Mae West: Bowery Belle Returns

MAE WEST invites you to come up to see her at Jefferson Market Library — — later this year, in the same Police Court chamber where she faced off with the judge in 1927 — — and during the current month of August. There are three events and three different locations in Manhattan. 
• • Save the Dates: August 12th and August 17th and 18th • • 
• • What: three events timed to celebrate the 120th birthday of Mae West, born in Brooklyn, NY on August 17, 1893

• • On Monday, 12 August 2013 at the Hudson Sq Library • • 
• • One afternoon only! • •
• • When: Monday, August 12, 2013 from 4:00pm — 5:45pm [Seating from 3:45pm]
• • Where: Hudson Branch Library, 66 Leroy St., New York, NY 10014; NOT accessible to wheelchairs 
• • Who + What: "Diamond Lil" by Mae West as a Reader's Theatre Experience with words and period songs and live music — a unique, unforgettable presentation
• • Cast: Costumed in 1890s Bowery style, actress Darlene Violette and actor Sidney Myer present the 1932 novel "Diamond Lil" written by Mae West in Mae's words — enhanced with period songs and live music by Brian McInnis.  At intervals, historian and playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo leads an "Armchair Tour" through the boisterous Bowery and Chinatown of the 1890s with rare vintage images you have never seen before. 
• • What else: The ever-popular Mae West Raffle. 
• • August 12th Admission and Raffle Tickets: FREE. 
• • RSVP:  Email  MaeWestDiamondLil (at) gmail  (dot) com
• • Closest MTA subway stations: Christopher St. or West Fourth St.; or the M7 bus. 
• • Closest PATH station: Christopher St. 
• • The public is invited (suitable for age 18 and over)
• • The library has a very spacious air-conditioned auditorium so tell your fun-loving friends about this!

• • All of the sex and none of the censorship . . . • • 
• • The novel "Diamond Lil" closely follows the 3-hour production Mae performed onstage from 1928 — 1951, and it is much more exciting than the family-friendly screen version. Playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo massaged Mae's classic opus into an 85-minute adaptation featuring all of the sex and none of the censorship. No intermission.   
• • The Cast: Starring Darlene Violette as Diamond Lil, Queen of the Bowery and also featuring Sidney Myer, Anthony DiCarlo, Joanna Bonaro, Gary Napoli, Juan Sebastian Cortes, Kimmy Foskett, Jim Gallagher and live music by Brian McInnis.
• • Two chances to see the show • •
• • There will be two stagings of "Diamond Lil" on August 17th and August 18th in NYC.
• • On Saturday, 17 August 2013 at 7:30pm on West 38th St. • •
• • One night only! • •
• • Where: John Strasberg Studios, 555 8th Avenue, Suite 2310, New York, NY 10018;  accessible to wheelchairs 
• • What: "Diamond Lil" by Mae West in a new adaptation for the stage by LindaAnn Loschiavo — and costumed in 1890s Bowery style
• • August 17th Mae West Raffle Tickets are free
• • August 17th  Admission: $10 — must be pre-paid!
• • RSVP: Advance sale tickets: you must email MaeWestDiamondLil (at) gmail (dot) com
• • Closest MTA subway stations: 42nd St./ Times Sq. via A, C, E, 1, 2, 3 
• • The public is invited (suitable for age 18 and over)
• • Updates: facebook.com/MaeWestDiamondLil
• • On Sunday, 18 August 2013 at 7:00pm on West 46th St. • • 
• • One night only! • •

• • Where: Don't Tell Mama, 343 West 46th Street, NYC 10036; T. (212) 757-0788
• • What: "Diamond Lil" by Mae West in a new adaptation for the stage by LindaAnn Loschiavo — and costumed in 1890s Bowery style
• • August 18th Mae West Raffle Tickets are free
• • RSVP: August 18th  Admission:  $15.00 cover charge plus a two drink minimum
• • Reservations: www.donttellmamanyc.com
• • Closest MTA subway stations: 42nd St./ Times Sq. via A, C, E, 1, 2, 3 
• • The public is invited (suitable for age 18 and over). Join us as we turn the iconic NYC nightspot Don't Tell Mama into Gus Jordan's "Suicide Hall"!
• • Updates: facebook.com/MaeWestDiamondLil 
• • Plan Ahead • •
• • On November 22nd and November 23rd 2013, there will be Mae West events at Jefferson Market Library, the former courthouse where Mae West's 1927 trial took place.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • in 1932 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.
 

