Our Town Downtown May 31, 2012

SAVingS inSiDE:

INSIDE: thE NEw york School’S prESchool p.9

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SAVE $25 MitchEll’S BEVErAgES • COMMUNITY NEWS BELOW 14TH STREET • MAY 31, 2012

SEE PAgE 5

ETAN PATZ CASE SOLVED? Photo by James Kelleher

How the disappearance of a 6-year-old changed Downtown—and the nation P.6

ALSO INSIDE

‘SMASH’ STAR AT HOME ON BROADWAY

MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND THE 30-FOOT BOTTLE OF KETCHUP: PUBLIC ART FUND UNVEILS 10 PIECES IN CITY HALL PARK P.4

Megan Hilty talks about her hit TV show and life in New York City

P.7

SPICE WONDERLAND: WHEN THE CITY HEATS UP, REVEL IN THE BEST “HOT” CUISINE P.12

The Food & Wine Event in The Hamptons Presented By: FARRELL BUILDING COMPANY

Hosted by Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten

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NEIGHBORHOOD CHATTER SPURA SITE GETS 9,000 AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS

Get the latest news and share your opinion online at nypress.com

Last week, Community Board 3’s Committee on Land Use approved a proposal to develop affordable housing in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), five vacant, city-owned lots on the Lower East Side. The site has been undeveloped for nearly 50 years and has been the subject of intense debate in the community for as long.

In 1967, buildings in the area did not meet the acceptable city living standard. Authorities evicted 1,852 families and razed the site in an effort to build new and better low-income housing. The city then backed away from the original plan, and for almost 50 years the community has debated what to do with the properties while the site sits untouched.

The approved proposal will create 900 apartments, with 50 percent of them meeting affordable housing criteria. CB3 has also decided to turn nearly 1 million square feet into commercial space.

“Over the course of the last three years, it has been made abundantly clear that the issue of permanent affordability was one of, if not the, highest priority for this community board and Lower East Side residents,” said Council Member Margaret Chin in a press release.

“I hope that the city’s commitment to permanent affordable housing renews your confidence in the public process,” Chin said after the vote.

SILVER URGES OPENING SCHOOL FIELD TO PUBLIC Last week, in an open letter to Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver asked for the Seward Park High School Field on the Lower East Side to be reopened to the public.

The DOE only recently restricted access for nonstudents to the four handball courts, three tennis courts, six basketball hoops and track. In the letter, Silver reminded Walcott that 10 years ago, he helped the school win a “Take the Field” grant. Silver noted the grant “provided for extensive renovations, turning it into a thriving recreational space that served our area so well.” Silver said local communities are suffering from a lack of open spaces that encourage physical exercise and prevent childhood obesity.

“We should be providing more opportunities for our children to engage in safe, healthy physical activities, not shutting down public access to our parks,” Silver said.

CRABS IN CHINATOWN Wednesday morning, during rush hour, numerous crabs escaped from a bucket that fell on the road during a delivery to a

local Chinatown market. Bystanders, shop workers and a deliveryman all blocked traffic on Lower Eldridge Street trying to catch the scurrying shellfish.

Bowery Boogie, the Lower East Side website, reported that about a dozen people armed with plastic bags gathered the crabs on the street. Whether any of these crabs made it to the dinner table or a store shelf remains unknown.

CHANGES TO METROCARDS This month, the MTA has increased the timeframe in which an unlimited MetroCard can be swiped at the same turnstile in an effort to combat fraud.

Scammers are currently making a profit by buying monthly subway cards for $104 and then selling a single swipe for less than $2.50, the price of a single ride pass. Scammers often jam vending machines, which prevents passengers from purchasing their own tickets. The MTA claims these practices are costing millions of dollars each year.

The Daily News reported that the MTA has changed turnstiles at 28 stations where they found fraud to be especially high. By increasing the time between swipes from 18 minutes to up to 60 minutes, the MTA hopes scammers will have to buy extra MetroCards to rotate during waiting times.

With the longer waiting periods, it will be

harder for scammers to make a profit.

ANONYMOUS ONLINE POSTING PROPOSAL Last week, the New York State Assembly and State Senate proposed a bill that would require all New York-based websites to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name and home address are accurate.”

