Community Board 6 Chair Mark Thompson said that while the board hasn’t taken an official position on the rezoning proposal, they are generally supportive of it. The biggest problem, he said, is that the city wants to plow ahead with the plan before allowing adequate time to answer the community’s questions and figure out how a potential business boom in Midtown would affect other city systems. Thompson said the board is concerned that the city isn’t giving enough consideration to ancillary factors like sidewalk crowding, an influx of subway and bus passengers and the impact on the electric grid and sewer systems that would come along with a rapid upward expansion of Midtown office buildings.

The board will be sending a letter to City Council Member Dan Garodnick requesting a meeting and his assistance in getting the DCP to steady the pace as they continue, and is working in conjunction with Community Board 5, which shares their concerns.

Renewed Calls for Pedicab Restrictions
Upper East Side Council Member Dan Garodnick, chair of the consumer affairs committee, has consistently called for stricter regulations of the pedicab industry, citing the high number of complaints that his committee has received from customers who feel they were ripped off. The New York Post reported earlier this week that one visiting family from Texas was charged over $400 for a 10-block ride in Midtown recently—and that the charge was completely legal. Garodnick introduced a package of bills last year that passed the Council and now require pedicab drivers to clearly post their rates someone in their cab, but the city doesn’t place any restrictions on how much pedicabs can charge, and some are getting around the rule by posting their rates in tiny lettering and not directing their passengers’ attention to it. Now Garodnick, along with many in the pedicab industry who don’t want their profession given a bad name, are calling for additional laws that will require drivers to state the charges clearly at the beginning of a ride, instead of springing a huge bill on riders when they reach their destination.

Summer Streets on the East Side
If you’ve always dreamed of zip-lining through the streets of Manhattan, your dreams may soon be fulfilled. The Department of Transportation will continue the fifth annual Summer Streets program for the next two Saturdays, Aug. 11 and 18, on the East Side, closing down Park Avenue from Foley Square downtown all the way up to East 72nd Street from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cars will vanish and the avenue will be free to roam on foot, bike, scooter, rollerblades or hoverboard, with activities like the zip-line, a rock climbing wall and a picnic food stand area from Whole Foods at various rest stops along the way. There will also be interactive art projects and a fire hydrant sprinkler, perfect for parched kids. Complete info at nyc.gov/summerstreets.

A Comic Consolidation
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) announced this week that it will be consolidating its collections with that of the Society of Illustrators, located at 128 E. 63rd St. The two art institutions will merge their assets and become a single institution dedicated to celebrating illustration, comics and animation. The Society will continue to host the MoCCA Fest, an annual independent comics festival, and will dedicate one of their galleries to MoCCA’s permanent collection and draw from the collection for curated shows.
“The Society of Illustrators has a long, proud history of promoting the art and appreciation of all genres of illustration,” said Executive Director Anelle Miller in a statement. “We are honored to be able to spearhead the expansion and growth of the incredible foundation that MoCCA has created over the past 10 years.”

East Siders’ Ideas to Boost Second Ave.
While the businesses on Second Avenue near the subway construction have suffered in the past years, with foot traffic down by 30 percent in some spots, local residents say that they try their best to support those businesses and have ideas of how they can do even better, according to a survey conducted by Council Member Jessica Lappin’s office. Out of the 990 people who responded to the survey, 78 percent said that they shop in stores or dine in restaurants along Second Avenue. An overwhelmingly number—86 percent—also said that they’d be inclined to spend on the Avenue more frequently if merchants offered coupons or deals.

“Businesses have been hit hard by Second Avenue construction, so it’s wonderful that East Siders are supporting them,” Lappin said in a statement. “This survey also makes it clear that shoppers are looking for bargains. In this economy, who isn’t? So, going forward, this is something we can work on with Second Avenue merchants.”

The survey also found the best thing the MTA can do to help people who live around the Second Avenue construction is to provide better information for the community about what’s going on. Survey respondents chose that option 40 percent of the time, more than keeping the work spaces cleaner and being less noisy.

C Tops the List as the Worst Line in the City
Have a favorite subway line? So does the New York Public Interest Research Group, whose Straphangers Campaign released its annual State of the Subway report last week.

