Cultural Medallion honors Terrence McNally in the East Village
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
On Wednesday, Nov. 3,
family, friends, neighbors,
and theatre folk
honored the life and work of
renowned playwright Terrence
McNally outside his apartment
building at 29 E. 9th St.
Terrence McNally could be
called one of the most important
dramatists of the last 50 years and
died March 24, 2020 in Sarasota,
Florida from Covid complications.
He was 81.
The Historic Landmarks
Preservation Center hosted the
sidewalk ceremony at the building
he called home, the gathering
spilling into the street. In true
New York fashion, the program
often competed with street noise.
McNally wrote prolifi cally for
the theatre leaving an opus—
some three dozen plays, the books
for 10 musicals, librettos for four
operas, and screenplays for fi lm
and television.
He was a multi-Tony award
winner—two were the books
In a moment of pure emotion, Tom Kirdahy kisses the
Medallion, a true tribute to his husband.
for musicals, Kiss of the Spiderwoman
(1995) and Ragtime 1998,
and two plays, Love! Valour!
Compassion! (1995), about gay
men who share a vacation house,
and Master Class (1996).
His fi rst Broadway play was
Things That Go Bump in the
Night (1965).
Borough President Gale
Brewer thanked BarbaraLee Diamonstein
Spiel-Vogel, creator of
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
the Cultural Medallion program,
acknowledging what a wonderful
preservationist she is…. “(She is)
often way ahead of us in terms of
where are the landmarks for cultural
history and commemorating
them and knowing who the great
New Yorkers are.”
BP Brewer then presented the
family a Proclamation acknowledging
McNally’s thriving–over
six decades career, with works
routinely performed all over the
world. His plays often dealt with
race, gender and sexual orientation.
In 2019, he received a Tony
for Lifetime Achievement.
Born in Florida, his fondness
for New York made him a New
Yorker at heart. BP Brewer declared
Nov. 3, 2021, Terrence
McNally Day in the Borough of
Manhattan.
McNally’s friend Tyne Daly
made brief remarks, followed
by his husband, Tom Kirdahy, a
Tony and Oliver Award winning
producer. “This is immersive
theatre,” quipped his Kirdahy as
a street sweeper interrupted the
audio.
McNally had chronicled a
pandemic (AIDS) and in a cruel
bit of traumatic irony a pandemic
took him out (COVID). His work
lives on in the plays, musicals,
operas, and lives of the countless
people touched and changed from
the deep emotional truths of his
work.”
After a civil union in Vermont,
Kirdahy and McNally legally
wed in New York in 2010, and
renewed their vows at City Hall
offi ciated by Tom’s college roommate,
Mayor DeBlasio.
To the right of the building’s
doorway, Kirdahy unveiled the
red Cultural Medallion. Within
a condensed version of the playwright’s
history it read: “Just
four years later (after graduating
Columbia), he made his Broadway
debut as a playwright. Though
unsuccessful, the play boldly
explored gay themes, rare at the
time and foreshadowed his most
important works, written during
the AIDS crisis.”
Wrapping up the preliminaries,
Brian Stokes Mitchell (who was in
Kiss of the Spider Woman) belted
his baritone voice the song The
Quest (from Man of La Mancha,
also referred to as The Impossible
Dream). Mitchell explained that
the song was about the journey
and that was what Terrance Mc-
Nally was about. Then, McNally’s
husband Tom Kirdahy unveiled
the Medallion and fi lled with
emotion gave the symbol a kiss.
Lower Manhattan parents rally against toxic cleanup
BY DEAN MOSES
“Get your poison away from
our kids,” cried parents of Peck
Slip and Blue schools in Lower
Manhattan on Nov. 16.
The cobblestone street between
the Peck Slip elementary school
and a parking lot, where a mercury
clean-up is expected to be
undertaken in January, felt the
outrage of well over one hundred
protesters on Nov. 16. From small
children to seniors, members of
the Seaport community arrived in
force to shame Developer Howard
Hughes for plans to build a
345-foot apartment complex, and,
in doing so, would see the removal
of harmful toxins residents say
could injure both the young and
old who live and are educated in
the area.
“The mothers here are beside
themselves. The best thing to do
would be to leave it alone. You
have two schools, you don’t have
one. You have here and the Blue
School down the street in an even
narrower space,” Elaine Kennedy,
a grandmother of a student at the
Peck Slip School, told amNewYork
Metro.
On the other side, the Howard
Hughes Corporation believes
that they are taking all necessary
safety precautions in order to
keep the community risk-free.
“We are committed to the
safe and thorough cleanup of the
250 Water St. site, which will
occur under the oversight of the
New York State Departments
of Environmental Conservation
and Health, just as hundreds of
similar projects have been safely
remediated across the state,” a
spokesperson said in a statement.
However, to a community that
has lived through the brunt of
the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many
at the protest reminded that they
have witnessed the devastation
chemicals can have once airborne.
“We had 9/11 and we had all
the government agencies telling
us it’s safe. Now there are 60
different types of cancers, and
we’re 60% more prone to them
plus COVID, asthma, and now all
these others, so we have already
been here,” Kennedy said.
Students, local residents and their families marched around the parking lot.
Parents are also charging the
Department of Education with
holding their children hostage,
preventing any transfers from
taking place due to the proposed
remediation.
“We are being told that they
are stuck here. No excuses. Some
with a child with a respiratory
problem, a child with sensory
perception issues, children with
learning disabilities that could
be easily distracted, they can’t
be pulled,” said Stacy Shub, a
concerned parent.
The Howard Hughes Corporation
assured that the work has
the DEC and DOH approval and
there are several protections in
place.
“Throughout that process, we
will work closely with the Peck
Slip and Blue schools to minimize
any impact to operations and
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
ensure a safe learning environment,”
according to a statement
from the corporation. “More
broadly, we are hopeful that our
neighbors will embrace the opportunity
to welcome 80 families
earning around $45,000 to an
area where the median household
income is more than $150,000, all
made possible through a safe and
thorough cleanup and temporary
construction period.”
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