State Sen. Thomas O’Mara, who is sponsoring the bill, said the legislation would help prevent cyberbullying. According to a National Crime Prevention Council survey, about 40 percent of teenagers have experienced some form of cyberbullying.

Assemblyman Jim Conte, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in an online statement that if passed, the bill would also prevent anonymous users from criticizing local businesses.

“The legislation will help cut down on the types of mean-spirited and baseless political attacks that add nothing to the real debate and merely seek to falsely tarnish the opponent’s reputation by using anonymity on the Web,” Conte said.

The legislation would require website administrators to remove any anonymous comments from their pages upon request. Users would not have to reveal their identity when making a complaint for removal.

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Presented By:

Hosted By Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten

Nicole Miller 2012 Ambassador of “TASTE”

The Food & Wine Event in The Hamptons Hosted by Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten

Honoring Gerry Hayden (North Fork Table & Inn), 2012 “Two Forks Outstanding Achievement Award” Music provided by DJ PHRESH!

Saturday July 14 th, 2012 Sayre Park

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May 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 3

DOWNTOWN SOCIAL

Public Art Fund Strikes Again Giant ketchup bottle pops up in City Hall Park

By Laurent Berstecher If you were passing by City Hall Park last Wednesday, you may have witnessed Mayor Michael Bloomberg casually eating popcorn in front of a 30-foot-tall ketchup bottle. Rest assured, your tap water has not been contaminated. Bloomberg was simply there to give the inaugural speech for Common Ground, the Public Art Fund’s newest exhibition.

Centered around the themes of public space and monuments, the exhibition features the works of 10 international artists and can be found in City Hall Park until Nov. 30.

In his brief speech, Mayor Bloomberg commented on “Daddies Ketchup,” Paul McCarthy’s 30-foot-tall sculpture, hoping that such works of art would “make us think and encourage us to laugh.”

On a slightly more serious note, curator Nicholas Baume said the exhibition was “an homage to the power and potential of the spaces we share, our common ground.”

Sunday June 3, 11am - 4pm 57th - 74th Streets, 5th Ave, NYC Rain or shine

Photos by RyAN MCCUNE/ PAtRiCkMCMUllAN.CoM

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The choir

SPEND THE DAY WITH A MILLION GOOD FRIENDS Don’t miss the 2012 Celebrate Israel Parade, the world’s largest public gathering in celebration of Israel, commemorating the 64th anniversary of the country’s founding, featuring floats, bands, marchers, dancers, performers and more.

Watch the live telecast on Fox’s My 9 or on the parade website starting at noon.

A project of:

A special thanks to our sponsors:

Join the conversation

Facebook: Celebrate Israel Twitter: @celebrateisrael #TogetheronFifth

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NEWS

Etan Patz Case Solved?

After a NJ man is formally charged with ’79 murder of Soho boy, residents reflect on how a disappearance changed a neighborhood

By Alan Krawitz It was a fateful day on May 25, 1979, when 6-year old Etan Patz attempted a first-time walk on his own to his school bus stop at the corner of Prince Street and West Broadway. It would be the last time anyone would ever see the boy again.

But now, 33 years later, amid headlines from across the city and the nation, NYPD officials have expressed confidence that a New Jersey man, a former Soho bodega stock boy, is the person eThAn PATZ who abducted the 6-year-old on his way to school. He has now been officially charged with seconddegree murder in the decades-old case, Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., confessed to NYPD detectives last week that he abducted, strangled and discarded Patz’s body in the trash near a bodega at 448 West Broadway, where Hernandez had worked and Patz had stopped to buy a soda on his way to school.

Hernandez reportedly told police he had never seen the boy before and had decided to abduct him because of an “urge to kill,” according to a law enforcement source quoted in the New York Post.

Despite a lack of any physical evidence and little hope of recovering Patz’s body,

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told the press last Thursday, “We believe this is the individual responsible for the crime.”

A lawyer for Hernandez has said that he suffers from mental illness, including delusions and hallucinations.

Hernandez was identified as a suspect in the past month by a member of his family, reported to be his brother-in-law, Jose Lopez, following the news that NYPD and FBI investigators had been digging up a basement on Prince Street where yet another suspect, handyman Othniel Miller, had kept a woodshop. That search did not yield any evidence.

