A gathering of slapstick aficionados turned violent Saturday, requiring dozens of city police bearing shields and batons to quell the riot. It was the first conflict in the 13-year history of the Three Stooges Enthusiasts and Impersonators Annual Convention, held every year at the Westport Heights Sheraton & Conference Center.

The yearly event is part reunion, part workshop for the small but intense group of people from across the country who “want to live the Stooge way the right way,” as the convention’s mission statement says. “This is the worst thing to happen since the 2005 protests,” said convention founder Howard Dewey, referring to a handful disruptive picketers that year, angry over the exclusion of devotees to Stooge replacements Shemp and Curly Joe.

The fracas broke out during a class on how to successfully block an attempted double eye poke. Instructor Bob Silver demonstrated the proper technique — it entails holding your hand at a perfect 90 degree angle from your face — and then paired off participants to practice the move. A fight started between attendee Lewis Oster, a member of the Moe group, and Curly group member Morris Heinz, who claimed later that Oster poked too hard and actually gouged both his eyes.

According to convention tradition, an attendee is supposed to utter the safety phrase “Woo-woo-woo-woo,” if he is uncomfortable with how his practice partner is attempting a bit of slapstick. Instead, multiple witnesses say, Heinz shouted, “Oh, a f****** wise guy, eh?” and punched Oster in the face, sending him tumbling into a group of fellow Moes.

The 36 seminar participants in conference room 9-W quickly ganged up into their assigned Stooge character groups, with several of the Moes making threatening backhanded slapping gestures, and the Curlys responding by smacking and pulling down on their faces, dancing on their tiptoes and uttering high-pitched, guttural squeals. The Larrys, meanwhile, tried to make peace between the two groups, which just resulted in many of the Moes yanking their hair almost out of their roots.

Chaos broke out when one of the Moes threw a cream pie filled with quarter rolls at Curly impersonator Howard Klein, shattering his nose and left orbital. As a group of Larrys carried away the injured Klein, the Curlys, many of them making doglike “woof” cries, attacked the Moes. But witnesses say the Moes quickly routed the Curlys, employing many of the techniques they’d learned at the convention: mesmerizing the Curlys by fluttering their hands in front of their faces before smacking them; tricking the Curlys into slapping the tops of their outstretched fists, sending their arms into a windmill spin that ended with them bashing the tops of the Curlys’ heads; and ducking at precisely the right moment, inevitably resulting in one Curly punching another.

Hotel employees called police, who arrived in riot gear to break up the confrontation. But the extra armament proved largely unnecessary: Once police entered and formed a cordon around the room, the Stooges momentarily froze and then tried to escape, in different directions, sending them crashing into one another. The officers quickly cuffed the writhing mass of arms and legs and loaded them into police vans for processing.

Police spokesman Sherman Larris said most of the Stooges would be charged with assault and destruction of property. The only other possible charge — threatening a law-enforcement officer — would be against Moe group member Richard Weinman, who allegedly said, “Why I oughta …” to the policeman who was handcuffing him.

“We’ll have to talk to Mr. Weinman down at the station,” Smith said. “The key question is, he oughta what?”
- Craig Gaines

July 4 ,1911- Mayor Jonah Woolsey (second from left) addresses a large crowd gathered at Main Avenue and Baylor (now Third) Street, during three hours of speeches in celebration of the holiday. Later that evening, stray sparks from fireworks at Memorial Park would light several piles of unused bunting afire next to the Geo. Hardlin and Sons lumberyard, thus setting off what became known as the Great Downtown Fire of 1911.

The fire raged for twelve hours, spanning thirty blocks and burning over six hundred buildings. Amazingly, only two people lost their lives.

The following year, the fireworks were moved to the City’s new fairgrounds, two miles outside of town.
- RJ White

(Original)

You may have noticed the City-Suburban Transit Authority’s fleet of buses are all starting to grow humps on their roofs. It is nothing to be alarmed about, since it is all part of the CSTA’s conversion to compressed natural gas-powered buses, something that sounds like an especially good idea with increased CSTA ridership (due to escalating gas prices) and today’s sixth city-wide Ozone Action Day in a row.

After dozens of buses being in service for several months, the CSTA has finally issued a press release (reprinted in its entirety below) regarding the new cleaner buses:

“The City-Suburban Transit Authority has introduced new buses using cleaner burning compressed natural gas. The buses are manufactured under license by the Gleason Coach Company, from a Canadian design, at a factory across the state in St. Alban’s County. They cost approximately $500,000 each and are cleaner burning than the diesel buses they are gradually replacing.”

