Hospitable!

Village residents totally consumed by the issue of overdevelopment are even starting to turn on critical infrastructure:

Although St. Vincent’s has had meetings with a community working group for the past few months, no specific development plan has yet emerged. The current hospital includes a maze of eight connected buildings between 11th and 12th Sts. on the east side of Seventh Ave. S., including the Coleman tower on Seventh Ave. S. at 11th St., completed in 1970.

On the west side of Seventh Ave. between 12th and 13th Sts. is the three-story O’Toole building, the former National Maritime Union hall, now used as St. Vincent’s community health facility. A triangular property between 12th St. and Greenwich Ave. on the west side of Seventh Ave. is where the hospital stores oxygen tanks.

St. Vincent’s, with Rudin as a development partner, intends to demolish the O’Toole Building and erect a state-of-the-art hospital that could rise 20 stories or higher. On the east side of Seventh Ave. S., Rudin would have the option of demolishing all or part of what is there and constructing market-rate apartments, which would pay for the new hospital. Rudin would also have the option of adapting existing buildings on the east side of the avenue for residential use.

The project would be staged to allow St. Vincent’s to provide full hospital service throughout the construction period.

In the wake of the Berger Commission report on hospitals in New York State, Cabrini Medical Center on E. 19th St. and St. Vincent’s Midtown — formerly St. Clare’s — on W. 51st St. between Ninth and 10th Aves. will close, leaving St. Vincent’s in the Village as the only West Side hospital between Lower Manhattan and W. 59th St., Kingham said.

But critics, like Philip Schaffer, of 144 W. 11th St., insisted that the project is driven by real estate concerns, rather that medical ones.

“This is not a philanthropic operation,” Schaffer said. Questioning the need for a major hospital in the low-rise residential Village neighborhood, he suggested that St. Vincent’s move to the Hudson Yards in the West 30s, “where the stadium was supposed to be.”

. . .

Christopher Cormac, a W. Eighth St. resident whose family has lived in the Village since 1938, said, “We’re talking about building a 21st-century medical center for most of Manhattan in a residential neighborhood — in the Greenwich Village Historic District.” Despite the proximity of the Seventh Ave. S. subway, “This is not the most accessible place in the city,” he said.

Kingham replied that St. Vincent’s owns the property where it is now and added, “We’ve been here for 150 years.” The remark only provoked groans from the audience.

The flexible 21st-century hospital that St. Vincent’s wants to build is especially appropriate in New York City in an age of terrorism, Dr. George Neuman, St. Vincent’s medical director of perioperative services, told the forum.

“Our emergency room needs to be able to deal with four times the number of patients it can treat ordinarily,” he said. Rooms have to be built that take air in, rather than let it out, when doors are open, in order to prevent respiratory syndromes like SARS to spread, he added.

But some audience members took offense at references to terrorism and bio disasters.

“Fear mongering is not the best way to present the project,” said Chris Bianchi, a second-generation Village resident who lives on W. 13th St.

Sometimes Self-Obsession Cuts Both Ways

Better that they’re talking about it than simply ignoring it like one more tired old David Blaine stunt:

When Clinton Hill artist Travis Clarke decided to spend seven nights sunset to sunrise in the eight-by-eight front window of Soapbox Gallery at 636 Dean St., he came prepared with typed description of the live art installation, titled “Wishing dead trees back to life.”

The piece is about “attempting to do something that seems impossible,” said the artist’s statement posted at the gallery, which sits between Carlton and Vanderbilt — directly across the street from Bruce Ratner’s controversial arena, residential, office and retail project.

Little did Clarke know just how the statement, the dead tree limb in the window and his somnolent, halogen-lit body next to it would resonate with neighborhood residents, many of whom have learned a whole lot about trying do something that indeed has proven to be (so far) impossible.

“Could the tree also be representing the possibility of a future dead neighborhood?” asked one area resident, Lumi Rolley, on her anti–Atlantic Yards blog, No Land Grab.

The owner of the gallery, Jimmy Greenfield, also couldn’t resist the metaphor.

“It’s an homage to nature right across a piece of property that will eventually be covered in tarmac against the wishes of a community that tried very hard to stop [it].”

. . .

“I just don’t believe he can actually sleep,” [Dean Street resident Jim Everitt] said. “A lot of trucks and buses bang around down here.”

Clarke agreed that getting rest was no easy task, even with two mats as bedding.

“The other night someone yelled obscenities at me,” he told The Brooklyn Paper during the daylight hours when he is not imprisoned in the gallery. “He was with his family and children. A couple of people have commented on how the piece is an example of gentrification. People talk about money a lot.”

. . .

Clarke said a connection could be drawn between his art and Ratner’s controversial, state-supported development, albeit not one he made before his nights on Dean Street.