Censorship & Mae West

Publishers Weekly offered a capsule review of a new title devoted to Mae West — — which also includes revealing first-person statements about her imprisonment.
• • Speaking about the author Charlotte Chandler's latest release, the critic wrote this: Chandler (Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford) draws on her interviews with the 86-year-old Mae West, known for her “risqué brand of humor,” in this chatty memoir. West carefully constructed and guarded the image of her personality as a woman who enjoyed sex at a time when “skirts had to cover ankles.” She contended she was “never vulgar. The word for me was suggestive.”
• • West (1893–1980) craved the spotlight from a young age and had been a success in vaudeville, where she began to write her own material. Her screen legend perfected her sexually playful alter ego in such films as She Done Him Wrong, which contained her most quoted line: “Come up and see me sometime” [sic].
• • Chandler also includes Mae West's first-person account of her 10 days in jail — — when she was found guilty of producing an immoral Broadway show, her first full-length play, Sex. West remained a box-office draw into her 70s, appearing in the 1970 film Myra Breckinridge. Whether discussing her love life or advising on playwriting or beauty tips, Mae West was always entertaining. Photos. (Feb.)
• • Title reviewed: She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography Charlotte Chandler. [NY: Simon & Schuster (336p) ISBN 978-1-4165-7909-0]
— — Source: — —
• • Article: PW's Nonfiction Reviews
• • Printed in: Publishers Weekly — — www.publishersweekly.com
• • Printed on: 12 January 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "Courting Mae West" features intriguing scenes dramatizing Mae's arrest and trials.
• • Offered onstage July 19th—22nd in New York City during the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival, "Courting Mae West" has been nominated for several awards. The black-tie awards gala will take place during April 2009 in Manhattan.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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Jefferson Market.

Village Raid — 5 February 1923

The play "Courting Mae West" opens in one of the drag cabarets in the Village that MAE WEST used to visit. In Act I, Scene 1, Mae waves to a cigarette girl in drag known as Rosebud. Mae explains to her date, "I just cast Rosebud over there in 'The Drag'. . . ."
• • In 1923, Arthur C. Budd was 21 years old and residing at 25 West 52nd Street. Known as “Rosebud,” Arthur C. Budd worked as a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater.
• • A New York Times article published on 5 February 1923 — — “Village Raid Nets 4 Women and 9 Men: Detectives Thought They Had Five Females, but Misjudged One Person by Clothing” — — paints a picture of the Greenwich Village circles Rosebud traveled in.
• • The police continue to pay special attention to Greenwich Village, according to The N.Y. Times. Every tearoom and cabaret in the village was visited yesterday morning by Deputy Inspector Joseph A. Howard and Captain Edward J. Dempsey of the Charles Street Station, and a party of ten detectives.
• • Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were at the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus.” They arrested what they thought were five women and eight men. It developed later, however, that one of the “women” was a man, Harry Bernhammer, 21 years old, living at 36 Hackensack Avenue, West Hoboken, N.J. He is familiarly known in the Village as “Ruby,” according to the police. The charge against him is disorderly conduct for giving what the police termed an indecent dance.
• • The other prisoners, all of whom were bailed out at the station house, were Lucy Smith, 22 years old, of 46 Charles Street, and Patricia Rogers, 24 years old, of 16 Charles Street, alleged proprietors of the establishment, charged with violating the Mullan-Gage law; . . . Arthur C. Budd, 21 years old, of 25 West Fifty-second Street; . . . Paul Warring, 21 years old, of 75 West Seventy-second Street; . . . . The real name of the Smith woman, according to the police, is Vera Black, and the real name of the Rogers woman is Nan Paddock.
• • Arthur C. Budd, according to the police, is known as “Rosebud,” and claimed when arrested that he is a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater.
• • Paul Warring, the police say, is pianist at the Black Parrot and was formerly employed at a Broadway cabaret. . . . Reilly is accused of doing “a suggestive dance.”
• • The detectives allege that before the raid early yesterday morning they bought eight drinks of whiskey at $1 a drink.
• • The “circus” did not actually take place, the detectives said, for just before the time for it to begin Patricia Rogers stepped out on the floor and announced: “There are two policemen here and I am afraid to put on the circus."
• • The joyful soiree at the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia [46 Charles Street, New York, NY 10014] ended rather abruptly with a paddy wagon conveying the arrested individuals to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue on 5 February 1923.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Court • • circa 1917 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

