Photos by Tequila Minsky

Hundreds of likeminded individuals from around the metro area rallied at Union Square on Saturday, braving sporadic rain to protest against and raise awareness about Monsanto and the genetically modified food produced by the multinational company’s seeds.

The crowd was filled with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, going under the name Occupy Monsanto, but also many gray-haired, seasoned activists, parents with children in tow or in strollers, foodies and concerned college students.

Drawing attention to the issue of genetically modified and genetically engineered crops and seeds, the New York demonstration was one of more than 400 in 50 countries worldwide.

In Union Square’s southern plaza, amplified by a bullhorn that didn’t quite reach the far edges of those gathered, numerous speakers rallied the crowd.

One of the speakers, Christine Segal, a health coach, summed up the reasons people were there.

“We are marching for clean food,” she declared. “We are marching for our health with nutrient-dense food. We are marching for farmers who have the right to plant seeds of their choice. We are marching for bees…for salmon…for soil…for countries abroad for their right to their own culture, for our planet, for future generations.”

Following the speeches, protesters holding a plethora of creative and expressive handmade signs marched on the sidewalk around Union Square — as Greenmarket shopping went on — then continued down Broadway, ending at Washington Square Park.

– Tequila Minsky

Photos by Bob Krasner Singer Deborah Harry and photographer Roberta Bayley at the opening of “Just Chaos” at Bookmarc earlier this month. Bayley was wearing a T-shirt with her vintage image of Harry.

BY BOB KRASNER |“Forget about the Met show — this is where it’s at,” Monte A. Melnick, former tour manager of the Ramones, firmly stated. He was speaking of the May 9 opening of “Just Chaos,” a photo show by some of the major documentarians of punk rock at Marc Jacobs’s hip literary emporium, Bookmarc, at 400 Bleecker St., at W. 11th St.

Conceived and curated by noted photographer Roberta Bayley, the modest exhibit is meant to be an addendum to the Metropolitan Museum’s “PUNK — Chaos to Couture” show, which concentrates on the influence of punk on fashion, and in which photos of New York rockers are not a priority. Bayley, who photographed the first Ramones album cover, put together a group of 13 artists, including herself, whose love of the music led them to document a brand-new scene that seemingly had little commercial potential.

David Godlis, who just goes by Godlis, was one who found himself at the epicenter, C.B.G.B., “just to hear good music.” After a few weeks, he realized that he wanted to record, in the available-light style of Brassai, the scene on the street outside the legendary dive that gave birth to punk. After three years and a whole lot of film, he produced a body of work and became friends with many of the others who were covering the scene. Most of the participants in the show turned out to celebrate alongside some of their subjects, including Richard Hell and Deborah Harry.

Bob Gruen, left, and Godlis, who documented the punk scene with their photography, caught up at the opening. The image on the “Just Chaos” show poster/invite, behind them, was a shot by Godlis.

“It’s like a high school reunion,” said Godlis.

The energy of the attendees was palpable as East Village scene makers such as filmmaker Amos Poe, music industry legend Danny Fields (also a photographer in the show) and The Dictators’ Handsome Dick Manitoba rounded out an upbeat and colorful crowd that was dressed mostly in black. The mélange of photogs, fans, celebs and gawkers spilled out of the store, onto the sidewalk and into the street, leading to a warning from the local mounted police.

The store has taken the opportunity to stock its shelves with a wide variety of books on the subject, including attendee John Holmstrom’s new book, “Best of Punk Magazine,” Bryan Ray Turcotte’s “Punk Is Dead” and Richard Hell’s new autobiography, as well as rare ephemera and out-of-print titles, such as “Making Tracks — The Rise of Blondie.”

As much fun as it is to look back, however, nostalgia — as one might expect from the survivors of the punk aesthetic — is not at the top of the list. Not many wished to return to the New York of the late 1970s, although photographer Marcia Resnick said that she missed “the audacity, the immediacy and the conversation” of the times.

Amos Poe, director/producer of “The Blank Generation,” about the early days of punk, got ready to split.

Bayley, however, doesn’t harbor any desire to go back.

“I don’t long for those times,” she said. “I’m 63 and I have no desire to be poor.”

Leee Black Childers, a photographer who became manager for the Heartbreakers and later, Iggy Pop, is content to sit at his computer listening to Ethel Waters. Does he miss anything about the punk years? Well, maybe a few things, he said: “Being young, getting high and getting laid.”

A rendering of the “University House” dorm-conversion plan for the old P.S. 64, showing the historic block-through building’s 10th St. side opened up with new windows and entryways.