According to Monty Neville, local transit enthusiast and host of Bus World (monthly, on public access cable channel 114), the North Side and the Berman Gardens depots have totally converted to natural gas while the other twelve depots are slated to gradually convert over the next two years.

Neville told The City Desk, “These buses are the best thing [CSTA chief procurement officer] Hank Lamberty has ever brought into the bus fleet. They are much better than the buses with the water fountains he tried back in ‘97. That was a mess, although it wasn’t as bad as the on-board vending machine fiasco of 1953. I can’t get into detail on that because of the lawsuit.”
- Hoyt Schermerhorn

As a public service, The City Desk periodically offers up selected items culled from local police reports.

9:17 pm
200 block of Euclid Avenue: A 7-year-old girl reports to 911 that “monsters are knocking at my door.” Dispatch sends a cruiser to reassure the girl, only to find people dressed as Frankenstein and the Werewolf knocking on her door. Police interviews reveal a wrong address on a “Halloween-In-Summer party” Evite is to blame. The partiers leave and police calm the girl down.

9:26 pm
200 block of Euclid Avenue: The girl calls back, reporting more monsters. Police are sent back out to the house, and direct Freddie Kruger, 24, and Jason Voorhies, 25, to the right address, and again calm the girl.

9:45 pm
300 block of Pacific Lane: Baby with gun.

9:37 pm
200 block of Euclid Avenue: The girl calls again. A City Desk review of the 911 tape reveals the girl is hyperventilating while describing “a man with fangs and a black cape” at her front door. Police return, direct Dracula to the right address, post an officer in front of the house for the rest of the night, and take the girl into protective custody. According to the police report, she says her parents are at a Jimmy Buffet “Parrotheads” party.

10:42 pm
500 block of Karl Avenue: Police arrest Neil Levan, 32, for filing a false report after he tells a passing officer that the girl he’s with has “stolen his heart.”

2:18 am
25000 Industrial Access Drive: Massive warehouse explosion.

1:38 pm
800 block of Jarvis Street: Two men and a woman report their cars were apparently damaged by a hit and run driver in the parking lot of St. Norbert’s Church. Police are looking for a red 1974 Dodge Dart with the license plate LXI 483 in connection with the incident.

2:41 pm
Intersection of Hudson and Bergen Streets: Fire department reports theft of hydrant after routine hydrant check.

3:06 pm
2513 West Merton Drive, Oakhurst Section: Apparent murder/suicide. Five victims.

4:18 pm
2300 block of Lorimer Street: Several complainants of tires being slashed on parked vehicles.

4:26 pm
North River at Granville Street: Aviation and Harbor units respond to reports of a dog in the river. The dog was rescued by Aviation Unit officer Alex Drake and is recovering at the ASPCA.

5 pm
300 block of Peachtree Lane: City police and a representative from dispatch arrive at the home of Muriel Goshen, 87, bearing cake and balloons to celebrate her 100th 911 call since her husband, Jack, passed on three years ago. Some of Goshen’s notable calls have included a noise complaint about a birthday party for her 8-year-old neighbor, a report of “another Kraut blitz” during the annual air show, and an allegation that city employees performing routine maintenance work to gas lines were attempting to dig a tunnel into her basement to “steal all of Jack’s tools.” Goshen, confused and frightened by the group of similarly dressed people outside her home, makes her 101st emergency call, screaming at the operator, “The United Nations is trying to break down my door!”

6:13 pm
500 block of Audubon Avenue: A man reports the theft of a stop sign. The Department of Transportation was contacted and replaced the sign.

7:43 pm
3000 block of Western Avenue: Officers respond to silent alarm at Bruno Hardware. A large cat was found stuck in an air conditioning vent on the roof and rescued by ASPCA and Emergency Services Unit officers.
- Craig Gaines, Hoyt Schermerhorn, RJ White

A vague new academic discipline creates a bonafide new-media star.

When Jack Arkush was a child, he would sometimes accompany his father downtown, where William Arkush was a mid-level advertising executive for the Kenner Agency. “He worked on campaigns for sporting goods, for eyewear,” Arkush says. “General-interest stuff that didn’t interest me.”