April is the coolest month

A West Coast feature "This Week in History" — — which mentions MAE WEST — — is glued together by the Santa Barbara Independent's news staff who, obviously, is a wee bit thick. Though this paper has had eighty-one years to get their facts straight, here is their inaccurate backwards glance on the date 19 April 1927.
• • To wit: Actress/ playwright Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for writing Sex, a Broadway show about a gigolo, deemed “scandalous” by the courts. [Source for the incorrect info: Santa Barbara Independent: 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; T. (805) 965-5205. Their excuse for getting details wrong is rich, however. They admit to doing a quick cut-and-paste from The History Channel — — even if that means passing errors along. So if you want a job as a fact-checker, you know where NOT to go. Salaries must be low at the Santa Barbara Independent, where the corn is as high as a pink elephant's eye. Sigh. A more suitable title would be "This Week in Mystery" — — with trinkets given to the first canny readers who can spot the mistakes. This would be an inexpensive way to get the copy proofread as well, eh?]
• • Since when was Mae West's play "Sex" referred to by the wishy-washy, inaccurate, tea-party word "scandalous"? In Jefferson Market Court and in the courtroom transcript, this was called "an obscenity trial." The actors were fined and charged with giving an offensive and indecent performance.
• • Since when was "Sex" about a gigolo? Wrong plot and wrong-headed altogether.
• • Why? Well, since when would Mae West choose to star in a vehicle unless the narrative centered on the leading lady's role? She wouldn't and she didn't.
• • Too bad the Santa Barbara Independent staff did not bring their ink-stained selves off to the Aurora Theatre Company's revival of "Sex" (starring Delia MacDougall in the role of Margy LaMont) onstage in Berkeley, California in November and December of 2007. Nor did they read the reviews.
• • Synopsis of the 1926 play Mae West wrote in order to give herself a starring role: "Sex" is the tale of Margy LaMont, an ambitious young prostitute in Montreal, who is determined to get out of the skin trade and marry well. Margy takes the advice of a British naval officer [played in 1926 by handsome Barry O'Neill] to ''follow the fleet.'' That takes her to Trinidad, where she meets Jimmy Stanton, a naive rich boy from a blue-blooded Connecticut family. Jimmy proposes to Margy and whisks her home to his parents' well-furnished mansion.
• • Well, there's no gigolo in that synopsis! Anyway this blog posting is set forth for all news media outlets who would like to have correct information.
• • On 5 April 1927 at Jefferson Market Court [on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village], the jury returned with a guilty verdict. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, photographers, and a mob of well-wishers, Mae told them, "You've got to fight in this world!" She added, "You've got to fight to get there — — and fight to stay there."
• • On 19 April 1927, actress MAE WEST was sentenced for her performance in "Sex," the Broadway play she wrote, cast, and starred in. She was given ten days in prison and the jail time seems to have done her good — — from a publicity standpoint. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, friends, fans, and gawkers, Mae predicted, "I expect this will be the making of me!"
• • Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West at her Jefferson Market trial • • 27 March 1927 • •
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Jefferson Market.