BY SARAH FERGUSON  |  Gregg Singer’s plan to convert the East Village’s old P.S. 64 into an upscale 500-bed dorm received favorable reviews from members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday. Although L.P.C. postponed a vote on the project pending further modifications, the commissioners generally praised the proposed reworking of the turn-of the-century elementary school as “inventive and appropriate.”

“I think it’s a great application,” said commissioner Joan Gerner, an architect and preservationist who helped oversee construction of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. “A stroke of genius,” Gerner added, referring to the plan to replace the bulky wheelchair ramp on the Ninth St. courtyard with two smaller handicap-access ramps.

There were some quibbles over the proposed addition of glass panels and steel railings, and the obtrusive HVAC units and bulkheads, which might mar the historic mansard roof. But none of the commisioners even mentioned Singer’s role in scalping the terracotta details of the facade in 2006, which he had jackhammered in a last-ditch effort to undo the building’s landmark desgination.

Nor did L.P.C. take him to task for his abject neglect of the property over the last seven years — even though by law owners of landmarked buildings are required to keep them “in good repair.”

“I have always said that the best way to preserve a building is to reuse it in an appropriate way, so I think this is heading in that direction,” stated L.P.C. Chairperson Robert Tierney.

Such deference stood in contrast to the testimony of community members, including Councilmember Rosie Mendez, who urged L.P.C. to reject the dorm plan, calling it “inappropriate.”

Although L.P.C. has no authority to regulate how a landmarked property is used, Mendez argued that the communal legacy of the old P.S. 64 — first as a school for 60 years and then as the community center CHARAS — should be recognized.

“The history, architecture, cultural and community significance of this building is inexorably intertwined with the role it has played in the lives of successive generations on the Lower East Side,” Mendez wrote in a prepared statement read by a staffer.

Mendez also condemned Singer’s scheme to chop out sections of the 10th St. elevated courtyard so as to provide light and air to the first floor — primarily so he can add more dorm bedrooms there. The school’s original architect, C.B.J. Snyder, had designed the courtyards to be open and accessible to the public — a fact noted by L.P.C. in its 2006 designation report. Singer’s dorm, Mendez noted, would “privatize” the courtyards.

“Many things have changed since 1904, but the need for shared open space that is a source of community pride has not,” Mendez noted.

Singer’s scheme got even worse reviews from the community members who testified. Carolyn Ratcliffe, who chairs the 9BC Tompkins Square Block Association, accused Singer of “disregarding the health and welfare” of local residents when workers cleared out the building’s fourth and fifth floors “by throwing the debris out of the windows without any protection from the dust that covered our buildings and apartments, as it fell into an uncovered dumpster at the first-floor level.”

More recently Ratcliffe said she sent L.P.C. pictures of large sections of copper flashing that had come loose under the dormer windows that Singer had jackhammered.

“These violations were only repaired when the Department of Buildings executed emergency repairs when 50 mile-per-hour winds were hitting the block,” Ratcliffe said.

The Buildings Department Web site shows a history of “hazardous” violations, including “loose brickwork” and “loose copper flashing.”

Singer could not be reached for comment on Ratcliffe’s specific allegations. When asked about his overall neglect of the property in an interview at The Villager offices two weeks ago, Singer said he could not repair the building without an approved renovation plan.

“My hands are tied,” he said.

After Singer amends his plans to answer the commissioners’ recommendations, L.P.C. will schedule another public hearing and vote on whether to approve the dorm renovation.

It is then up to the Department of Buildings to approve the project. But thus far, D.O.B. has not weighed in on whether Singer’s proposed “University House” even qualifies as a legal dorm.

In order to meet the “community-facility use” standard, D.O.B. requires proof of either ownership or a long-term lease with a school. The Cooper Union has announced plans to rent out two of the building’s five floors for 15 years, but the leasing arrangement remains unclear. Singer says Cooper is leasing 196 beds, while Cooper Union officials maintain that they have only “the right of first refusal” for these beds — meaning they might not take all of them if their students don’t want them. It is also unclear whether the students would be leasing from Singer or Cooper directly. Singer and Cooper Union have both declined to share copies of the lease, citing a confidentiality agreement that Cooper inserted.

On April 30, Mendez sent a letter of complaint to D.O.B., demanding that the department review Singer’s dorm application with “precise scrutiny” and refrain from approving it until Singer can show “enforceable” leases for all 500 rooms.

