Seen & Heard: Activity at the Former Don Hills

••• From a reader: “I was with my three kids on the M22 bus to Battery Park today and took this picture. I’m disgusted and it’s been bothering me all day. What is this world coming to?! Our President, whether intentional or not, has given a voice to this evil. And it doesn’t belong in our city. Check out his hat, pin and white pride bracelets.” My guess is that it was intended as a provocation, and obviously he has every right to wear offensive clothing, but still, it is amazing he felt comfortable wearing “white pride” bracelets in Manhattan.

••• “Alexander and Bonin is pleased to announce the opening of two solo exhibitions on Friday, September 8. Individual and collaborative works by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres will be shown on the ground floor. In the lower level galleries, The Tribe, an exhibition of photographs by Peter Hujar from the 1960s to the 1980s, will be on view.” Below: “Monxo BX” by John Ahearn; photo by Joerg Lohse.


••• “Inquiring minds want to know,” tweeted Alessandra. “What’s going on with Don Hills? They were cleaning it out today.” Beats me. The rumor has long been that Related and Ponte Equities were working on a way to tear down the building (511 Greenwich) along with everything else on that block of Spring (between Renwick and Greenwich), but one of the buildings (310 Spring) is landmarked. In the meantime, perhaps someone is trying once again to open something there. (The interior was taken today by @jasonjanego.)

••• On September 12, Pen Parentis’s literary salon will be themed “Writing about War”: “Veteran Xavier Trevino and war correspondent Whitney Terrell join bestselling novelist Jessica Shattuck at Andaz Wall Street in Lower Manhattan for a salon that will blow you away.” More info and RSVP.

••• As a way to “honor the day,” Barre Tribeca is offering free classes on September 11.

 

19 Comments

  1. Considering the time, place, and general sociopolitical context, the man wearing the political garb is the real-life embodiment of a troll. I think the same rule applies that has always applied to life in this city: if you’re approached with a confrontational attitude, simply don’t engage. I wouldn’t say this man feels “comfortable” wearing that dreck, I think it invigorates him to imagine the confrontations it will engender. One mustn’t prejudge, but I don’t think I’m going all that far out on a limb to suggest he probably has some personality issues, and to not stress too much about the state of the world at large. We’re lucky to live in a diverse, generally tolerant town.

  2. What’s wrong with “white pride”? It doesn’t say “white superiority”. People promote all sorts of other pride, so why not this one?

    Else let’s do away with all sorts of displays of group-membership pride.

    • Only speaking for myself here, of course, but when a minority group declares pride, it comes off to me as a way for them to try to gain a bit more equal footing with the majority group. Just a small way to try to level the field.

      When a majority group declares pride in themselves, it will often times come off more like they’re asserting their dominance and indirectly pushing the minority group/s down.

      • Or how about the one member of the majority group described about just being considered an idiot outlier rather than a proxy of the majority group as a whole. Identity politics has slowly (now loudly) become such an insidious & divisive part of our country. It’s so easy to get sucked in to the emotional reaction & before you know it, we wind up here.

    • My facility was quite intentional.
      Unless we ask the wearer what he meant by wearing that, we do not know what he meant by it, and were are just presuming. Perhaps he was tired of “dead white European males” being vilified. Perhaps he was being ironic. Someone please ask him.

  3. “One mustn’t prejudge…” But you do anyway. “We’re lucky to live in a diverse, generally tolerant town.” Just don’t feel strongly about any diverse opinion not shared by the majority, because that won’t be tolerated.

  4. Tolerance does not require one to excuse, ignore or permit to go unchallenged the intolerant views of others. To do so in an open, liberal society based on mutual respect is, in fact, to acquiesce in or tacitly admit the legitimacy of such abhorrent views. And despite Marcus’ facile moral equivalency argument, we all know what “white pride” means in this context and such views have no place in our community.

  5. The dictionary defines tolerance as “a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions, beliefs, and practices that differ from one’s own.” I don’t see much tolerance in most of these comments.

  6. Well, the dictionary definition of a word is always exactly spot-on regardless of context, so you’ve got me there.

    Racists and bigots have always tried to exploit a simplistic view of liberalism’s requirement of tolerance of other viewpoints to cynically disseminate hateful ideology that demands freedom of expression for itself so as to advocate the denial of freedom to others. Its not intolerant to call out this failed ideology for what it is and advocate vociferously for its rejection.

  7. The same dictionary defines a bigot as “a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.” Now I am confused as to who the bigot is.

    • If a guy was wearing an Obama hat and a black pride wrist band that surely wouldn’t be posted here. Why is that?

      • Because “black pride” has historically telegraphed a desire to be treated equally in society, while “white pride” has been used to imply that everyone else should get back down where they belong.

  8. If your dictionary defines someone who is against racism and hatred as a “bigot” then I’ll proudly wear the label.

  9. It was inevitable that the widespread embrace of black identity politics in our society would lead to the emergence of white identity politics. Hence President Trump. Getting tired of “checking your privilege” is not the same as wanting that “everyone else should get back down where they belong.”

    • Rational thought & common sense, sadly, have no place in identity politics (on every side). It is a scorched earth mentality that only further drives a wedge into our society because no middle ground is allowed.

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