A Lock on Mae West

MAE WEST gets her day in court — — when she returns to the Times Square area on Saturday 29 March 2008.
• • COURTING MAE WEST will be featured at The Producer's Club [358 West 44th Street, NYC] on March 29th under the direction of Louis Lopardi, who has selected a number of actors to do a table reading.
• • COURTING MAE WEST opens at 7:00 PM at the Algonquin Theatre (NYC) on 19 July 2008.

• • SYNOPSIS [100 words] • •

• • Based on true events during the Prohibition Era, this 95-minute play follows a vaudeville veteran whose frustrations with the rules of male-dominated Broadway have led her to write her own material and cast her own shows. Is the Gay White Way ready for love stories that feature New York City drag queens instead of card-carrying members of the union? Is the legitimate theatre ripe for racially integrated melodramas set in Harlem? Is the Rialto raring to reward a working-class heroine determined to sin and win?
• • Come up and see Mae West as she challenges bigotry, fights City Hall, and climbs the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

• • How about a date?
• • Plan ahead. Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 7 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 7:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 1:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to COURTING MAE WEST will be about $20 - $25 each.
• • The theatre has 99 seats.
• • SPECIAL: $100 - $150 donation — — donor gets name in the Program — — and 1 free ticket to the play.
• • $151 - $500 donation — — donor gets name in Program and TWO free tickets to the play and invited to all parties.
• • Fresh Fruit Festival: a non-profit group organizes this ambitious annual festival [now in its 7th year]. The colorful two-week arts festival is a money-losing venture sustained by funds from The New York City Council, a culture grant from New York State, a stipend from Senator Tom Duane, and donations from good people.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Police Court • • 2 February 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West's Jail Tale

The past is another country — — and MAE WEST was most comfortable there.
• • However, in her Broadway blockbuster "Diamond Lil" [1928] Mae's aim was not to resurrect the naughty nineties — — but to present that bygone decade's sins in shifty soft focus. The world of Diamond Lil, restrained by Victorian morality despite a certain cheeky daring, was a backwards glance to a time of innocence, picturesque entertainment, well-behaved wildness, corset-clad temptresses, The Police Gazette's seductions, and 5-cent beer.
• • Drama critic Stark Young [1881—1963] analyzed Mae's clever maneuvers in his article for The New Republic:
• • "Diamond Lil" is as daring in the end [as 1926's "Sex"], the same sexy morsels, embraces, interventions of the law with rank suspenses, frank speeches, underworld, and so on. But it is more covered, continuous, and studied than the other production, and the crowd of characters, the costuming and vaudevillistic intervals, pull the whole of this later play into a more familiar style, less crudely, and sheerly singular than "Sex" appeared to be [excerpt from The New Republic — 27 June 1928].
• • Louis Lopardi, who will direct "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" in July at the Algonquin Theatre, also feels enriched by the past. His own production — — The Purgatory Project, Part 2 — — reimagined the lives led by four famous historical figures: Sigmund Freud, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
• • A history buff as well as a thespian, Lopardi especially enjoys plays with a classical echo, texts rooted to a mythic past. For instance, he found "Metamorphoses," a play based on the Greek poem Metamorphoses by Ovid, fascinating and he relished the modernized adaptation written by Mary Zimmerman a few years ago. Ovid works onstage because those depictions of yearning and confused desires are timeless, feels Lopardi.
• • Since he has frequently decanted Ovid's ancient songs, he noticed right away the mythic skin underneath "Courting Mae West" — — the Brooklyn bombshell's story reimagined as the metamorphosis of King Midas. How you get the golden touch is one of the subtle sub-plots here. As Mae's career goals recalibrate her box office appeal, she will earn her hard cold slice of success — — but at a cost.
• • "I like a multi-layered comedy," admits Lopardi. "The best shows make you laugh for an hour and a half — — and then, untethered from your Playbill, you mull it over at home."
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West, Inmate