Before last month’s renewed interest in the case, police officials believed a convicted and incarcerated pedophile named Jose Ramos was responsible for killing Patz.

Ramos had known one of Patz’s former babysitters, and circumstantial evidence against Ramos was strong enough that in a 2004 case, he was held civilly liable for the boy’s death. Ramos has continued to deny any involvement in Patz’s disappearance.

From both a local and national perspective, however, the impact of the Patz case has been undeniable.

“Today…law enforcement is responding more swiftly and effectively than ever before: We have mobilized the eyes and ears of the public to help in the search for missing children through the use of technology and new tools like the Amber Alert; parents are more alert and aware; and the result is that more missing children come

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NEWS

Your doctor spent 5 minutes?

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If Cab Fares Increase, Will Drivers Pay More, Too?

By Jon Lentz The Bloomberg administration is looking to raise fares for yellow cabs, but Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky last week declined to say whether the city would also consider a proposal to raise how much taxi fleets can charge drivers.

“We’re going to have a public hearing May 31,” Yassky told City & State before a City Council budget hearing. “It’s the same question we’ve been answering all day long.”

The city supports a fare increase, but it was reported last week that it is reluctant to also raise the so-called lease caps, the amount that taxi fleets charge cabbies to use their vehicles.

Yassky last week declined to discuss the city’s stance on the lease caps, saying only that the commission will process the two petitions that have been submitted for a fare increase and develop a proposal for the commission’s nine-member body to consider and adopt.

One petition, from the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance, would only raise fares, which would benefit drivers. The other petition, from the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, would raise fares and lease caps, which would lessen or eliminate the benefit from the fare increase to drivers.

This article previously appeared on the City & State website. To read more from City & State, visit www.cityandstateny.com.

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home safely today than at any time in American history,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In addition, Allen said, an important change came about in 1982, when Congress passed the Missing Children’s Act, making it possible to enter information about missing children into the FBI’s National Crime Computer.

He added that the renewed investigation into the Patz case has helped shine the spotlight back on missing children.

“We have seen a huge increase in interest and calls—but I think the most positive and important result is that we are hearing from many parents of long-term missing children.

It has given them hope…When NYPD and the FBI started digging up that basement last month and then made an arrest this week, it sent a loud, clear message to searching parents and to law enforcement everywhere that these cases are never closed until we either find the child or learn with certainty what happened to the child,” Allen said.

Janet Hayes, a local political leader and longtime village resident who was living on the Upper East Side at the time of Patz’s disappearance, recalled that everyone in the city was aware of the case.

“It was an event that did affect the whole city, no matter where you lived,” Hayes said.

“We read about crimes all the time, but a 6-year-old boy abducted on his way to school from a safe neighborhood was not supposed to happen. I still remember his face on the milk carton. People talked about it for a long time.”

Sean Sweeney, director of the SoHo Alliance and a neighborhood resident for more than 30 years, recalled the neighborhood

A camerawoman outside of Etan Patz’s family’s residence on Prince St. this week.

Photo by James Kelleher

back then as being much more quiet, with almost no tourists.

“The area was very quiet; you only had factory workers in the area. Kids were definitely able to walk to school and be safe,” Sweeney said.

He said he too remembered the posters of Patz that dotted the neighborhood after his disappearance, and recalled police knocking on his door about a week after Memorial Day. “They knocked on my door and I was busy—I couldn’t talk to them,” he recalled. “They didn’t make it sound urgent, it seemed routine to me.”

But with the recent confession and arrest of Hernandez, Sweeney expressed surprise.

“I was shocked when I heard the reports,” he said. “I remember that bodega where he worked. It always seemed very dark and dirty, like there was something not right there.”

NY Press.co m

A STAR

‘Smashing’

Meet Megan Hilty

T

By Angela Barbuti

he character Ivy Lynn on Smash, NBC’s new musical drama series, wants to be a star. Megan Hilty, the actress who plays her, already is. Having made her debut in Wicked a decade ago, the 31-year-old has also starred in 9 to 5 and just wrapped a role as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at City Center.

Now, while recording her first solo CD, the Broadway luminary can be found in her Upper West Side neighborhood talking with fans. They are known to stop her on the street by yelling out one word, “Smash.”

When did you first grace Broadway?