The Q line came out on top, with major points for a low breakdown rate, regular service, seat availability and cleanliness. Apparently, this line also has the best announcements in the system. It ranked relatively low, though, on the actual amount of scheduled service.
Probably to few New Yorkers’ surprise, the C line came in last. For the fourth year in a row, its notorious grimy cars, frequent breakdowns and infrequent appearances kept it at the bottom. It ranked second to last on in-car announcements.

Steve Lafler on his ‘Bughouse’ graphic novels and Oaxacabilly music

Update: Date and venue of event have been changed.

As he embarks on a tour across the United States, cartoonist Steve Lafler will make a stop in New York City to showcase Menage a Bughouse, a 408-page collection of his three-book series of graphic novels. Bughouse, the first comic in the trilogy, was ranked 22nd on critic Rob Clough’s list of the top 100 graphic novels of the 2000s.

Lafler will host a panel discussion about the graphic novel and present a brief musical performance on Friday, July 13 at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn at 7 p.m. He recently talked with us to discuss insect noir and his upcoming book tour.

What prompted you to write and draw the Bughouse trilogy?
When I started Bughouse, I’d been thinking a lot about doing something with all insects. I had seen a movie, Kronberg’s adaptation of Naked Lunch, and it had an odd, off-hand, stark humor and a great soundtrack that inspired me a lot. I also read the autobiography of Miles Davis—he spun such great narratives about his life, about the moment when swing jazz gave way to bebop. That just set me off. I sat down and just started drawing bugs in these sharp little suits.

Where did you draw inspiration for Jimmy Watts and his jazz-playing comrades?
Jimmy is the lead character, so I needed something dynamic and iconic. He was a red ant in terms of a bug, but because it’s jazz, I wanted the characters to seem like they were African American but also different racial mixes. There’s also the sensitive thing of not making really unfortunate-looking stereotypes. I wanted to illuminate the characters by writing dialogue that would shine a light on their personalities, rather than have a top-down story with stereotyped personalities. Jimmy Watts is brilliant, he’s enthusiastic, but he’s also selfish, and I wanted to show that through dialogue.

What do you mean when you say Bughouse is “insect noir”?
Well, film noir, of course, is just like a dark movie. It’s atmospheric, it might be funny, but bad things might happen too. It’s about style and mood. Bughouse is my attempt at noir style, but with an insect case, so there you have it: insect noir.

When did you first realize you wanted to be an artist?
I probably had that figured out from the time that I was really, really young, like 3 or 4 years old. My mom would sit me and my siblings down with crayons in the afternoon and we’d just sit there and draw and draw.

What comics had the greatest influence on your work?
I was a kid in the late ’60s, when Marvel Comics were in their first glory and the artist Jack Kirby created so much of that stuff that inspired me. In the late ’60s/early ’70s, Underground Comics came out with Robert Crumb. I literally learned the facts of life from reading Robert Crumb comics at a very tender age. He’s gone on to be a great satirist.

What is “Oaxacabilly” and how does your music tie into your comics?
Five years ago, I moved to southern Mexico with my family—my wife and my kids. I fell in with a group of ex-patriots who would get together and play country and blues—it’s this big, motley group of people. We started a country punk band down there called Radio Insecto. I fell into the music scene and, as someone who has spent a lot of time at the table, alone, drawing, it’s fun to stand up with a bunch of people and make shit-kicking music.
Bughouse is about jazz, it’s about bebop, as well as about addiction. It’s about how addiction and creativity are partners, it tries to investigate and ask the question “Why are so many musicians and artists addicts?”

By Paulette Safdieh

It takes a lot to impress a New Yorker. Out-of-towners and tourists, newly transplanted co-workers from the West Coast (and, at times, even our Uptown counterparts) get excited about seeing the latest Broadway show or MoMA exhibit, but we shrug our shoulders like we’ve seen it all before. We have our own idea of what’s cool.