"COURTING MAE WEST" — — which features the arrest and trial of Mae West at the Jefferson Market Court House — — will have a table reading in the month of March [2008], under the direction of Louis Lopardi, at The Producers Club.
• • A Company of Players will read the script aloud in preparation for a short Workshop Production in Manhattan.
• • Seeking the next Mae West!
• • Meanwhile, the search continues for the right actress to portray Mae West [1893—1980] — — in this serious-minded comedy that offers a star-making role. During the Prohibition Era, the Brooklyn bombshell was in her thirties. The ideal audition candidate is 25—30 with serious stage training and industrial strength charisma.
• • Rehearsals begin in May 2008 in Manhattan.
________________________
• • Resumes and photo to:
• • A Company of Players
• • Attention: Louis Lopardi, Artistic Director
• • 545 Eighth Avenue [Box # 401]
• • New York, NY 10018 - 4307
• • Send Email via the web site — — www.CompanyofPlayers.com
_________________________
• • The Producers Club is located at 358 West 44th Street [between 8th-9th Avenue], New York, NY 10036.
• • Meanwhile, a fundraising effort is in progress. Matching funds have been promised for every dollar raised.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Under the spider web, evil lurks

• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — the comic book • •
• • • • A new play often starts with a STAGED READING.
• • • • At a STAGED READING, the actors read the script to the audience. During NYC staged readings, the actors are usually dressed simply, in all black, and there are no props nor scenery.
• • • • Since my play is set during the Prohibition Era [the action runs from December 1926 - December 1932], and I wanted to give the audience the "feel" of the costumes and the thrill of the 1920s atmosphere, I created a colorful comic book that was used as a "playbill" for each Staged Reading.
• • • • The "Courting Mae West" comic book has a different narrative arc than the stage play along with its own "cartoon-like" version of the dialogue — — along with supernatural creatures such as a talking blackbird and a mild-mannered, bespectacled reporter who tears off his business suit to become the super-hero FIRST AMENDMENT.
• • • • The comic book rewards theatre-goers by setting the stage when there IS no stage, just black-clad actors, 7 scripts, and 7 chairs.
• • • • The MAE WEST Blog — — MaeWest.blogspot.com — — will post more comic book panels this week.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue, where she spent the night locked up with streetwalkers and drug addicts.
• • In this panel, Censorship, Bigotry, and Hidden Agenda plot against Mae West under the wrought iron spider web at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue [New York, NY].
• • From the "Courting Mae West" comic book version.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae Returns to Jeff Market Jail

• • The event's board of directors met and approved my director's pitch — — and my play "COURTING MAE WEST" has cleared the first hurdle to be onstage during their annual early July festival in a theatre in Manhattan.
• • The festival offers over 30 live acts. Mine is one of the two plays they will produce. My 95-minute serious-minded comedy will be shown FOUR times onstage [in a theatre with fewer than 99 seats].
• • Details and ticket prices will be posted when available.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue, where she spent the night locked up with streetwalkers and drug addicts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Market: External Affair