I was just out of college and got the standby for Glinda in Wicked. I ended up making my Broadway debut standing in a bubble opposite Idina Menzel, which was amazing. I had just graduated college, so I must have been 23.

Would you consider Wicked your big break?

Oh, absolutely. I owe everything to that show and Joe Mantello [the director]. I spent four and a half years of my life in it. It was an amazing platform, both in New York and L.A. What is a typical day like on the set of Smash?

It’s long, but really fun—especially for me and Kat [McPhee], When we’re not shooting, we’re in the recording studio, learning choreography or at costume fittings. It’s such a great group of people, so there’s a lot of laughter on set. We’re always goofing around.

Are there similarities between Ivy and yourself?

I would say the biggest is our ambition.

I think Ivy’s willing to go a little farther [laughs] and sacrifice more to make her dreams come true. I think one really relatable thing about Ivy is that everyone

NYPre ss.com

knows what it’s like to be stuck in their jobs, dying to do anything to take that next step, and feel like people don’t see their full potential. I don’t believe you have to be a theater person to know that; I think that’s pretty universal.

Bernadette Peters plays your mother on the show. Is it true she is the only person you ever wrote a fan letter to?

It’s so true! I knew I was going to meet her when I performed for her at a gala while I was in college. I needed her to know how important she is to my career and life, so I wrote this big letter and handed it to her. There was no return address; I didn’t want her to do anything.

She was nice when I told her about it; she pretended to remember it [laughs].

You have said you are not a great dancer. How do you fake it on television?

I would say that I move well, but the rest is Josh Bergasse. He’s an incredible choreographer and knows how to play to people’s strengths and make it look like we know what we’re doing—or at least me. Everybody else really does know what they’re doing!

Can you give us some hints about the next season?

Not really, because I don’t know of anything that’s actually been cleared to be written. I’m hoping that Ivy gets it together a little bit and gets to have something that she can really celebrate and not feel totally threatened and insecure about.

And maybe a really cool boyfriend, who actually treats her nicely.

Were you surprised to learn that Ivy sleeps with her rival’s boyfriend?

That was one of the moments where my jaw hit the floor! I couldn’t believe that I didn’t see it coming, that ultimate betrayal. It was definitely one of the juicier moments of the season.

Describe the CD you are recording.

[It’s] all songs from the movies, so they’re recognizable, with new arrangements. Hopefully it will be out early next year.

Photo by Albert Michael/startraksphoto.com

You said that people notice you more now…

It’s great that fans are excited about the show, and I love talking about it with people. They have very strong opinions and have no problem coming right up and telling me! Sometimes they just scream “Smash” at me. I’m not quite sure what to do with that [laughs].

In your opinion, what is the best show on Broadway at the moment?

It’s a tie between Peter and the Starcatcher and Venus in Fur. What role would you like to play on Broadway?

That’s another tie: Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and the Witch in Into the Woods.

How would you describe Broadway in one word?

Magical.

You recently tweeted that you dyed your hair blond. Are you a natural blonde?

Oh yeah, just not as blond as I have it now [laughs].

What advice would you give a young person trying to make it as an actor in New York City?

If you really want to be an actor, you have to figure out why. Ask yourself why your heart’s in it, because if it’s not in it for the right reasons, this town will eat you up.

There’s a huge misconception that this job is glamorous, and it’s anything but. Even when you think you have the greatest job in the world, it could end tomorrow. And be nice. Not only is it nice to be nice, but you don’t want to burn any bridges. You never know if the person’s who’s getting you coffee one day could be your boss the next.

For more information on Hilty, visit www. meganhiltyonline.com.

M AY 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 7

THE 7-DAY PLAN

BEST PICK

FREE Housing Works Open Air Street Fair [6/3]

Housing Works Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby St. (betw. Prince & E. Houston Sts.), shop.housingworks.org; 10 a.m.

This all-day festival brought to you by Housing Works promises $1 books, music and more in addition to designer duds on sale from their thrift shops. The fest also includes great food and live music. Feel good about shopping, as it benefits HIV/AIDS inflicted individuals.

Visit nypress.com for the latest updates on local events.

Submissions can be sent to otdowntown@manhattanmedia.com.

THURSDAY

CITY GRIT presents: Chef Ty-Lör Boring

CITY GRIT, 38 Prince St. (betw. Mulberry & Mott Sts.), citygritnyc.com; 7:30 p.m., $95.