“As you know the Dorm Rule was explicitly adopted to guard against ambiguous and speculative actions of this type,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, Mendez says she is setting up a meeting with Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha so that he can hear the “full history” of the property from community members, including former CHARAS Director Chino Garcia and members of Community Board 3.

On May 15, there will be a march from the old P.S. 64 to Cooper Union to protest the school’s role in legitimizing Singer’s dorm scheme, as well as its decision to begin charging undergraduate tuition after 100 years. Members of the East Village Community Coaltion, Cooper Union alums, members of Community Board 3 and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh will be attending.

Photo by Michael Lydon
Erik Frandsen in his MacDougal Street apartment.

Times change, but the song remembers when

BY MICHAEL LYDON  | “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” Bob Dylan sang in 1964. Back then, the 23-year-old was a two-year veteran of the rough-and-tumble folk music scene that flourished in dozens of little clubs dotted along Bleecker, MacDougal and Fourth Streets in Greenwich Village. Almost 50 years later, Dylan is a vigorous senior. The scene that nurtured and sharpened his talent has changed and aged — but, more important, it has survived along with him.

Most of the old clubs, however, haven’t survived. The Kettle of Fish on MacDougal, where Tim Hardin and Richie Havens hung out between sets at other clubs, is now a Vietnamese restaurant. Next door, The Gaslight, a basement bistro that once booked Doc Watson and Jose Feliciano, is shut tight. Above the steps, a faded sign boasts of the day “when poets and other arty types were known as bohemians not beatniks.” Across the street, the Players Theatre — where The Fugs chanted their X-rated ditties — is still there. But Speakeasy, the top folk club of the early 80s, has vanished without a trace.

Photo courtesy of Erik Frandsen
Left to Right: Erk Frandsen, David Massingiull and Dave Van Ronk in a Village bar, in the 1980s.

MacDougal Street has changed so much that when the Coen brothers recently shot exteriors for a movie about the Village folk scene, they set dressed a block of East Ninth Street rather than trying to reconstruct the original.

Gerde’s Folk City, at Mercer and West Fourth in Dylan’s day, moved in the late 60s to the former Tony Pastore’s restaurant on West Third near Sixth Avenue. Run for years by the legendary Mike Porco, Folk City hung on as a music club until 1987. Bleecker Street’s The Bitter End became The Other End and then, again, The Bitter End — and now features more rock than folk performers (Lady Gaga is the latest star to win a first following at the 52-year-old venue).

“But what are you going to do?” asks Erik Frandsen, a fine finger-picking guitarist and Folk City regular through the 70s, “Give up because a club closes? Never!”

Frandsen, who still lives above the old Gaslight in a tiny apartment crammed with songbooks, CDs and old VHS tapes, often drops into Caffé Vivaldi on Jones Street to play a few late-night tunes. Living through lean times by selling guitars at Matt Umanov’s on Bleecker, he slowly built an acting career. “By now I’ve done dozens of ‘Law and Order’ episodes, and on ‘The Colbert Report’ I play Heinz Beinholtz, the stern German ambassador who comes on to explain why Europe is going to hell.”

Frandsen also acted, sang and played guitar in long runs of “Pump Boys and Dinettes” and, with banjoist Charlie Chin (another MacDougal Street veteran), put together a Hawaiian swing band whose syrupy repertoire grew into “The Song of Singapore” — a musical that ran for a year and a half at the Irving Plaza.

“Now I’m 66, on Social Security, so you could say I’m semi-retired. But hell, with a few pals, I’m trying to launch a new musical comedy about the CIA, ‘John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.’ To any senior who wonders, can I still play music, I say, sure, dust off the old songs you used to play. You never know what might happen, and you gotta be in it to win it!”

Rod McDonald, a mellow-voiced singer-songwriter, had to give up his Folk City and Cornelia Street Café gigs in the mid-1990s to move to Florida and care for his elderly parents. “I thought my career was over,’ McDonald recently recalled. “But I looked around, and found that a lot of little clubs in Florida had open mikes. So I started dropping in, and the bookers began asking me, ‘Hey, could you play Wednesday night, maybe Thursday?’ Soon I was doing as well down there as I’d been doing in New York City.”

Florida is still home for McDonald, his wife and kids — but he books tours through the Northeast folk circuit a couple of times a year, and last summer he packed The Gaslight, briefly re-opened for a folk revival concert series produced by Bob Porco (Mike Porco’s grandson).

Photo by David Gahr, courtesy of Danny Kalb Blues guitarist Danny Kalb, in the 1970s.