In 1927 Mae West was prosecuted here at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue [between West Ninth Street and Greenwich Avenue] for obscenity — — particularly because of the homosexual content of her shows. But more recently the nineteenth century landmark was about to be raped by the pencil-pushers who rule The New York Public Library. Fortunately, Greenwich Village residents rallied in the name of justice and won.
• • The Villager recently published this news about the beloved Jefferson Market Courthouse turned library.
• • In his front page feature "Long-overdue library facade repairs finally fully funded," staffwriter Albert Amateau explained the cause for jubilation. He wrote: "Villagers who have long been demanding the renovation of the Jefferson Market Library’s exterior celebrated the announcement on Tuesday [21 August 2007] that new city funding has assured the project.
• • Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined State Senator Tom Duane, New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc and Village leaders in the community room of the landmarked library to announce that the new funding brings the total allocation to more than $7 million for renovating the facade, windows, roof, and tower of the landmarked building erected in 1877 as a courthouse.
• • The beginning of construction is planned for June 2009 and is expected to be completed in two years. A two-month design phase includes review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission because the building is a designated New York City landmark. A final design and development of construction documents will follow and be submitted to contractors for bidding.
• • Several Greenwich Village Block Associations ... renewed the call for preserving the deteriorating exterior of the library. Since 2003, the Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street sides of the library have been obscured by a sidewalk shed erected to protect people from fragments of limestone and brick falling from the facade.
• • “We all know that the Jefferson Market Library is one of the great library buildings in the city,” Quinn said. “In 1880, it was cited as one of the 10 most beautiful buildings in the country. But in the past few years you had to squint to see it because of the scaffold.”
• • Quinn recalled that when Duane was city councilmember for the Village in 1992 — — and she was then on his staff — — he was able to get more than $700,000 allocated for restoring the building. Added to that, Quinn this year allocated $2.7 million in addition to $1.39 million she earmarked in previous years. Also this year, Mayor Bloomberg provided matching funds of $2.2 million for the library restoration.
• • It was uncertain last year whether previous funds appropriated for a redesign of the library’s interior could be reallocated for facade and structural work. But in February 2007, LI/ Salzman Architects completed a report funded by Quinn and Duane that concluded that because of significant deterioration of the sandstone and brickwork, plus open mortar joints and cracked stone, water had penetrated the facade causing the stonework to shift and settle and allowing the building’s iron structure to rust.
• • In addition, it was found that the Sixth Avenue portico has detached slightly from the facade and leans slightly toward the street.
• • All but $184,000 — — spent for interior design work [a design that would have reconfigured the library's reference room into a music lounge for teens] — — of more than $2 million previously funded will be transferred to the exterior project. The work includes shoring up deficiencies that contributed to the deterioration and returning the building to its original splendor.
• • Community Board 2 called the library "the most iconic building in the Village.”
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux in 1875 and completed two years later, the courthouse was where Harry K. Thaw was found guilty of murdering the architect Stanford White and where Mae West was prosecuted for the sexual content of her shows.
• • The courthouse was erected on the site of the Jefferson Market, where a 100-foot-tall wooden fire tower kept watch over the Village. The courthouse tower is also 100 feet tall and holds the original fire bell from its wooden precursor.
• • By 1945 the building was no longer used as a courthouse and other agencies had occupied it. A 1958 decision to demolish the building was fought by Village advocates . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Villager — — www.TheVillager.com
• • Byline: Albert Amateau
• • Published on: 23 August 2007
• • Unfortunately, this landmark has not preserved the building's cultural history via a plaque nor a permanent exhibition inside, where there's lots of space for it — — and now the funding. MAE WEST and a heap of women's history-makers tramped through these corridors. Maybe. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • Barry O'Neill • • March 1927 • •
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New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Inez Milholland [1886-1916]