Downtown thrives on the charm of unconventional culture—which is why a haunted house museum finds its home on Bowery and not on Museum Mile. Unbeknownst to a lot of us, our exclusive hub south of 14th Street has its own fair share of museums—depending on what your definition of museum is. Some travel from location to location setting up pickle exhibits, some cater to house ghosts and some showcase comic books like the Metropolitan Museum of Art does Rembrandt works. So what if you intentionally missed the Alexander McQueen exhibit this year? There’s a different kind of viable culture thriving in our own quarters that you don’t need to wait two hours in a line to experience.

Skyscraper Museum

Across the street from the Jewish History Museum and down the block from the Museum of the American Indian, this tribute to our city’s favorite form of architecture is yet another reason to hop off the train at Bowling Green. A small, one-floor space, The Skyscraper Museum showcases an array of historical documents (including newspaper clippings and World Trade Center floor plans) and an impressive wall exhibit of the world’s tallest buildings.

Black-and-white photographs of New York City construction sites line the ramp leading from the gift shop entrance to the one-floor dedication to our city’s—and the world’s — most famous high-rise buildings. Tall glass windows and overhead mirrors give the illusion of walking through an indoor skyscraper park, allowing visitors to navigate between the pillared cases that hold model buildings, including Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest at 2,717 feet, and the Kingkey Finance Tower in Shenzhen, China.
Interactive touchscreens and wall-mounted television screens teach about skyscraper form and history—did you know there are jumbo skyscrapers (surface area up to 2 million square feet) and super jumbos (up to 4 million square feet)? The museum’s collection also includes a replica New York Times front-page story from 1947 announcing the proposal for the World Trade Center site and the letters exchanged between famed architect Minoru Yamasaki and the paper’s architecture critic.

The Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Pl. (at Little W. St.), 212-968-1961, www.skyscraper.org; Wed.–Sun., 12-6 p.m., $5.

NY Food Museum

Because everyone loves food (although not everyone loves museums), the NY Food Museum opened in 1998 with mass appeal, giving New Yorkers a new way to celebrate tasty grub and learn a thing or two while they’re at it. Since originating the city’s annual International Pickle Day nine years ago, the NY Food Museum has continued to give us reason to believe that New York’s tastebuds enjoy food beyond the realm of red velvet cupcakes and Halal food from a cart.

The NY Food Museum is not a sight to be seen one afternoon and never revisited, mainly because of its traveling status. Sans a permanent home, the museum hosts discussion panels, film showings, traditional exhibits (including their first How New Yorkers Ate 100 Years Ago) and the upcoming Lower East Side Pickle Day this spring. Beware of the crowds; pickle day draws tens of thousands of visitors every year.

NY Food Museum, 59 Orchard St. (betw. Grand & Hester Sts.), 212-266-9010, www.nyfoodmuseum.org; call for exhibition dates, times and prices.

Italian American Museum

Appropriately nestled on the corner of Mulberry and Grand streets among the Italian bakeries and aroma of freshly cooked pasta, the Italian American Museum pays homage to the first Italian immigrants to come to New York City.

The museum’s director, Dr. Joseph Scelsa, an extremely knowledgeable—you guessed it—Italian-American sociologist, bought the building in 2008 from the Italian-American Stabile family, with the hope of archiving community artifacts from the last century and a half. The Stabile family emigrated to New York in the 1860s and first opened the space as a bank.

The museum’s interior is built around the actual glass booths where the tellers sat, and includes an array of artifacts from the 19th century through today. The collection ranges from Italian-American currency printed in New Jersey during World War II (when the U.S. occupied Italy) to the first vendor plates from the annual San Gennaro festival. Old passports and luggage tags are showcased beside community photographs, marriage certificates and even a restored wedding dress. The very back of the museum holds an organ that dates back to 1898, a 6-foot-tall bank vault and hand-cranked calculators used in the space years ago.

Welcoming about 100,000 yearly visitors, the museum preserves a culture unique to our city’s Little Italy—“the most famous Little Italy in the world,” according to Scelsa.

Italian American Museum, 155 Mulberry St. (at Grand St.), 212-965-9000, www.italianamericanmuseum.org; weekends, 12–6 p.m., $5.

Merchant’s House Museum

Celebrating its 75th year in business, the Merchant’s House Museum welcomes between 50,000 and 100,000 curious every each year to explore the supposedly haunted, 139-year-old row house on East Fourth Street. The museum first opened in 1936, three years after the death of Gertrude Tredwell, the last person to live at 29 E. 4th St. The Tredwell family lived in the house for over 100 years, and a visit to the museum suggests they—or their ghosts—still do.