What interested the younger Arkush, as it turned out, were the elevators in his father’s office building. “The first time he took me to work, we walked into the lobby, and there were two elevators waiting,” Arkush says. “We stepped into one. As the doors closed, I saw people filing into the one across the way. We started to rise first, but when we got to the twentieth floor, where he worked, the people who took that other elevator were already there.”

Most people would accept that outcome with equanimity, if not indifference. Jack Arkush was different. He felt it as an injustice. “It didn’t bother me that we didn’t get to the twentieth floor first,” he said. “It bothered me that I didn’t understand exactly why we didn’t get there first.”

Today, Arkush—a portly, bearded man of fifty-eight—doesn’t have that problem. He works on the second floor of the Haber Building on the central campus of Watson University, and he takes the stairs. The building is named for Albert Haber, an engineer whose achievements in solid mechanics included patenting several viscoelastic materials for use in aerospace. “Haber would have hated what I do,” says Arkush. “He probably would have asked for my office to be removed from his building.” Arkush laughs. For the last fifteen years, he has been the head of the university’s tiny but influential Conceptual Engineering Department. “Other scientists can point to their products and their solutions,” he said. “I have only problems and questions.”

Conceptual Engineering is not recognized by many university-level science departments: or rather, while it is recognized by nearly everyone in science, it is rarely recognized as a formal discipline. Conceptual Engineering is, in the broadest of terms, the process by which difficult and sometimes paradoxical circumstances are communicated between scientists in different fields. “You could also call it ’shooting the shit’,” says Arkush, laughing. But after he stops laughing, he stands and walks to the other corner of his office, to a desk occupied by a slim middle-aged woman named Diane Paranzino. “For more than forty years, I’ve been preoccupied with that elevator problem in my father’s office building,” he says. “From time to time, I have brought it up with friends, and nearly everyone is interested, on some level. Nearly everyone thinks they can explain a part of it to me. And nearly everyone wants to.”

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For a city that has hosted kings, presidents and many other world leaders, a visit from a cabinet secretary in an outgoing administration might seem like small potatoes. But Idaho’s Dirk Kempthorne, the current United States Secretary of the Interior, was here recently for a very special reason: to officially establish Carpe’s Marina as our city’s second entry in the National Register of Historic Places.

Nuncio Carpenello first went into business on the east bank of Keets Harbor in July, 1858, only days after arriving from Salerno, Italy. Local residents were amused when the burly immigrant constructed scaffolding inside his small and rickety wooden shack so elaborate that it forced him to sleep with his feet outside the walls. For many weeks afterward they heard the constant pounding of hammers and creaking of boards. In mid-September the shack suddenly disappeared, and in its place was a 26-foot long, eight-foot wide boat moored just offshore. Carpenello had built the craft on his own, from the hull up.

Soon “Nunce’s Ark” was a familiar sight, tooling around the harbor and navigating the tricky eddies of the Ostahanoc River. Large as it was, the “ark” drafted barely four inches deep, and could travel safely far upstream, even in the river’s shallow north branch. For the many businesses that lined the river, Carpenello’s craft provided both delivery and waste removal services that were cheaper and more reliable than the horse carts of the day, particularly given the uneven condition of the city’s roads in the late 1850s.

By early 1862, Carpenello’s wife and fifteen children had joined him in the United States, and in addition to his regular rounds upriver – extending from before dawn to well after dusk – he and his brood erected the building whose foundation still stands. Carpe’s Marina has been built and rebuilt at least a dozen times, surviving fires, floods and the remnant winds of half a dozen hurricanes. But the substructure supporting the building was as sturdy and thick as Carpenello himself. It had to be.

Beginning in autumn of 1861, Carpe’s Marina had become one of the principal stations on the Underground Railroad, the covert network of shelters for fugitive slaves on their way to freedom in the northern United States and Canada. The marina’s status as a secret hiding place for former slaves was so well-guarded, and the substructure of the building so solidly built, that evidence of its role was not re-discovered until 2002, when the marina was scheduled for demolition in advance of the new Happenstance Landing at Keets Harbor entertainment and shopping complex. Explosives experts surveying the lower levels of the building were surprised to find the foundation extending nine feet below their expectations.