“People in this neighborhood went up against a very powerful system,” he said, adding that the connection wasn’t “the most curious thing” he heard from passing sidewalk critics.

Straight Out Of Venice Or Florence . . . Or The Bellagio

Whatever its color, some of the neighbors seem a little put off by it:

What color really is Julian Schnabel’s new building at 360 W. 11th St.?

What it’s definitely not is hot pink, according to a Schnabel associate who is working closely with the renowned artist and filmmaker on the new 17-story tower between Washington and West Sts.

Brian Kelly said Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, was way off base in calling the tower “hot pink” in The Villager last week. And Kelly stressed that Schnabel certainly did not pick the shade to get back at neighbors for opposing the tower, as Berman suggested, but because he liked it.

. . .

Kelly invited The Villager up to the site on Monday afternoon to take a closer look at the building. A TV crew from Channel 2 News had just finished doing a story on the building’s color. The TV reporter had gotten Schnabel on the line from Europe, where he is currently traveling. According to a source, Schnabel called the building’s color “Pompeii red” — and was “quite upset” during the brief interview.

. . .

At first, Kelly dubbed the building’s color “dusty rose” — then later said Schnabel is describing it as “Venetian red.”

“It’s straight out of Cuba, or Venice, or Florence,” Kelly said of the building’s design and color. “Venice mostly — it’s Venetian. There’s buildings like this in Naples, in Palermo, Sicily. If you go to Cuba, you see buildings like this. It’s more of a dusty rose color.”

The color will get deeper in the rain, and pollution will darken it over time, he added.

In addition, because the stucco didn’t cure properly, some of the white came through, Kelly noted. But he said Schnabel loved this fortuitous effect, which gave the paint a faded look — and ordered it not to be touched up.

. . .

Kelly challenged a reporter to poll passersby on their feelings on the building.

“We hate it!” spat a tall, silver-haired man as he purposefully strode down 11th St. carrying a gym bag. “We spent $5,000 to keep the son of a bitch from doing it.”

Asked what color he thought it was, he retorted, “Blood red! — It’s the final color!”

. . .

Meanwhile, for his part, Berman, G.V.S.H.P.’s director, remains unapologetic for calling the building hot pink.

“I heard they were calling it ‘Pompeii red,'” he said. “It’s splitting hairs. The color is just the icing on the cake, unfortunately. I would challenge Schnabel to show me a 17-story enormous box of a building like that anywhere in Florence or Naples. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s pink, green or blue — it’s still totally inappropriate.”

Pleasure Principal

I know I’ve started to think about leaving tonight although nothing seems right:

A rental car drought in Manhattan could leave many New Yorkers stranded in the city or forced to rely on mass transit to travel to the Hamptons and the New Jersey shore this summer.

With car-less New Yorkers relying on rentals for weekend escapes in record numbers, demand for rental cars in Manhattan is expected to reach an all-time high this summer, industry insiders said.

That demand, coupled with a static supply of vehicles, is driving up the cost of renting a car. Prices are up more than 10% versus last summer and are expected to rise higher.

. . .

Industry experts say the cost of buying a new car for a rental company is about 40% higher than it was three years ago. The increased cost is creating a de facto cap on the number of available cars, and trickling down into the bills customers pay when they plunk down their credit cards at parking garages.

Some sedans in Manhattan cost $255 a day to rent on weekends. That includes a hefty 13% tax levied on rental cars in New York. For drivers under the age of 25, who are charged extra to rent, rates can jump to almost $320 a day for some vehicles. Dropping a car off in a different city can add another $50 to the price tag.

Astroland As Bargaining Chip

The good old “Balloon Water Race Game” doesn’t seem like that much of a bargaining chip, but there it is:

A day after the unexpected news that Coney Island’s Astroland would survive until next summer, negotiations for an extension appear to have bogged down over rezoning concessions the site’s developer is seeking from the city, a Brooklyn councilman said yesterday.

The developer, Thor Equities, was reportedly planning to give the storied amusement park a reprieve until 2008, but Astroland’s owner said she has not been offered the lease extension that Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr. (D-Brooklyn) has been working to broker.

Astroland’s 45-year run was expected to end after this summer, and the go-karts, batting cages, bumper boats and miniature golf are already closed.

“Of course, if Thor Equities wishes to provide a lease under reasonable terms, Astroland would be very interested in negotiating an agreement,” Astroland owner Carol Albert said in a statement.

At Recchia’s urging, Thor seemed willing to give Astroland one more season at its current location, the councilman said. However, by yesterday afternoon, the prospects of a deal suffered a blow when Thor president Joseph Sitt told Astroland officials that “they would extend the lease only if they get the rezoning that they want,” according to Recchia.

Location Scout: Coney Island Amusement Core.