This never-to-be-forgotten leader comes to mind for many reasons. If you never met INEZ MILHOLLAND [1886 — 1916], war resister, suffragette, civil rights organizer, and human dynamo, then make her acquaintance here.
• • Though it seems like yesterday that she was arguing the merits of her case in Jefferson Market Court, it took place almost 100 years ago on 18 January 1910.
• • This is what the newspapers said about the trial in January 1910:
• • • MISS MILHOLLAND WILL APPEAL IF CONVICTED • • •
The cases of Miss Inez MILHOLLAND, daughter of John E. MILHOLLAND, and Lieut. Henry W. TOURNEY, of the Coast Artillery Corps — — who were arrested last night as the result of a demonstration by striking shirtwaist workers which Miss MILHOLLAND was leading — — were called in Jefferson Market Court, Manhattan, to-day, and after much testimony had been taken were continued until to-morrow afternoon.
• • Miss MILHOLLAND, accompanied by the lieutenant and 500 strikers and their sympathizers, were marching in Waverly Place in front of a factory when Police Captain HENRY demanded that they disperse. They refused, declaring that Magistrate BARLOW had declared so long as they kept moving they could not be disturbed. HENRY disputed this. He told the court to-day that the strikers and their followers blocked the streets and obstructed traffic. His uniform was badly torn in the melee which followed the refusal of Miss MILHOLLAND to order her followers to disperse and the [ . . . ] were badly ruffled because young women, in ignorance of the divinity that hedges the person of a New York police captain, demanded his number.
• • It is rumored that as the result of his coming into conflict with the civil authorities and being locked up — — both he and Miss MILHOLLAND were placed in a cell until John MILHOLLAND arrived to bail them out — — Lieut. TOURNEY may have to face a court-martial. In all, fifteen strikers and sympathizers were arrested last night.
• • Should the police prove their charge of disorderly conduct and obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty against Miss MILHOLLAND the case will be appealed to the highest courts in order to get a decision on this question as well as to have determined how far a person may go on "peacefully picketing" a plant where there is a strike. Miss MILHOLLAND is a graduate of Vassar and an ardent advocate of women's suffrage. . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Inez Milholland was born in Brooklyn, New York on 6 August 1886. She attended Vassar and was suspended after organizing a women's suffrage meeting in a cemetery.
• • She matured into a record-setting collegiate athlete, an attorney, a forceful and charismatic public speaker. Friends remembered Inez as a tall, beautiful woman in flowing robes, riding a white horse at the head of a great movement [March 1913]. She fought for labor, was a writer and magazine editor, served as a correspondent in the First World War, was jailed as a suffragette in England, and died at 30 while on a speaking tour as a suffragist in this country.
• • Her last public words were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
• • In 1913 Milholland led the women's suffrage demonstration in Washington on a white horse. Wearing white robes, the photograph of Milholland during the parade became one of the most memorable images of the struggle for women's rights in America.
• • Milholland lived in Greenwich Village [New York] and was associated with a group of socialists involved in the production of The Masses journal. [This group included Max Eastman, John Reed, Crystal Eastman, Inez Milholland, Louis Untermeyer, Randolf Bourne, Dorothy Day, Mabel Dodge, Floyd Dell, and Louise Bryant.]
• • Like most of the people involved with The Masses, Milholland was opposed to America's involvement in the First World War. In December 1915, Milholland and other pacifists travelled on Henry Ford's Peace Ship to Europe.
• • On her return to the USA she became one of the leaders of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage. The movement's most popular orator, Milholland was in demand as a speaker at public meetings from coast to coast.
• • Inez Milholland, who suffered from pernicious anemia, was warned by her doctor of the dangers of vigorous campaigning. However, she refused to heed his advice and she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles on 22 October 1916.
• • She was rushed to a hospital. Despite repeated blood transfusions — — blood donated by her sister Vida — — 30-year-old Inez died on 25 November 1916.
• • Jefferson Market Court commemorates this peace activist and suffrage martyr, and rejoices in her bright spirit as this troubled city prepares to go to the polls in November 2008, the sixth year of the wasteful war in the Middle East — — the US-led take-over in Iraq that has resulted in thousands killed.
• • Every New York City historian remembers our hometown firebrand Inez Milholland. In Greenwich Village, many daughters have been named in your honor.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Inez Milholland • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

"Commit the crime on 8th Street"