That extra nine feet contained a sub-basement with a veritable treasure-trove of Civil War-era artifacts. As it turns out, Nuncio Carpenello’s delivery business had added those late-night and early-morning runs not to carry supplies safely past the uncertain roads leading to the north end of the city, but to transport people beyond the uncertain attitudes and prejudices of their fellow man. The demolition crew was soon replaced by a film crew from the History Channel, whose documentary footage of the subsequent excavation is expected to air this September. That’s about the time construction on the Happenstance Landing at Keets Harbor is scheduled to be finished – the property line now 653 feet north of its original location.
- David Andrews

As a public service, The City Desk periodically offers up selected items culled from local police reports.

12:08 am
Harding Park, Officers disperse a group of people loitering in the park after hours.

1:01 am
3400 block of Spring Street: A woman reports excessive noise in adjoining house. The responding officers could hear nothing.

2:17 am
300 block of Bay Street: City EMS reports a break in and vandalism to an ambulance parked at LeFleur’s Donuts while the paramedics were taking a lunch break.

2:42 am
3400 block of Spring Street: A woman reports excessive noise in adjoining house. The responding officers could hear nothing.

3:01 am
4700 block of McKinley Avenue: Officers respond to silent alarm at a Kwick Stop Market finding clerk unconscious behind counter.

3:12 am
3400 block of Spring Street: A woman reports excessive noise in adjoining house. The responding officers could hear nothing.

3:47 am
2700 block of Huron Street: Officers respond to a 911 call of a cow in the roadway.

4:37 am
3400 block of Spring Street: Officers respond to a complaint of excess noise. Beverly Fouineur, 86, arrested for wasting police time.

5:14 am
21000 block of State Road: Gerald Crass, 18, and a minor are charged with vandalism, second-degree robbery, and cruelty to animals after police find them on the property of Chicken Delicious Farm. Police say the accused stole eggs from a chicken coop, and then egged the coop.

7:14 am
Archibald Field: Homer Chamberlain, an agronomy student at Watson University, is charged with vandalism and destruction of university property. Police have been conducting a three-week sting operation on Chamberlain, who they say has been strategically spreading fertilizer around the 50-yard line at Archibald Field. Chamberlain was arrested before he could finish the alleged prank, but police say a view from the top of the stadium reveals that a fast-growing portion of turf reads “THE COUGARS SUC.”

10:26 am
1300 block of Cedar Street: Police respond to a peeping Tom complaint from adult webcam model “Cindy.” She tells officers she was in the middle of her morning shift in her “studio” when she noticed a figure standing outside her first-floor window. The perp ran from the scene when “Cindy” threw one of her stilettos at the window. An investigation is under way.

3:07 pm
Riverview Apartments: A man reports someone threw a full cup of cherry cola into the front seat of his 2003 Chrysler Sebring convertible.

5:26 pm
500 block of Fairview Avenue: Mildred Bailey, 57, is charged with vandalism. According to the police report, officers apprehend Bailey as she is spray-painting a comma onto graffiti that read “F*** you b***!” Bailey allegedly says she was painting an introductory comma after “you.”
- Craig Gaines, Hoyt Schermerhorn

At one time or another, most residents of our city have visited the Museum of Modern American and Canadian Art at the corner of 26th Street and Smith. What most visitors don’t know is the real story behind one of the museum’s most famous works. The controversy started in 1998, when experts began a conservation project on the canvas Self Portrait With Pink Soup Can 2 by Andy Warhol. The painting was considered extremely valuable because of its rarity and seeming departure in style, compared to the artist’s other works. The painting shows Warhol perched on a enormous can of Campbell’s Pea Soup. Most of Warhol’s other works from this period were screen printed and produced in mass quantities, but no similar canvas survives. On recent tour of the museum, a guide claimed that the artist destroyed Pink Soup 1 by throwing it into a bonfire in a fit of rage after a fight with Lou Reed. However, no documentation of Pink Soup 1 exists in published records, and Mr. Reed has stated in interviews that he does not recall the incident. Pink Soup 2 also has a murky history.

The painting was donated to the museum from the estate of Mildred Birch, a local dowager who spent her final years and massive fortune assembling one of the nation’s premiere private art collections. The contents of this collection were distributed throughout the city after Ms. Birch’s death: the Tibetan Temple Gates to the Asian Art Association; Rodin’s Traveling Horseman to the Anheuser P. Davidson Hanging Sculpture Gardens on West Thirteenth Street; a series of Ansel Adams prints featuring Atlantic City to the Watson University Museum of Moving Photography, Filmography and Still Photography; and so on. The jewel of the collection was the unknown, late-period Warhol piece- Self Portrait w/ Pink Soup Can 2- which was entrusted to MOMAACA. It quickly became the museum’s most popular attraction, inspiring posters, t-shirts and tote bags. The museum cafe began serving pea soup, and a large Warhol exhibition was scheduled for 1998, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

