George Capsis: Farewell to a Friend Who Helped Keep the Village Alive

By Arthur Schwartz

George in the documentary The Lost Village. Photo courtesy R. Paradiso.

George Capsis passed away on July 24 at age 97. He was a Village institution, whose career and life were interwoven into our community. And he deserves to be honored as a visionary.

Even though the creation of Village View was an act of defiance, which I knew would cause him pain, I never stopped loving George Capsis. He was as cantankerous as they come, he bowed to few, and before his decline was taken advantage of by others who steered him away from his community-first focus, we usually agreed. And he knew I was his fiercest defender.

George’s biggest contribution to the Village, and to our city, was the 20 years he published WestView News, which began as a publication of the Charles Street Block Association. It was one of those institutions, like the original Village Voice, and the old Villager, that published high quality, hyper-local news, reflecting politics, art, dining, theatre and local life. By 2013 WestView was distributing to doors, lobbies, stores and cultural institutions. And in this age of hyper-quick, often unreliable social media, WestView, at least until the pandemic, provided reliable, locally written stories reflecting issues Villagers cared about.

In 1927 George Capsis was born to a Greek father and German mother in uptown Manhattan. His childhood was marked by the Great Depression. He once told Our Town, an east side paper, this story – a story which reflected so much of his character. One day in kindergarten, George built a house with wooden blocks. His teacher complimented his structure and placed a slip of paper with “Do not disturb” written on it, explaining to George that it would be there the next morning for him to continue to work on. “Every day I labored over my little houses, and I decided that I was more skilled than anyone in the kindergarten class,” he recalls. “I was on top.” George carried this blunt self-assurance – and an unapologetic need for control – into his adult life.

George moved to the West Village in the late 1960s, buying the Charles Street home in which writer Sinclair Lewis had once lived. In the midst of a career in business – he worked as an executive for IBM and later as a United States Council for International Business consultant, he settled his family in their Charles Street home. Soon after, he founded the Charles Street Block Association with the goal of populating his barren slice of the Village with trees. (The West Village is now the Manhattan neighborhood with the most street trees: 5,102 per square mile.)

His two children went to P.S. 3, and at times George would talk about being active in building P.S. 2 as a non-traditional educational institution.

When he was 76, George turned what had been a block association newsletter into WestView News, the “Voice of the West Village.”

I worked with George on WestView starting shortly after its creation. I set up meetings for him with Bernie Sanders when he was running for president, Bill de Blasio when he was running for mayor, Cynthia Nixon when she ran for governor, and Jumaane Williams when he ran for public advocate. In 2017, I had a heart attack on the day my submission was due. I grabbed my laptop and called George from the ambulance. That afternoon he came to visit me in Beth Israel Hospital, along with the late NY Times and then WestView photographer Maggie Berkvist. He told all the nurses that I was talking about suing to stop the hospital from closing, and that earned me royal treatment from nurses who worked with me on litigation up until 2025. By the way, he held the press while I wrote a front page piece about what it was like to think I was about to die, as I was headed to a hospital which was starting to shut down.

In 2012, George slapped a cop who had blocked him from riding his bike and then pressed George against a truck. The cop then slugged George and broke his eye socket. Wouldn’t you know that the Sixth Precinct commander had written an article in WestView that month? And when I arrived to get George out, a pile of WestView papers was in the waiting area. I got the charges dropped and the NYPD paid him $60,000 for the assault.

In 2013 George’s wife died. She needed a hospice in the end, something which once existed at St. Vincent’s Hospital on 11th Street and 7th Avenue. But St. Vincent’s closed in 2010, and George had to put his wife in Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. Every day he shlepped by subway to the northeast Bronx. Not long after she died, competing press events were happening across the street from St. Vincent’s. On one corner candidate Bill de Blasio and Susan Sarandon were calling for a full care hospital to reopen. On the other corner candidate Christine Quinn was promoting a proposal to open a glorified urgent care center in part of the old St. Vincent’s. Somehow George wound up at the Quinn event. When he heard State Senator Tom Duane say something about not getting a hospital back, George got enraged, ran up to Duane, and slapped him. For good measure he whacked Brad Hoylman-Sigal (then chair of Community Board 2). Assemblywoman Deborah Glick summoned NYPD to have George arrested. But I talked them out of it and escorted George over to the de Blasio event.

George made national news in 2014 for allowing a writer, James Lincoln Collier, to use the N-word in the headline for a story about former president Barack Obama, taunting racists in the budding Tea Party movement. George defended the headline by saying that, since The New York Times avoided using the racial epithet, he thought WestView should.

Concerts

Concert at St. Veronica’s February 2018. Photo © Joel Gordon for WestView News.

In 2018 George had an idea. Holding classical music concerts at St Veronica’s Church on Christopher Street, the Catholic church that had been closed down due to a lack of parishioners. The church, inside, was large, had great acoustics and a large stage. George found an orchestra leader and through the year, eight sold out concerts took place. The principal benefactor was developer Steve Witkoff, who was a regular WestView advertiser. (Yes, the same Steve Witkoff who Trump sends all over the world as a negotiator). At one point Witkoff proposed buying the church and turning it into a cultural center. My wife Kelly and I attended a memorable dinner at Witkoff’s apartment, with Sara Jessica Parker (who was a big fan of George’s) to discuss putting in a bid. Witkoff wanted a business plan and George insisted he would write one up. His old need for control took hold. In fact, shortly afterwards he fired the orchestra leader and had a fight with the church monsignor, killing the project.

Hospital Advocacy
St. Vincent’s Hospital served the Village from 1849 until it closed for financial reasons in April 2010, leaving the neighborhood without a hospital. The institution witnessed the aftermath of events like the Titanic and 9/11. In 1984, it opened the first AIDS ward in the country. After 2013, the St. Vincent’s closure became Capsis’ – and WestView’s – biggest preoccupation.

George repeatedly came up with ideas about how and where a hospital could be built. He met many times with folks from Northwell. It can be said that the new Northwell Greenwich Village Hospital, with a high quality cath lab about to open, owes its existence to George.

In 2022 George told Our Town that after decades of “battling” for the West Village, he didn’t feel adequately recognized by the community. “They take it for granted,” he said, his thorny bravado replaced for a moment by a look of dejection. “They don’t realize it’s tough. It’s hard, it really is.” In 2020, he wrote in a similarly wistful tone, “I think of how I will be remembered — and it will only be for slapping a cop and shouting at a politician who lost St. Vincent’s Hospital.”

He Will Not Be Forgotten
George Capsis will not be forgotten. His house on Charles Street should have a plaque next to the Sinclair Lewis plaque. His block should be named after him in his honor. And maybe we can convince Northwell to name its new cath lab after him.

George, if you can read this from where you are, please think of The Village View as a continuation of your legacy. The core group here all appreciated what we accomplished together with you.

Greenwich Village will miss you.