As part of CITY GRIT’s communal dinner series, Top Chef Texas contestant Ty-Lör Boring fuses the tastes of Kansas City BBQ and Asian street food. The multicourse menu features some of the dishes Boring is developing for his upcoming NYC Asian BBQ eatery—highlights include smoked duck confit wings with pickled cucumber and black-cardamom and braised pork ribs on toast with pickled vegetables.

31 FRIDAY

01 02 SATURDAY

❮ FREE Canyon Candy

Clocktower Gallery, 108 Leonard St., 13th Fl. (betw. Broadway & Lafayette Sts.), artonair.org; 12 p.m.

Canyon Candy is a site-specific installation and immersive soundscape bringing to life a Western-themed music video collaboration between filmmaker Mike Anderson and the band Javelin. Spaghetti westerns, cowboy fashion and the sights and sounds of the Wild West inspired Javelin to create a themed song suite released on 7-inch vinyl. Anderson transports the viewer to the set of the film through a sprawling installation as they make their way to a saloon-type theatre to watch the film.

Goliath

The Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St. (at Ave. B), poetictheater.com; $18.

Goliath, written by Takeo Rivera, is a visionary heartbreaking tale of one young man’s Iraq War story as he travels from home to the front and back again. Goliath provides a way to look deeper into what we do in times of war, what behavior become excusable and what it means to love when violence is part of the norm.

SUNDAY

WEDNESDAY

Whitehall Ferry Terminal, 4 South St. (at Broad St.), lachugar.org; 1 p.m.

As part of the River to River Festival, luciana achugar explores the relationship between aesthetics and ideology through contemporary and experimental dance and visuals. Inside the Manhattan terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, the Brooklynbased choreographer restages her FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM for the public.

Washington Square Park, 5th Ave. betw. MacDougal St. & University Pl., worldsciencefestival.com; 10 a.m.

The Science Street Fair returns to Washington Square Park with another action-packed day of interactive exhibits, experiments, games and shows for the whole family. Children and adults can participate in a telepathy lab and control a computer by thought, learn the science trick to shooting perfect free-throws with NBA stars, create their own fragrances at the Smell Lab, ride a square-wheeled tricycle and much more!

MONDAY

05 06

❯

FREE Ultimate Science Street Fair

03 04 TUESDAY

FREE Feel…Form

❮ Trafficked

45 Bleecker Street Theatre, 45 Bleecker St. (at Mulberry St.), planetconnections.org; 4 p.m., $18 Project Girl Performance Collective debuts Trafficked, a story of sex slavery and child exploitation through the eyes of 15 young women, as part of the fourth annual Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. In a performance constructed from interviews, research and articles, the cast puts a name and face to the billion-dollar sex industry each year.

FREE Dark Water

Otto’s Shrunken Head, 538 E. 14th St. (betw. Aves. A & B), ottos shrunkenhead.com; 10 p.m.

This weekly party has Father Vincent as host and DJ Spaz spinning all things dark: EBM, goth, industrial, new wave, dark wave, hardcore, punk, ska, ’80s and more. In true Otto’s fashion, there will be live music in addition to the playlists.

The Harder They Come

IFC Center, 323 6th Ave. (at W. 3rd St.), ifccenter.com.

Follow reggae legend Jimmy Cliff as he portrays a rural musician trying to make it in the big cities of Jamaica. Watch as Jimmy is pushed to desperate acts by shady record producers and corrupt cops and finally achieves notoriety—as a murderous outlaw. This rerelease of the 1972 film celebrates the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence.

8 • O UR TOWN DOWNTOWN • M AY 3 1, 2 012

FREE DayLife

Orchard St. betw. Delancey & Houston Sts., lowereastsideny.com; 12 p.m.

The festival highlights all of the wonderful cultural contributions that the LES brings to the daytime, it offers far more than your average street festival fare and will include elements such as ping-pong, a skateboard ramp, DJ lessons, picnic tables and urban croquet.

Bindlestiff Open Stage Variety Hour

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St. (betw. Delancey & Rivington Sts.), dixonplace.org; 8 p.m., donations accepted.

This show features a rotating lineup of aerial artists, wire walkers, sword swallowers, kung fu juggling, trained rats, stripping clowns and living cartoons.