“I first met Bob Dylan in 1960,” remembers guitarist-songwriter Danny Kalb. “I was a student at the University of Wisconsin, and Dylan crashed with me for a few weeks in Madison on his way from Hibbing, Minnesota to New York. We had so much fun, I dropped out and followed him. The Village scene then? Wonderful! Dave Van Ronk became my teacher. I heard great artists like Fred Neal and Tim Hardin. Soon I was gigging, had a record out. But us folkies were about more than music. We were out to change the world. I went on a Freedom Ride, spent three days in a Baltimore jail.”

A long run leading the hit group, the Blues Project, took Kalb on coast-to-coast tours, headlining top venues like the Fillmore East and West. But after the first wave of success ebbed away, he faced the challenge of keeping his career going through leaner times. “What saved me? I always loved music,” Kalb said, sipping coffee as a Thelonious Monk CD played softly in his Park Slope apartment, crammed like Frandsen’s with guitars and musical gear. “Music kept me going, through a nervous breakdown, through a heart attack, through a stroke that, luckily, left my hands intact for playing.”

A beatific smile crossing Kalb’s Buddha-like face. “You see, I’m happy! I still feel my music is growing, evolving. I love my new CD, ‘Moving in Blue.’ Now I’m 70, but seniors aren’t pushed to the side today. We can join the public debate, give back what we’ve learned from experience.  When we were young, we were too dogmatic. But fanaticism, I’ve learned, is the enemy. Now I enjoy life, the bad and the good.”

Photo by Michael Lydon The entrance to the shuttered Gaslight, on MacDougal Street.

Jonathan Kalb, Danny’s younger brother, started out at 19 playing bass with the Fugs at the Players Theatre. “Jimi Hendrix was playing at the Cafe Wha? next door, and he’d call me in, saying, ‘Hey, Johnny, you gotta hear my latest song!’ Then he went to England and came back a star.” Jonathan hasn’t become as well-known as his older brother, but he’s steadily made his living as an all-around musician — playing guitar, bass, keyboards and even drums. “I spent years touring Germany, France, England and Scandinavia,” Jonathan recalls. “I’ve opened for B.B. King, played in soul bands, funk bands, you name it. For me, the secret is: keep playing, no matter what! I’m not sure how much I have to do with it — the music inside me keeps itself going!”

Not every 60s and 70s folkie, of course, has survived. Most famously, Phil Ochs committed suicide in 1976 and, most recently, Frank Christian died this past December. But Sefan Grossman, David Massingill, Cliff Eberhardt, Tom Pacheco and other lesser-known performers are still banging out old and new songs of love, peace and protest.

Photo by Michael Lydon

On May 21, many of them will be take the stage at the Village Underground (130 West Third Street) — site of the second Folk City — for “The Freewheelin’ 50th Anniversary All-Star Jam,” a concert Bob Porco is producing to celebrate classic songs, including “Blowing in the Wind” and “Masters of War,” from Dylan’s second album (“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”).

As MacDougal Street hipsters used to say, be there or be square.

An architect’s rendering of Anshei Meseritz, showing the planned penthouse addition atop the three-story synagogue . Courtesy Joseph Pell Lombardi

BY REY MASHAYEKHI  |  A proposal to renovate a historic East Village synagogue and construct a penthouse suite on top of it took a step forward last week, with plans passing through a Community Board 3 committee and subcommittee and now awaiting approval from the full community board and the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Renovations to Congregation Adas Le Israel Anshei Meseritz’s 102-year-old synagogue at 415 E. Sixth St. would convert most of the building into three apartments, including a penthouse addition. While the proposal would refurbish the building’s facade and retrofit the structure with functional upgrades, the building’s status as part of the Lower East Side/East Village Historic District requires that any exterior additions be approved by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

C.B. 3’s Parks, Recreation, Cultural Affairs, Landmarks and Waterfront Committee approved the proposal on March 7, after it was tabled by the board’s Landmarks Subcommittee at its meeting the night before. Next, C.B. 3’s full board will vote on the application at its meeting on March 19. Approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission at its April 9 meeting would allow the work to commence.

Architect Joseph Pell Lombardi designed the project for developer East River Partners, which recently agreed to a 99-year lease with Meseritz to redevelop the building. Lombardi said that the penthouse addition would not be visible from street level, complying with Landmarks guidelines and preserving the public’s view of the century-old facade.

“The last thing we want to do is err on this point,” Lombardi told The Villager, noting that a bright, orange barrier indicating the location of the rooftop addition had been constructed atop the synagogue, to give an idea of how visible the future penthouse would be.

