Peace on Earth, Good Will to All

By Roger Paradiso

I want to cover a few subjects that have appeared in The Village View this year. And I wanted to bring them peace during this holiday season. I am praying for them.

Some Great News for the New Year
Save Our Supermarket — We Win!

Morton Williams Supermarket has been on the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia since 2001. A David and Goliath battle had been going on between The Grocers and NYU and NYC. On December 22, I was told a deal was struck between all parties. What a pleasant surprise just before Christmas and New Year’s Day. And days before we would go to press.

Here’s the background. NYU had made a deal for Morton Williams to stay at their present location or to move to their new mega block of buildings on Mercer Street. That was until NYC came along and said we want to build a school right where the Morton Williams market is located. The Morton Williams people wanted NYU to live by the original deal and to stay where they were ideally. There was a discussion about moving them to Mercer street, but that didn’t make sense in terms of cost and the fact that the supermarket would be out of commission for an extended period. 

Now, NYU has a new president, Linda Mills, the first woman president of NYU. I wanted to tell her to come down and listen to the owners of the grocery. I wanted her to meet with our mayor and work this out with the grocers and the beautiful LaGuardia Gardens. I wanted her to know that we must preserve both and show solidarity with the community. And the mayor needed some good news going into 2024. 

But I didn’t have to tell them. They did it, with a lot of pressure by the community and a long list of people from both sides who worked hard to resolve this. They made the right deal—something Villagers thought NYU was incapable of. 

Maybe the new president is changing the culture. I put in a call to her office on December 23 and left a message. They did a good job. After many years of blunders, NYU finally did something for the good of the community. This is a good way to start a new year—and a new NYU relationship with the Village. The mayor also showed leadership and some good sense. Destroying a community supermarket and a community garden was never a good idea.

Some would say this would be a miracle that only happens in fairy tales—and in movies like A Christmas Carol (Scrooge). Well, holiday miracles can happen right here in the Village. 

I spoke with Morton Sloan, owner of the market. He thanked the community for their support as well as Mayor Adams, city officials, NYU, and President Mills. Then he thanked Anthony Paradiso, Bob Cooley and The Village View for sticking with him. 

It was like the end of It’s a Wonderful Life. Morton has a 13-year lease and the LaGuardia Gardens are staying. Now that’s a happy ending. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

“We can finally breathe a sigh of relief and continue making the garden beautiful” – Ellen Reznick

 

The SAG-AFTRA Strike

The other story we have been covering is the Entertainment World battling the Evil Empire. The Directors Guild, aka DGA, The Writers Guild, and SAG-AFTRA have all fought the streaming companies like ESPN-ABC, Disney, Paramount, Netflix, NBCUniversal, FOX and WarnerDiscovery, none of whom remotely resembles the companies that existed in the glory days of Hollywood.

The breakout star of this show was SAG President Fran Drescher who stood up to this men’s club of virile streamers. Fran used humor to outwit the witless streamers and their conglomerate negotiators aka the AMPTP aka the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The AMPTP got called out by Fran for not negotiating at all and trying to wait the actors out as their mortgage payments and a gazillion other payments ran up. That didn’t go over so well. Fran got more money for residuals. 

So, the streamers/negotiators were in the midst of bringing in a nasty killer force of galactic press agents to smear the air with lies and scare tactics. Well, Fran called them out before they could even begin. 

Sensing defeat, the Evil Empire Darth Vaders flew into this negotiating stalemate and tried to out-Jabberwock Fran. No-can-do gentlemen. Uh oh. Ooops. After several months of missing golfing events and industry cocktail parties, the streaming guys began to do what they really didn’t want to do—negotiate with Fran. While she took off their helmets and gave them a noogie on the collective beanies, an agreement was being ratified by the Actors. A formidable fleet of non-movie stars and impoverished out of work actors ratified the agreement with 78 percent of the vote. 

Now, Fran, this is me and you talking. I know they gave you some cash. Put it in a fund that can survive the economy’s ups and downs. It’s like the weather in Boston. One day snow. The other day its spring. 

But Fran, the AI thing. You know that every single bit of technology beyond Atari’s Pong has come back to hurt us. Keep your eye on the AI ball. Remember HAL in Kubrick’s masterpiece that no one understood except stoned college kids? HAL was the AI driving the spaceship to outer space and figuring out how to kill the astronauts. Keir Dullea figured it out and turned the lights out on HAL. Of course, he was stuck in shite’s creek without a paddle but in general the film ended OK if you liked living somewhere in the universe where everything was white and Victorian. 

Somehow with Fran on board I think we will be safe for now. Peace on Earth—at least for a couple of weeks.