WHEN: Monday Sept 24, 2018 at 7:30PM
WHERE: Westbeth Community Room 155 Bank St between West and Washington Sts.
HOSTED: Westbeth Artists Residents Council

About Jerry Nadler
Congressman Jerrold “Jerry” Nadler represents New York’s 10th Congressional District, one of the most dynamic and diverse districts in the country. The district includes Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Wall Street, and Battery Park City, as well as the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Kensington, and parts of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Red Hook, Sunset Park and Midwood.

Rep. Nadler began his career in public service in 1976 in the New York State Assembly. Representing the Upper West Side, he served as a Democratic Assemblyman for 16 years and played a significant role in shaping New York State law concerning child support enforcement and domestic abuse, as well as making major contributions to housing, transportation and consumer protection policy in the state. In 1992, Rep. Nadler was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election and has served in Congress ever since. He was re-elected to his thirteenth full term in 2016, receiving a resounding 78% of the vote.

The Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Nadler served as Chairman or Ranking Member of its Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties for 13 years and also served as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

Rep. Nadler is a graduate of Crown Heights Yeshiva, Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University and Fordham Law School. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his wife, Joyce Miller. They have one son, Michael.

Fighting for Civil Rights, LGBT Rights, Women’s Rights

“Jerry Nadler is a staunch defender of civil rights and civil liberties in America, and a passionate advocate for these issues in Congress.”

— Representative John Lewis (D-GA), Civil Rights leader

For over 30 years, in both the House and in the New York State Assembly, Congressman Nadler has proudly been on the front lines in the fight for civil rights, and has been a relentless defender of our country’s fundamental promise of equality for all. Central among his concerns has been the ongoing civil rights struggle for people of color. Rep. Nadler has been a leader in the fight to protect voting rights and reduce voter disenfranchisement. He served as a key House leader behind the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, continuing to serve on the small House working group directing its advancement, and held oversight hearings on Department of Justice efforts to combat voter suppression. He also has worked vigorously to call attention and seek remedies to past and present racial injustices. Rep. Nadler was an original co-sponsor of the Pigford Claims Remedy Act of 2007 (H.R. 3073), and held a landmark Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Pigford case, which involved thousands of African-American farmers who suffered discrimination at the hands of the Department of Agriculture for most of the 20th century. He also championed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which he ushered through to a decisive House victory.

Congressman Nadler has also taken an active role in working against discriminatory racial profiling by law enforcement, co-sponsoring the End Racial Profiling Act among other actions, and has devoted considerable time as a senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee to monitoring and reinforcing voting rights for African-Americans and other groups that have been systematically disenfranchised. He was one of the first to call for a Justice Department investigation in 2000 of Mayor Giuliani and then-NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir after three separate fatal shootings involving three unarmed New Yorkers—Patrick Dorismond, Amadou Diallo, and Gideon Busch—and was an outspoken advocate for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014. In his district, Rep. Nadler successfully worked to create the African Burial Ground National Historic Site in Lower Manhattan, recognizing the landmark 17th and 18th century African burial ground discovered there.

“Congressman Jerrold Nadler is one of the nation’s fiercest protectors of LGBT rights and a powerful ally for trans equality.”

— The Advocate magazine

A Vice-Chair and founding member of the House Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Equality Caucus, and the first from New York’s congressional delegation to openly support marriage equality, Rep. Nadler has been an original co-sponsor of every major piece of LGBT civil rights legislation for the last twenty-plus years. He personally authored the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA), the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), the Father Mychal Judge Act, and the Equal Access to Social Security Act, marking his place as a central architect of LGBT legislative strategy in Congress. He led the fight in the House against the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment and continues to oppose anti-gay efforts as they emerge in Congress. Additionally, Rep. Nadler authored and led the Congressional amicus briefs in the two most significant marriage equality-related cases to go to the Supreme Court—both Windsor and Obergefell—and procured the first-ever non-AIDS related House appropriation for a LGBT organization — New York’s LGBT Center. He was also one of only six members of the House Democratic Caucus to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act when it failed to protect members of the transgender community. Former Representative Barney Frank has praised Rep. Nadler’s record, saying: “Jerry Nadler has been a vigorous, unyielding, active supporter of fairness for gay men and lesbians on every relevant issue since he came to Congress.”