In 1917, a talented 37-year-old author was finishing her manuscript Greenwich Village. Recently widowed, Mrs. Robert Peyton Carter had relocated from West 112th Street (the northern precinct where her actor-husband had preferred to live) far downtown to 241 West 13th Street — — and she had fallen in love with her bohemian neighborhood. With several screenplays and even a Broadway play to her credit, the writer had no trouble attracting an illustrator to work on her project. Shortly after celebrating her 40th birthday, however, she sickened and died. OLD JEFF can picture this beauty in 1917, 90 years ago. Enjoy an excerpt from her book — — and her forever-young photograph. Anna Alice, gifted one, you live on in every New Yorker's history-loving heart!
• • • • Greenwich Village • • • •
By: Anna Alice Chapin [1880 — 1920]
Illustrator: Alan Gilbert Cram
[NY: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, 1925; COPYRIGHT, 1917]
• • Illustration: JEFFERSON MARKET. The old clock that has told the hours of justice for Greenwich Village during many years.
— — excerpt — —
• • It is an odd coincidence that the present Jefferson Market Police Court stands now at Tenth Street — — ­ though a good bit further inland than the ancient State’s Prison. The old Jefferson Market clock has looked down upon a deal of crime and trouble, but a fair share of goodness and comfort too. It is hopeful to think that the present regime of Justice is a kindlier and a cleaner one than that which prevailed when the treadmill and the dark cell were Virtue’s methods of persuading Vice. Someone, I know not who, wrote this apropos of prisons in Greenwich:
• • "In these days fair Greenwich Village
• • Slept by Hudson’s rural shores,
• • Then the stage from Greenwich Prison
• • Drove to Wall Street thrice a day —­ — —
• • Now the sombre ‘Black Maria’
• • Oftener drives the other way."
• • • • OLD JEFF: But I like to think that the old clock, if it could speak, would have some cheering tales to tell. I like to believe that ugly things are slipping farther and farther from Our Village, that honest romance and clean gaiety are rather the rule there than the exception, and that, perhaps, the day will sometime dawn when there will be no more need of the shame of prisons in Greenwich Village. ...
• • . . . the Village is a small place, and a true Village in its neighborliness and its readiness to pass a message along.
• • Really, there is nothing quainter about it than this intimate and casual quality, such as is known in genuine, small country towns. Fancy a part of New York City —­ —­ Gotham, the cold, the selfish, the unneighborly, the indifferent —­ —­ in which everyone knows everyone else and takes a personal interest in them too; where distances are slight and pleasant, where young men in loose shirts with rolled-up sleeves, or girls hat-less and in working smocks stroll across Sixth Avenue from one square to another with as little self-consciousness as though they were meandering down Main Street to a game of tennis or the village store! Sixth Avenue, indeed, has come to mean nothing more to them than a rustic bridge or a barbed-wire fence —­ —­ ­something to be gotten over speedily and forgotten. They even, by some alchemy of viewpoint, seem to give it a rural air from Jefferson Market down to Fourth Street —­ —­ ­these cool-looking, hat-less young people who make their leisurely way down Washington Place or along Fourth Street. People pass them —­ —­ people in hats, coats and carrying bundles; but the Villagers do not notice them. They do not even look at them pityingly; they do not look at them at all. Your true Green-Village denizen does not like to look at unattractive objects if he can possibly avoid it.
• • Of course, they do make use of Sixth Avenue occasionally, on their rare trips uptown. But it is in the same spirit that a country dweller would take the railway in order to get into the city on necessary business. As a matter of fact there is no corner of New York more conveniently situated for transportation than this particular section of Greenwich. I came across a picturesque real estate advertisement the other day:
• • • • “If you ever decide to kill your barber and fly the country, commit the crime at the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. There is probably no other place in the world that offers as many avenues of flight.”
• • But nothing short of dire necessity ever takes a Villager uptown. He, or she, may go downtown but not up. Uptown nearly always means something distasteful and boring to the Village; they see to it that they have as few occasions for going there as possible. . . .
—­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­
• • Native New Yorker Anna Alice Hoppin, whose penname was Anna Alice Chapin [1880 —­ 26 February 1920], was an author who had received a private education and studied music under Harry Rowe Shelley. She wrote and published her first book A Story of Rhinegold [1897] when she was 17 years old. Other books were: Wonder Tales from Wagner (1898); Wotan, Siegfried, and Brunhilde (1898); Masters of Music (1901); Discords (1905); The Heart of Music (1906); Königskinder (1911); The Nowadays Fairy Book (1911); The Topsy Turvy Fairy (1913); The Eagle's Mate (1914); and Greenwich Village (1917), illustrated by Alan Gilbert Cram and published posthumously in 1925. Anna Alice Chapin also wrote several screenplays, short stories for magazines, and with Robert Peyton Carter, a British actor (16 years her senior) whom she married in 1906, a melodrama The Deserters, produced on Broadway in 1910. They had no children and Robert Peyton Carter predeceased her. After a short illness, 39-year-old Anna died at home: 241 West 13th Street. Her sister Mrs. Austen G. Fox, her literary executor, arranged for several manuscripts to be published and made into films during the 1920s.
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Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • Alan Gilbert Cram • 1917 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.