Lazy New York Times Fact-Checking Inspires a Greenwich Village Journalist

Mistakes other writers published led to giggles and ground-breaking discoveries.

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 4, 2006 -- Greenwich Village resident LindaAnn Loschiavo let laughter lead her to her specialty: writing about subjects other authors botch so bad that it’s hilarious. Her Masters thesis on Blanche Duchess of Lancaster, for example, evolved because everything she had read about Blanche, her husband John of Gaunt, and their son King Henry IV was romanticized, worshipful, and absurdly inaccurate.

Her serious-minded comedy “COURTING MAE WEST,” based on true events during the 1920s — when Mae West, a struggling actress with 27 years of failure behind her, was arrested and jailed for obscenity — evolved because the downtown dramatist had gotten fed-up with plays about the complex entertainer that stereotyped the blonde bombshell as a movie queen and nothing more.

Her latest article is on the history of Ye Waverly Inn — a restaurant recently taken over by West Village homeowner Graydon Carter (who helms Vanity Fair Magazine), and two partners. Out of curiosity, she began researching the background of the Bank Street eatery established in 1920. The first articles she came across were naïve accounts recently printed in The New York Times that focused on ghosts who set kitchen fires. Piqued by lazy Times reporters who don't even bother to fact-check building records, she decided to dig deeper. She tracked down the original business card and promotional material from 1920 along with facts and photographs that had never been printed.

This article is available in this week’s edition of The Villager (March 1 - 7, 2006; Volume 75, Number 41): "That Night the Ocelot Got in Ye Waverly Inn and Other Surprises.”

According to LindaAnn Loschiavo, the one-star eatery remained liquor-less until 1966; owner Murray Sellack installed a bar. By 1983, it rated "no stars."

As the new owners grew hungry for tourists, legends drew the patrons. The Bank Street building acquired ghosts, a faked 1810 origin, and a litany of lies about luminaries who supped there, thanks to gullible N.Y. Times reporters who don't bother to fact-check.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is currently spicing up the storied establishment — maybe with stars in mind.

The Villager (established 1933) offers an online edition — wwwTheVillager.com — as well as a printed publication. The December 26, 2005 issue of New York Magazine singled out this durable local weekly as one of the reasons to love New York. Carl Swanson wrote: “In this city, The Villager uncovers what really matters: an endless series of devious secret plans by the city and developers to undermine . . . well, pretty much everything. “We broke open the story about the backroom plans to change Washington Square Park,” says the weekly’s publisher and editor, John Sutter, 56. The Villager does a good job on its beat: It breaks news. “There are hundreds of block associations downtown that are constantly feeding us information,” Sutter says. “If The Village Voice does a local story, it’s hit and run. The Times might cover it a couple of times in the ‘City’ section. We follow it week after week.” Sutter adds, “People depend on us for redress.” (Tel: 212-229-1890)

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