“Jerry Nadler is at the forefront of the movement to protect reproductive freedom, fighting every day against anti-choice leaders in Congress.”

— Kate Michaelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America

Congressman Nadler has played a significant role in the fight for women’s rights, serving as a central figure in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the author of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. In recognition of his leadership in the area of equal pay, Rep. Nadler was invited to join President Obama at the White House for the signing of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Representative Nadler is nationally recognized as a staunch defender of women’s health, including a woman’s constitutional right to access an abortion. As a senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader in the House Pro-Choice Caucus, he has often taken a central role in standing up to conservative attacks against every American’s right to make personal decisions about reproductive health, including devising the strategy to defeat countless anti-choice bills and carrying the movement’s signature piece of legislation — the Freedom of Choice Act. Because of his strong voice defending such rights, in 2015 Rep. Nadler was named by Leader Nancy Pelosi as one of six Democratic Members (and the only male Member) chosen to serve on the Republicans’ Select Committee shamefully set up to attack women’s health organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides lifesaving reproductive health services to millions of women and families across the country.

Rep. Nadler has also been a life-long advocate for the differently-abled, shepherding the Americans with Disabilities Act Restoration Act of 2007 through the House.

Even early in his career in the State Assembly, Rep. Nadler was a major civil rights voice. He passed the first bills protecting People with AIDS (PWAs) from discrimination and served as a key women’s rights advocate, garnering the New York State Chapter of the National Organization for Women’s “Legislator of the Year” Award, the first and one of only two men to ever receive this honor.

Defending Civil Liberties

“Jerry Nadler is a gifted constitutional scholar and the conscience of the House.”

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

As a nationally recognized leader on civil liberties, Congressman Nadler has fought for protections against unwarranted government interference in our personal affairs and has been called “one of the House’s most stalwart defenders of the Constitution” by the American Civil Liberties Union. His legislation to remove the most pernicious elements of the USA PATRIOT Act and stop the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of Americans has won him praise from organizations and individuals spanning the political and ideological spectrum. In 2015, he was one of four Members of the U.S. House of Representatives to author the bipartisan USA Freedom Act—ending the illegal collection of bulk data by the NSA—the passage of which represented the first significant reform of government surveillance carried out by the federal government since 1978.

Another hallmark of Rep. Nadler’s career is his commitment to due process rights for the accused, his work to prevent prosecutorial over-zealousness and misconduct, and his staunch advocacy against the use of illegal torture methods.

Congressman Nadler serves as a champion in the House for free speech and free expression. He has often taken difficult votes on controversial issues in order to remain true to his principles and the fundamental belief in the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. He is one of Congress’s most vocal defenders of the separation of church and state and of Americans’ right to exercise their religion freely, while also denouncing efforts by some to use religion as an excuse to discriminate. Rep. Nadler was one of the lead Democratic sponsors of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the author of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which ensure that individuals are able to assert their religious beliefs without jeopardizing the freedom and rights of others. He also has opposed state-based laws with similar titles that were specifically designed to discriminate against LGBT Americans.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler website

Join us to celebrate the life and work of Robert Ludwig, painter and drawing artist. Continue reading →

When: Thursday Sept 20, 2018 at 12pm
Where: 55 Bethune Street Entrance of Westbeth Artists Housing

On September 20, at 12 pm, Westbeth and the Merce Cunningham Trust will host a celebration of the life and work of Merce Cunningham.

The event, which will take place at the 55 Bethune St. entrance, will include the installation of a commemorative cultural medallion by the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center led by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, with featured speakers including:

· Alastair Macaulay, Chief Dance Critic, The New York Times

· Mikhail Baryshnikov, Artistic Director, Baryshnikov Arts Center

· Joan Davidson, President Emeritus, J.M. Kaplan Fund

Reception: The event will be followed by a reception in the Westbeth Gallery.

Open Master Class: An open masterclass in the Cunningham style will be held from 3:30 to 5:30 pm in the Martha Graham Studio. All Westbeth residents are welcome to attend the day’s events.

The occasion is part of a year-long celebration of Merce Cunningham’s life, with a special performance on April 16, 2019, which would have been his 100th birthday. In memoriam, the Merce Cunningham Trust will join together with the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Barbican London, and the Opéra Comique in Paris, to present the largest Cunningham event ever staged. For more information please visit www.mercecunningham.org/centennial.