Once you walk up the wsix steps from the sidewalk and step through the white marble door, be prepared to hear strange sounds of nonexistent footsteps and catch yourself looking over your shoulder in fear. Through the display of 3,000 untouched possessions from the Tredwell family and their four Irish servants, including old clothes and a wooden piano, the museum evokes a creepy sense of abandonment. Throughout the two floors, stationed amongst the roped-off furniture, fully dressed mannequins of the Tredwells appear more authentic than any sculpture at Madame Tussaud’s.

If you can get past the spookiness, the Merchant’s House Museum also serves as an educational opportunity to learn about New York City architecture and lifestyle history. A double parlor room on the ground floor showcases mahogany chairs, hanging gasoliers and paintings, all dating back to the early 1900s. The intricate mouldings lining the ceilings and brick exterior helped earn the building landmark recognition as the only historic house museum south of 14th Street.

Merchant’s House Museum, 29 E. 4th St. (betw. Bowery & Lafayette St.), 212-777-1089, www.merchantshouse.org; Mon.–Thurs., noon–5 p.m., $10.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art

Some of us have a greater appreciation for the brilliance behind Charles Schulz comics than famous Renaissance paintings. The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art lets you know you’re not alone, presenting a collection of the best graphic arts, classic comics and cartoons from around the world. Located amid the tourist frenzy of Broadway in Soho, the museum has its own discreet, quiet space on the fourth floor of an office building.

Though small, the museum offers a collection of newspaper funnies, Japanese anime, comic strips and gag cartoons to bring back feelings of childhood nostalgia and leave you asking why you ever stopped reading Archie comics. It examines how issues of the First Amendment and censorship have tangled with graphics over time and how the images on display reflect the period in which they were created. Should a visit awaken your creative flair, offered classes include the Craft of Comics Writing and Writing for Animation. A gallery-style museum, rotating exhibits are set up every few weeks, so always call ahead to confirm whether the museum is open.

Leave time after your visit to head over to Animazing Gallery on Greene Street, a 26-year-old gallery featuring artwork from greats like Tim Burton and Maurice Sendak, to keep in the spirit of the day.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, 594 Broadway Ste. 401 (betw. Houston & Prince Sts.), 212-254-3511, www.moccany.org; Tues.–Sun., 12-5, $6. 

Museum of the American Gangster

Scarface fans, rejoice! This museum, hidden behind a 10-foot black gate on St. Mark’s Place, is home to some great gangster paraphernalia. Established just over a year ago in a onetime speakeasy, the museum showcases the scandalous and violent years of the Prohibition era with artifacts ranging from 100-year-old stills (the vesssels used to make moonshine) to the infamous bank robber John Dillinger’s death masks.

A visit to the museum, which more closely resembles a small schoolroom than the MoMA, starts with a showing of a 15-minute video about American history in the early 20th century. Simply furnished with a bench and four wooden chairs, the museum teaches about the history of the building itself and the gangsters who operated out of it, Walter Scheib and Frank Hoffman.

After purchasing the building in 1964, the current owner discovered a copper safe filled with $100 gold notes (equivalent to millions of dollars today), cigarettes and beer bottles left by Scheib and Hoffman. Over the years, the owner’s decision to gather these and other relics and expand the collection into a full-fledged museum came to fruition last spring.

The safe, now covered in rust, sits at the museum’s entrance filled with replica bills and the bottles found inside years ago. Wanted posters, newspaper clippings and Pat Hamou paintings line the walls of the museum, which has a special Valentine’s Day Massacre section and hand-drawn diagrams of American history. Although visited by local school groups and gangster enthusiasts, the museum has some days when nobody walks through the door. Make sure to visit the theater and bar on the ground level to cap off your visit and celebrate the legality of alcohol.

The Museum of the American Gangster, 80 St. Mark’s Pl. (betw. Ave. A & 1st Ave.), 212-228-5736, www.museumoftheamericangangster.org; 1-6 p.m., $15.

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