possibilities as we consider our options.”  Despite the vagueness of his alternative solutions, Bharucha stated in a New York Times article that “altering our scholarship policy will be only as a last resort, but in order to create a sustainable model, it has to be one of the options on the table.”

To assess the possibility of a tuition fee and the ramifications of such a charge Bharucha has put together a task force to investigate the situation and come back with solutions in the spring. The task force has been internally selected by the board which leaves many wondering whether the findings will adequately represent the students’ concerns. One concerned Cooper Union parent took to the web to propose a different kind of task force. “To be totally transparent the task force should be populated with concerned and committed students, alumni, faculty and parents that have Peter Cooper blood running through their veins,” he commented on an NPR piece.

At this point it has become a waiting game for both the administration and the students.  The proposed tuition charges would not go into effect until 2014 if they were enforced at all.  No decisions will be made before the spring of 2012, but one thing is for certain, something must be done if Cooper Union plans stick around for another 150 years.

By McCamey Lynn

Holzer recently sat down with Our Town to talk about putting together the exhibit, and how Lincoln’s image was forged in New York.

Historian Harold Holzer thinks Lincoln’s relationship with New York has been underappreciated. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Q: Why has Lincoln’s relationship with New York been underappreciated until now?

A: I think because other states have always been in frenzied competition to claim that they made Abraham Lincoln who he was. If you go to Kentucky, you know that every building, every pathway, is marked as the place where Lincoln first opened his eyes and developed a love for the land. And, of course, Illinois geographically references his early career, the Senate races, his political development. Against that competition, it has been hard to make the case. But it is our contention, and I think we make a very good case for it.

Q: What kind of artifacts and documents are represented in the exhibit?

A: I’m so proud of what has been assembled from collections all over the country. It includes the lectern that Lincoln used at Cooper Union in his famous speech. The first painting made of Abraham Lincoln, which was made in his office in Springfield in June of 1860. He had never sat for an artist before, and it was commissioned by a New York publisher, and it really tells the story of how New York created the Lincoln image. There’s the uniform that was worn by the first Union officer to be killed during the Civil War. He was a New Yorker. He was a student in Lincoln’s law office, and one of his bodyguards. After the Civil War began, this officer marched across the river to haul down a Confederate flag from a hotel in Virginia that he could see from the White House. And the owner of the hotel shot him with a shotgun. And there is the uniform in the collection with a huge hole in the breast. It’s pretty startling.

Q: Was the Lincoln image largely made in New York?

A: Absolutely. This is where the artists and the publishers were. This is where the distribution networks were. Because just like today, New York was the media center of the nation. The biggest newspapers, the biggest picture newspapers, the biggest publishers, portraits, engravings, posters, tokens, all of those things, were manufactured here. That’s not to say that the image-makers here loved Lincoln. They simply saw him as a profit opportunity.

Q: What was Lincoln’s relationship with New Yorkers?

A: He won over the Eastern Republicans but he never won over New York. He only won 30-something percent of the vote here in 1860. He didn’t do much better in 1864. It was a big Democratic town. But all he had to do was to convince influentials like Horace Greeley and the young Republican moderates in New York that he was a viable alternative to William Seward, that he would be acceptable as a candidate. They wanted a Westerner, but they didn’t want a Western buffoon. And they had heard that Lincoln was, in fact, a sort of a buffoonish character.

Q: The New York poet Walt Whitman wrote a famous tribute to Lincoln for the 22nd anniversary of his death. Is this poem, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” included in the exhibition?

A: Yes, it’s written in huge letters to remind people of the grieving during that Easter period after Lincoln’s murder. So we emphasize it very much. And, of course, Whitman is important not just because he crystallized national emotions over Lincoln’s passing, but because he saw Lincoln so often in Washington. He actually saw him in New York when Lincoln came here as president-elect. Whitman was in a trolley or an omnibus, a double-decker, a horse-drawn of course, and he was pulled over near City Hall to wait until Abraham Lincoln arrived at that hotel. Whitman was very concerned that the crowd was too quiet. He found it very threatening, and he thought it portended a very serious and challenging time for Lincoln and for the country. Of course, he was right.

Q: What do you want people to take away from the exhibition?

A: I would like for them to take away a new sense of how crucial New York City is in the evolving reputation of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. We never had a battle here, but we certainly had conflict and debate. We had violence on the streets. We had vicious newspaper attacks, and we had a boisterous community of support and compassion, and efforts to help the soldiers and to support the war financially. This was a very important state in the history of America and the American Civil War. And had Lincoln never come here to give his Cooper Union address, I am convinced that he would never have become president. When people walk into the show, the first thing they will hear is my friend Sam Waterston reading highlights of the address from Cooper Union.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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“Lincoln and New York”
Through March 25
New-York Historical Society,
170 Central Park West
212-873-3400