Inside New York City’s Nastiest (and Smallest) Newspaper War

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They say that print is dead and local news is dying. But in the small patch of lower Manhattan that is Greenwich Village, there are four local newspapers vying for supremacy. Here, print is very much alive.

And local news is vicious.

This is the story of a crusty 95-year-old publisher, an ambitious caregiver, a breakaway staff, a Sept. 11 conspiracy theory, a liberal neighborhood and a group of committed writers who are willing to work for nothing.

“Are you ready for this?” asked George Capsis, who for the past 20 years has run the monthly WestView News out of his town house in the Village, which he now navigates using a walker. He leaned forward in his swivel chair, eyes flaring. “I’m going to tell you stories that you won’t believe,” he said. “Reporting how a newspaper got stolen — not so simple.”

Capsis, whom Sarah Jessica Parker once called the “godfather of the West Village,” is perhaps best known for slapping a police officer and then suing the police department for unnecessary use of force — or for slapping a state senator, Brad Hoylman-Sigal. Or for crusading at length but unsuccessfully to save a Village hospital.

On a recent afternoon at the house, he described what he called a plot by his staff to steal his newspaper. Seven minutes into our interview, he punched me.

“I have so many great stories to tell you,” he said. “Maybe you should do a bigger piece.”

The punch was on the knee, to emphasize a point. The point was: “Arthur Schwartz is a rat.”

Arthur Schwartz, a self-described “guerrilla litigator,” was for the past decade a political writer for WestView News, and saw himself as Capsis’ successor. Schwartz, 70, is a veteran of local progressive causes and Democratic politics, the district leader in the Village. In 2013, while representing Capsis in his lawsuit against the police department, he made a deal with the publisher whereby — if certain conditions were met — he would eventually take control of the paper.

For years, nothing came of the deal. Schwartz wrote columns; Capsis published them.

“Was it my goal in life to have a paper?” Schwartz asked on a recent morning in his cluttered law office, engulfed by stacks of legal documents. “Does this office look like I have nothing to do?”

Enter the caregiver.

Dusty Berke, who is 61 and an interior designer, lived in the neighborhood but did not read WestView News, she said, because it did not interest her. “There was no fashion, no family stuff,” she said.

But in 2016, she arrived at Capsis’ door to write about a neighborhood memorial of hand-painted tiles commemorating the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Capsis did not publish her article, but soon he gave her a place to stay.

“She was divorced,” he said. “I said, ‘There are lots of beds upstairs if you want to sleep over.’ She just stayed on.”

Berke, who entered the room carrying a mug of cinnamon-ginger soup for Capsis, bristled at the suggestion that she was Capsis’ caregiver or nurse. “I’m his right hand,” she said. “I’m not a nurse, but I help George, because he needs help. I’m a housewifey-mom kind of personality. I do everything. I make coffee.”

Along the way, she also struck a deal with Capsis to buy the paper, she said.

Schwartz accuses Berke of trying to commandeer the paper from an old man. Berke and Capsis say Schwartz is the thief.

WestView News is a little neighborhood newspaper, dropped free on people’s stoops once a month. Editors worked for $10 an hour; contributors worked for nothing. But inside its doors, passions for the paper ran high.

Berke, who started out selling ads, began to get more involved in other facets of the paper.

“Now, Dusty has different beliefs,” Capsis said, diplomatically.

In 2018, Berke invited a group called the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry to the house to present the case that Building 7 of the World Trade Center was brought down not by planes but by explosives placed ahead of time. Over the staff’s objections, the paper began running articles about the theory, including two by members of groups promoting it.

Berke also brought in articles by Diane Sare, a Senate candidate for the LaRouche Party, a fringe-right group.

“She was a corroding force,” said Liza Whiting, who worked as the paper’s traffic manager for about 10 years. “She comes across as being reasonable. But any person, if you spend more than a half-hour with Dusty, you realize that she’s a bit of a wacko.”

Barry Benepe is a longtime friend of Capsis and was, until last summer, a regular contributor to the paper. Benepe, 94, is a founder of New York’s Greenmarkets and was known as a gadfly in a lavender tweed jacket. He said that his access to his friend diminished, and then disappeared entirely, as Capsis’ health declined.

Finally, last fall, it all came apart. Whiting and Kim Plosia, the paper’s editor, either quit or were fired. With Schwartz and the bulk of WestView News’ contributors, they started their own paper, assembling the first issue in 10 days. They called it New WestView News. Both papers published articles denouncing the other.

Enter yet a third paper.

Lincoln Anderson started The Village Sun three years ago, after 20 years at another local paper, The Villager. For Anderson, the battle between WestView News and New WestView News — between Capsis and Schwartz, two well-known local characters, with Berke thrown in for extra spice — was pure catnip.

“I’ve written something like 10 articles on it,” Anderson said.

Capsis threatened to sue Schwartz for copying his paper’s name and design, plus general rattiness. Schwartz threatened to sue Capsis for defamation. Where did they threaten? In The Village Sun. When Schwartz’s 100-year-old mother called Capsis to complain about a missed paper, that, too, made The Village Sun. (The Villager, Anderson’s former employer, has stayed out of the fray.)

“It’s been a fun one, and it’s gotten a good response from readers,” Anderson said. “In the Village scene, they’re important figures.”

Schwartz said that after one issue he called Capsis with an offer: “Just keep Dusty out of the paper, and everybody will come back.”

But it was no sale. So New WestView News changed its name to New WestView, and then to The Village View.

Capsis in a three-hour interview remained alert and engaged, often impassioned, only occasionally repetitive.

“You’re going to be gray when I’m finished,” he said, beginning a long tangent. “This story I’m telling you is a great story. And you’re going to tell it from now on for the rest of your life.”

He rolled forward. He rolled back.

“Suppose you lost your job,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be fun working for this paper?”

(Author: John Leland)/(c.2021 The New York Times Company)