“If we went ahead and built it, and it was approved on the basis that there is no visibility from a public way — and there was — then the commission would have us move it. That would have dire effects and concerns for everybody.”

The project has elicited a negative response from several members of the synagogue’s congregation, as construction of the new apartments would require that the house of worship’s sanctuary be moved to the building’s basement level. Eli Shoshani, a cantor at the shul, said that the majority of the congregation was “displeased” with the arrangement, which was agreed upon by a five-member board of directors, including the congregation’s longtime rabbi, Pesach Ackerman.

“They’re basically depriving the congregants of the synagogue itself,” Shoshani told The Villager. “There’s no unique quality to the bottom level that would attract people. People come to the synagogue specifically for the Old World charm that it has.” Shoshani added that the details of East River Partners’ plans for the synagogue “were never proposed to the congregation” as a whole.

Robert Rand, a member of Meseritz’s board and the congregation’s acting president, told the C.B. 3 Landmarks Subcommittee on March 6 that the project was in the best interests of the congregation and its historic building.

“If we want to preserve the past and stop the synagogue from collapsing, work needs to be done,” Rand said.

Construction will require that Meseritz’s services move elsewhere for up to a full year once the project begins. An agreement is in place for the congregation to use community space at the Village View apartment complex.

Photos by Shawn Chittle

Ray Alvarez, a.k.a. Asghar Ghahraman, celebrated his 80th birthday recently with a little help from his friends, who hired a bevy of burlesque dancers to titillate on the countertop of his hole-in-the-wall hot dog and Belgian fries shop, at Avenue A and Seventh St. Above, Little Motown danced to “Candy Girl” as Ray enjoyed the show. Below, during one of the dancer’s sultry numbers, Ray found himself draped with her red boa. Other dancers included Bunny, Jo Boobs Weldon and Gal Friday. Slum Goddess, who was videoing all the action for her blog, can be overheard on the tape saying, “You won’t find this at 7-Eleven!” The party was put on by Matt Rosen, Ilya Shinkar, Lindsay W. and Shawn Chittle, who mixed sound.

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

The storm’s howling winds tore down the canopy and also part of the covering of the steel roll-down gate at AlphaBet  Cafe, at 14th St. and Avenue B. A window was also missing. Police stood guard over the corner on Tuesday afternoon, but left later on.

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

“Flashlights for $3!” Audrey and Alex were making their sales pitch to the occasional cyclist and pedestrian on Tuesday evening that passed by the corner of Avenue A and 10th St. A flower artist, Audrey had 30 mini-flashlights left over from a project she had done in which the lights were supposed to illuminate bouquets. “I’m a bit obsessed with space, so I wanted to get rid of these as soon as possible, and also help people out – or help people out, and get rid of these as soon as possible,” explained Alex, an Alzheimer’s researcher. They had sold about 20 of them in just 45 minutes, and were planning to go home and have a glass of wine.

The nearly 50 elderly tenants of 80 Rutgers Slip who didn’t leave the building — which is in Zone A, the area that was under mandatory evacuation orders before the storm hit — faced a dire situation when their lobby was flooded and power was lost on Monday night.

Following the storm, the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council spearheaded a collaborative effort that provided a vital lifeline to the ailing seniors.

“We’ve been extremely pleased with the turnout so far,” said Victor Papa, president of Two Bridges, speaking on Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier that day, three meals for each of the 80 Rutgers tenants were delivered by the nonprofit organization Citymeals on Wheels, in an arrangement arranged and overseen by Two Bridges.

And Papa explained that on Thursday, the seniors would be receiving 200 more meals from the city’s Department for the Aging.

He also said that, in an equally heroic effort, a local volunteer dropped off 60 gallons of water at 80 Rutgers Slip on Tuesday. The water was shared between that building and the adjacent 82 Rutgers  Slip, which, like many other buildings in the area, was also without power and running water in the days following Sandy.

The Two Bridges staff also bought dozens of flashlights on Wednesday for the elderly tenants, but Papa added that more were needed for that building and others in the area.

He continued to encourage area residents to donate flashlights and other supplies to 80 Rutgers, since aid to the building was only immediate and didn’t constitute even a consistent short-term plan. The meal deliveries, Papa stressed, would not be continuous and were secured only for the days on which the food was delivered.

Although Internet reception was spotty and keeping cell phones charged was a constant struggle, social media and other Internet resources helped the swift responses to the seniors’ desperate needs, as well as to other struggling buildings within Lower East Side communities.

