Cornelia Street Crusader Speaks, Has Ice Statue Made of His Dog
Yesterday, we introduced you to successful eye surgeon Dr. Emil Chynn. You read the 2,7000 word email litany he wrote detailing his West Village neighbor's sins. Today, we learn he once commissioned an ice sculpture of his Corgi, Hershey.
Dr. Chynn ("The only laser surgeon in NYC who is a certified Genius.*") loves his dog as much as he hates the brokedown building at 33 Cornelia St. he rants about in his email. In fact, one reason behind Chynn's years-long cleanup crusade is that the place is full of rats "the size of cats" that he's afraid will eat Hershey. ("And he is the block mascot, by the way, so people would go crazy if anything happened to him.") Dr. Chynn loves his dog so much that this is what he brought to a 2008 Cornelia St. block party, according to a tipster:
(Apparently, it was Hershey's birthday!)
Tonight, Chynn added some context about Hershey's role in the neighborhood in an email. "Many people (not primarily myself) refer to Hershey as the mascot of the block or even the "junior mayor." Oh, and also his war on 33 Cornelia St. and its negligent owner, pharmaceutical heiress and philanthropist Kathe Sackler. He begin his very long email with an apology, of sorts:
Dear Adrian,
I am in Europe giving a lecture to some eye surgeons here on how to perform the more advanced, safer, non-cutting LASEK procedure that they do not perform here yet, since I have performed more LASEKs now than any other eye surgeon in NYC. Therefore, I will not be available until next week for your phone interview.
We made fun of the scary comprehensiveness and shouting capitalization of Chynn's first email. But Chynn asks us to "put yourselves in my shoes for a minute." Chynn argues that if we had "bought a house for over a million dollars," we would not sit idly by while our bad neighbor let kids tag her building. If we walked down posh Cornelia St. in his shoes, writes Chynn, "your gawker posting would probably take a different tack; not 'why is Dr. Chynn blowing a gasket?' but 'why would my neighbor worth hundreds of millions of dollars let her property fall apart...?'" We are indeed curious about why rich Kathe Sackler doesn't give a crap about her expensive property. (Info? email us.) But, still.
Chynn has a heartfelt message for the mysterious Dr. Kathe Sackler, since thus far he has only been able to communicate his complaints through her lawyers:
I have absolutely nothing against you as a person... I admire your family's dedication and generosity to supporting the fine arts throughout the US, as yours is one of the major patrons in this field. However... they say charity begins in the home, by which I think is meant one has as strong an obligation to one's family and neighbors as to the larger community.
(See: The Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Asian art.) And he promises that after she removes the graffiti from her property, he will remove his hot tub from hers with the help of "a half-dozen of my nice neighbors." All-in-all, it was a reasonable email completely free of crazy caps.
But before we give you the impression that Chynn is too reasonable, consider his justification for the intense strain of crazy that ran through his infamous anti-neighbor rant:
The more observant reader would probably figure out that it was indeed my intention to make my diatribe so over-the-top that some on-line media would pick it up, thus forcing Dr. Sackler to listen to her neighbors, and remove the graffiti. Let's see if my prediction comes true. Thanks for your help in this process.
Here is a tip for the future, Dr. Chynn. Nothing good comes of getting your "over-the-top" diatribe picked up by "on-line media". Especially Gawker. Especially when you have an extensive history of acting crazy in front of people. They will start emailing in about your strange craigslist ads. Like one tipster who wrote "OMG, this is the guy who did the craziest Craigslist roommate posting I've ever seen. I did a screengrab of it so I could email it to friends after the post expired, it was THAT crazy." Another tipster actually saved what appears to be one of these ads. (Chynn signed his name.) And, well, it was one of those situations where a female might receive free rent in exchange for being a successful eye surgeon's "personal assistant"—helping with dishes and cooking—someone who is "into yoga or massage or some other stress-reducing thing i could partake in." An ad that reads: " I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A GIRLFRIEND OR SEXUAL FAVORS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Actually, I am looking for a girlfriend, but not for this free rental person to be my girlfriend! :)"
A number of other commenters share the opinion that Dr. Chynn is an excellent eye surgeon, but sort of a strange dude. Commenter skseim once interviewed Dr. Chynn for a "fun" article and "received multiple THREATENING EMAILS INSTRUCTING ME HOW TO WRITE THE STORY from him. Dude must go through ten Caps Locks keys per annum." And Love Parade gets weird: "I've walked past [Chynn's house] and seems real creepy to me. I heard from a friend that there's a lot of suspicious late night activity in and out of the building. Some kind of secret society or something." (Tips: email them!)
We even got an email from Chaunce Hayden, the editor of the terrible Jersey nightlive magazine Steppin Out. Subject: "RE: Dr. Chynn is fucking insane." Hayden says that after he arranged to barter advertising in his magazine for discounted eye surgery, Chynn told him "he wants me to bring 15 people to the surgery because he invited the press and he wanted it to look like a party." Then, he demanded that Hayden "interview him every single week for several weeks" for his magazine. (Though, chances are, Hayden is making stuff up like he always does.
So, everyone learned something tonight. Dr. Chynn learned not to use online media to settle his neighborhood disputes. We learned maybe Dr. Chynn isn't as insane as he appears on email (...or, maybe he is?) And we learned about Hershey! One thing we didn't learn: Who is the enigmatic owner of 33 Cornelia St.? Who is absentee landlord Kathe Sackler, and why can't she use her pharmaceutical money to take care of her property? For Hershey's sake.
(Sackler's representative hasn't responded to our emails. She is the middle woman in this group dedicating Columbia's Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology.) [h/t andyrobertson]