While the painting was undergoing routine cleaning and conservation, questions were raised. Restorers were shocked to find that Pink Soup 2 was painted on the back of another canvas. During this period of his career, Warhol had reached the height of his wealth and fame, and the curators questioned whether the artist would reuse a canvas, especially on a work of this scale. Still more troubling– the signature of the painting on the back belonged to Mildred Birch’s grandson, Earl J. Birch. The trust that oversees Ms. Birch’s estate vociferously defended the painting’s authenticity. They suggested that perhaps the lad had painted on the back of the canvas before it was framed. Pink Soup Can 2 did seem to bear marks of Warhol’s style, and the signature matched other paintings of the period. A fight broke out among the curators at MOMAACA about whether they had a forgery on their hands and what to do about it. Some believed that it was a real Warhol, while others felt that it was a well-executed fake, perhaps even a class project. Unfortunately, Earl J. Birch could not be asked- he perished in a yachting accident four years prior to his grandmother’s death. Mildred was the last heir of the Birch fortune and the last link to the family secrets. An attempt was made to locate Earl’s art school classmates, and some did recall a project to emulate a famous artist’s style. However, no proof was ever found linking him to the Pink Soup canvas, beyond the signature on the back.

Further complicating matters was Ms. Birch’s erratic record keeping. Many of her acquisitions were the types of items not widely available for sale, so in some cases, she seems to have used what some would refer to as “disreputable” art dealers. The trust operating her estate found it difficult to produce history or bills of sale for many objects in her collection- most famously the Incan textiles from Cuzco and the Exekias Krater from Greece (The Krater depicts Zeus seducing various women, and was donated to the Museum of Ancient Hellenic and Canadian Art in South Bay. It was recently repatriated to Greece, after evidence emerged that it may have been looted. The textiles remain at the Wonsley Textile and Topiary Museum, in Coolidge Park). Experts brought in to assess the Warhol came away with mixed reactions. Most felt it was a forgery, either by Earl Birch or some unknown artists who then faked Warhol’s well-known signature. Two experts felt it was an authentic Warhol and a third verified the painting only to recant months later. The museum continues to display the painting and indicate Warhol as the artist. However, critical opinion has largely turned against the museum. As of April 2008, the MOMAACA has begun displaying a plaque near the painting that explains its complicated origins. But for now, at least, it is best known for a famous painting that may be fake.
- Matt Vermeulen

The Deluxe Diner
High-end comfort food may be a trend that’s two years past its sell-by date, but don’t tell chef/owner Alexa Dupree that as her place still offers the best late-night finer-dining in the city. Their summer menu features the best fried green tomatoes ($14) this side of the Mason-Dixon line, cornmeal-crusted and perfectly cooked. It’s the appetizer you’ll want to make a meal out of, but you really shouldn’t; that chicken salad club sandwich ($28) with the thick-cut, locally-smoked bacon requires your attention.
2285 8th Avenue | Reservations Recommended

Trattoria Milano
Sbarro is a third the price and twice as good. It’s a shame their wine list (heavy on the Sangiovese and, surprisingly, the Barbera) means that we’ll be coming back to sit at their bar and munch on those Sysco breadsticks that we love despite knowing better. (Wines range from $9-17 a glass, $28-130 for a bottle.)
12 Washington Way | Reservations Recommended

Parker’s Frozen Custard Stand
With the warmer afternoons and evenings, we’re glad to see that the old ticket window for The Spire Theater is once again dishing out some fantastic locally-made dairy treats that you’ll have to restrain yourself around. Our pick is a medium chocolate with caramel-glazed almonds ($4), but you can’t go wrong with just about anything on their menu.
1399 Highland Ave | No Reservations

The city council has reinstated a previously-repealed 1946 ordinance [seventh item] banning from city limits any and all stand-alone arcade devices and games. This measure has been taken in response to a wave of rigged slot machines appearing in the wake of the city council’s late April decision.

The Video Game Museum at Mabel Tripp Gardens had placed several of its vintage games – including Stryder, Centipede and Tron – in a special public play area to celebrate the repeal of the ordinance. The exhibits are expected to be returned to their places behind display glass by 4 pm this afternoon.
- Jon Morris

Related: The Return of the One-Armed Bandits