A new community-based volunteer Web site, lowereastside.recovers.org, went online on Tuesday morning. The product of volunteer collaborations between Occupy Wall Street and 350.org (an environmental organization), the “recovers” site allowed local residents to communicate and organize in support of ailing neighbors, as well as allowing community organizations like Two Bridges to post requests for donations for specific buildings.

Recovers.org is a for-profit operation that licenses its software to cities and major organizations that are preparing for disasters, and was founded last year by survivors of a tornado in Massachusetts.

“I think the site will make things a lot easier during the big transition that’s going to take place between the immediate disaster response and planning for long term needs,” said Caitria O’Neill, co-founder and C.E.O. of recovers.org.

Those who wish to donate specifically to Lower East Side buildings in need can visit lowereastside.recovers.org and contact community representatives by phone or e-mail.

As of 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the Web site also had requests for donations to 46 Hester St. in Chinatown, 242 E. Second St. in the East Village, and numerous other buildings in need.

Nearly 250,000 people were still without electrical power in Manhattan as of Friday. On Wednesday at noon, Con Edison released a statement saying that people in Manhattan and Brooklyn who are served by underground equipment should have power back by Saturday.

Papa acknowledged that Con Ed’s ability to restore power would be the most important part of recovering from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, but he stressed that, for the moment, it was up to Lower East Side residents to keep themselves going.

“In the end, we can’t rely on the circumstances of crisis, and the predictions of the authorities,” Papa said. “We have to rely on ourselves. We’re the ones that have to live through this.”

The driver of this Volvo reportedly tried to make a break from Garage 5 as the surge was coming, but abandoned ship. Photo by Lincoln Anderson

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Stuyvesant Town parkers were feeling “garage rage” after Hurricane Sandy wrecked their cars in a place they were assured would be safe during the storm.

Angry and concerned car owners gathered outside Garage 5, on Avenue C near 15th St., on Tuesday afternoon, but it was gated and there were no attendants in sight. Inside the garage a white car could be seen sitting in water still several inches high.

A GoodYear tow truck operator whose name patch read “Bernard” let them know they were in for the worst due to the salt water’s effects on their wheels.

“Every car out here — totaled,” he said. “If it ever starts running again, it’ll have electronic problems for a long time.”

Parkers were livid that they had received a letter before the storm from Quik Park, which took over the operation in August, telling them to move their cars out of Garages 2, 3 and 4 — with the assumption being that Garage 5 was safe. No. 5 is the biggest garage of the lot.

All the Stuy Town garages along Avenue C are in Zone B. Zone A, the most flood-prone area, stops in the middle of 14th St. But the storm didn’t know from A or B.

“I have an ‘87, cherry red BMW,” said Diana Lee Wolozin, who owns a co-op nearby on 14th St. “It’s like my life savings. … I’m a massage therapist and my massage equipment is in the back of my trunk.”

Saying her car was “vintage” and so didn’t have electronic computer controls, she hoped Bernard would confirm that the vehicle would be O.K., but he didn’t sound convinced.

George Kane, 57, a lifelong resident of the complex said this was the worst storm — and worst garage carnage — he had ever seen, including the ‘92 storm that inundated No. 5 with salt water.

“Even Dec. 11, 1992 — we had a nor’easter and it wasn’t this bad,” he said. “What you had here was a nor’easter combined with a full moon.”

One woman, who didn’t give her name, said that, recalling that ‘92 garage swamping, she took her car out of the garage two days before Monday’s storm, and parked it on First Ave.

Outside the Quik Park, cars sat scattered haphazardly at angles, some half on and half off the pavement, left where they had settled after floating in the water on the flooded avenue. Wolozin checked out a white Mercedes.

“Its inside smelled like the East River,” she reported.

Farzad Sabouhi was annoyed that when he had parked his car at 6 p.m. on Monday the attendants didn’t seem particularly concerned about the onrushing Sandy-pocalypse.

“They didn’t mention nothing,” he said.

“This has to be a class-action suit here,” said sports writer Alan Kreda, who has been parking in the garage since 1993.

Diane Fraher said parkers had been assured that the garage would be “sandbagged up” before the storm hit, but it was never done.

She said when she came by earlier on Monday an attendant had been there and told her the story behind the Volvo XC 60 that sat parked at an angle on the garage’s threshold. It hadn’t been tossed there by the water.

“It was a young guy who tried to get away at the last minute,” she said, “and he panicked, and he jumped out.”