Fall 2008 - The 30 people who share the title, 'Educator' at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum have been considering the formation of a Union for several years. They are the part-time and per diem workers who are the 'Tour Guides'. Over the past few years, the popularity of the Tenement Museum has risen

and the quality of the tours provided by the Educators each day has been cited by many tourists as, 'Excellent!' In this same period of time, many of the Educators have seen their colleagues fired with no notice, no recourse and no termination or severance pay. The Educators are interested in unionizing yet their efforts to do so are being blocked by the administrators of the Museum. The administrators do not want to give their Educators these benefits: guaranteed hours, vacation time, sick leave, health care and due process prior to termination. Museum management repeatedly has said it only will recognize a union that includes both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time workers, so far, haven’t organized.

Fall 2008 - Lou Reed, the Brooklyn born rocker would love for a street in New York City to be named in his honor. Isn't that nice? The former front man for the Velvet Underground is known for songs about transvestites, drug addicts and dominatrixes of the city's underbelly. He has been nicknamed, 'The Bard of Greenwich Village'. Reed could be imagining an honor like punk rocker Joey Ramone received in 2003 when city officials renamed the corner of Bowery and Second Street in the East Village for him. Lou Reed's first apartment was on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. He says he located here "because it was cheap." Mr Reed also said that the New Yorker who would have made the best American President was not Hillary or Rudy, but Andy Warhol. Filed under: Lou Reed's Apartment Lower East Side