What's Happening in the West Village Vol. 2

This week has raised a lot of serious issues in the Village. But don’t get too stressed out just yet. The Village is always full ways to blow off steam after it’s all over. But let’s get down to business first with some of the more serious of the week.
The issue of rising rent has made real estate a hot button issue. According to the New York Times, the nonprofit and small theater groups that inhabit the Federal Archive Building in the Far West Village could be threatened by heavy rent increases. During the early 1980s, “the Rockrose Development Corporation [got] permission to convert the vacant red-brick building into luxury apartments “on the condition that they allowing these organizations lowered rent prices in a 25 year lease. With that lease due to expire, nonprofit tenants’ could face a rent “increase by as much as 500 percent,” says the New York Times. This news adds tension to a neighborhood already facing gentrification issues. For this reason, local officials such as Brad Hoylman are trying to broker a deal to keep these organizations in the neighborhood.
In other real estate news, there has been an increase in “there was a 31 percent increase in the number of white, non-Hispanic professionals with one or more children under the age of 6 living in one-bedroom apartments” according to the New York Times. Instead of moving out of the city into the suburbs, or paying high end rents for two bedroom apartments, these families have opted to squeeze into these small apartments.
In lighter news, the Village will host its 35th annual Halloween parade. The parade is the “largest public participatory event” in the nation, according to the Village Halloween Parade Commission. Starting at 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., the parade features “hundreds of puppets, 42 bands of different types of music, dancers and artists, and thousands of other New Yorkers in costumes of their own creation in this new brand of carnival,” according to the Parade Commission. So come take the walk up Sixth Avenue . If nothing else, it will be a true West Village experience.
If the thought of marching makes you hungry check out some of the finest falafel in the city. Am New York has recently named the Village’s Taïm (222 Waverly Place), and Mamoun's Falafel (119 MacDougal St.) as two of the best places for falafel the city has to offer.
If falafel doesn’t get you going, there are going to be plenty of musical events held throughout the Village. At Cielo, there will be El Cielo Ibiza Vs. Cielo NYC performing Oct. 18. And at Bar 55, Michael Blake's Hellbent will be playing Oct. 23.
So deal with the serious as best you can, but remember to have some fun afterwards. You won’t regret it.