Tompkins Square Park
(Photo: James Jowers)
“As the hour grew late and working people around Tompkins Square Park began turning out the lights on Memorial Day 1967, police asked several hundred music lovers to turn down the volume of a guitar-and-bongo concert in the park,” reported the New York Daily News. “The crowd’s reply … was a barrage of bottles, bricks and fists that left seven officers injured.
“And thus began the Summer of Love.”
When you tune into the first presidential debate next week, expect a few pot shots.
Longtime yippie leader Dana Beal intends to march with a 51-foot replica of a marijuana joint at Hofstra University in Long Island. He’s hoping it’ll get the attention of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has thus far failed to respond to a letter that pot activists hand-delivered to her Brooklyn campaign office in June. In it, they called on the Democratic nominee to remove cannabis from a federal list of dangerous drugs should she win the White House in November.
Dana Beal (left) and Joey Goodwin after last month’s “midgets and models” fundraiser.
From the looks of yet another “Looking for a Girlfriend” parody flyer, the boxing gym that took over the Yippie building on Bleecker Street is seeking “real fighters.” Maybe for another underground party?
Last month, a day after we spoke to owner Joey Goodwin, Overthrow set up a ring in the middle of a Broome Street loft and pitted “midgets and models” against each other in order to raise funds for Dana Beal’s ongoing efforts to bring an ibogaine clinic to Afghanistan.
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9 Bleecker. (Photo: Daniel Maurer)
A location of Crunch just opened at 2 Cooper Square, and now this: a boxing gym is set to replace the Yippie! Museum at 9 Bleecker Street, a building that long housed outspoken lefties like pot activist Dana Beal.
A lawyer involved in ongoing litigation over the building confirmed that it’s a done deal.
“The court appointed receiver performed his duty and signed a long-term lease with a tenant that will be running a boxing gym out of the premises,” said attorney Steven L. Einig, who represents the building’s lender Centech LLC, which last year sued the building’s owners, Yippie Holdings and the National AIDS Brigade. “I understand that the tenant is a local resident and now the rent is going to paid, the building, which was quite run down, will be cleaned up and no longer vacant.”
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(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Aron Kay (Photo: Mary Reinholz)
About 50 close friends of Aron Kay gathered in the imperiled Yippie! Museum in Noho yesterday night to celebrate what could be the Yippie Pie Man’s last birthday there.
A Corcoran “For Rent” sign now hangs outside 9 Bleecker. As previously reported, lawyers for David F. Segal, the building’s court appointed receiver, have filed a contempt motion against the building’s owners — who are already fighting foreclosure — over non-payment of rent, seeking $250 a day in fines, eviction of tenants, possible jail time and the auctioning off of possessions belonging to imprisoned yippie Leader Dana Beale on the second floor.
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(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Wenig represents David F. Segal, the receiver, who claims that “not one cent” of the $20,000-per-month rent he demanded via a notice in September has been paid since May, when the court authorized him to manage the building. As a result, Wenig asked a judge last Monday to fine the building’s owners $250 per day for each alleged civil violation, evict its occupants and permit the auctioning of any possessions that aren’t removed by October 15. The judge will set a court date on October 18.
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David Peel at 9 Bleecker. (Photo: Scott Lynch)
The Yippie! Museum avoided a quick and bitter end yesterday and won more time in its dramatic fight against foreclosure.
The yippies’ legal battle to maintain their three-story building at 9 Bleecker Street, with its unpaid $1.4 million mortgage, has dragged on since 2009 when Centech LLC, their lender, filed a complaint to obtain a judgement for foreclosure and sale on the premises. Yesterday at New York State Supreme Court, Noah Potter, a lawyer for imprisoned yippie leader Dana Beal, won an extension to gather more information. “I have a month and a half to get documents to plead Dana’s case,” Potter told B+B.
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