FREE Adult Education: Unmasking the Cliché

Housing Works Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby St. (betw. Prince & E. Houston Sts.), housingworks.org; 7 p.m.

Adult Education is a monthly lecture devoted to making useless knowledge less useless.

This month, Ruben Bolling explains how he uses his Super-Fun-Pak Comix feature to view life, love, art, robots and the universe.

❮

The Cribs

Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl. (at E. 15 St.), irvingplaza.com; 7 p.m., $20.

The British indie rock trio comes stateside for a show at Irving Plaza in support of their latest album, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull. Returning to their original three-piece status after the departure of ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, the Jarman brothers seamlessly meld new wave hooks with an alt-rock edge.

NY Press.co m

EYE ON AUCTIONS

By Caroline Birenbaum

Edited by Armond White

There’s much to engage the discerning eye at upcoming auction previews.

Swann’s sale of Maps, Atlases, Natural History and Historical Prints June 7 features desirable American maps, including the first printed sea chart of New England and the New Netherlands, Florence, 1647, and a miniature ivory globe that opens to a sundial.

Highlights of American Art on the morning of June 14 include an oil painting of Provincetown by Blanche Lazell, best known for white-line woodcuts, and “Carome,” an abstract oil painting by Mavis Pusey. The afternoon session of Contemporary Art offers works on paper by well-known American and international artists, plus surprises such as two recent paintings by Harland Miller.

Swann, June 7, 1:30 p.m. Previews June 2, June 4-6. June 14, 10:30 a.m. & 1:30 p.m.

Previews June 9, June 11-13. www.swanngalleries.com.

New York’s Review of Culture • CityArtsNYC.com

The New York School’s Preschool

Bonhams heads to Greenwich, Conn., June 3 for Concours d’Elegance, a sale of Automobilia, including printed matter and mascots, followed by Collectors’ Motorcars dating from the first to the ninth decade of the 20th century.

In New York, their June 12 auction of 20thCentury Decorative Arts includes a wealth of glass, from splendid Tiffany lamps to vessels by Chihuly.

Bonhams, June 3 at 9:30 a.m. & 12:30 p.m.

Previews June 2. June 12 at 10 a.m. Previews June 9-11. www.bonhams.com.

When america meT modernism

By John Goodrich

I

f the New York School marked the ascendancy of some uniquely American traits—a physical frankness, a zeal for open spaces and untamed possibilities, a practicality of expression—what, then, characterized the preceding decades of American art? The 40 paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper in Gerald Peters Gallery’s Defining Modern provide some intriguing clues.

Dating mostly to the first four decades of the 20th century, they reflect a broad mix of cutting-edge European trends and home-brewed realism.

A number of works show a keen enthusiasm for the French School. Max Weber’s cubist figure painting from 1912 suggests a lyrical, gentler version of Picasso, while the open, broad contours of his two watercolor landscapes (1911 and ca. 1912) recall Cézanne. Gaston Lachaise’s bronze portrait of Alfred Stieglitz from 1928 shows a ragged naturalism, but two sculptures of nudes (1919 and 1924) by the Paris-trained sculptor ebb and swell with expressionistic energy.

Sounding the opening notes of abstract expressionism, Arshile Gorky’s monochromatic painting from 1945 plumbs Picasso’s urgent side, catching fragments of a horse and figures with whiplash lines.

Wary of modernism, other artists devote themselves to faithful recordings of the American heartland. Regionalist painter Grant Wood imparts a rich, moody light to rolling hills in a charcoal and pastel drawing from 1934. Though urban in NYPre ss.com

Christie’s sale of 20th-Century Decorative Art on June 14 opens with seven magnificent Tiffany lamps that adorned the San Francisco bars operated by Norman Jay Hobday, aka Henry Africa. A large fossil marble table by Isamu Noguchi, commissioned in 1948 for a Chappaqua home, is the star item among a strong selection of furniture, sculpture and jewelry.

Christie’s, June 14 at 10 a.m. Previews June 9-13. www.christies.com.

Preston Dickinson, “The Absinthe Drinker,” ca. 1921. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10.5 x 11.5 in.

temperament, Reginald Marsh’s slightly overcharged rendering of a striptease from 1938 feels closer to American traditions of caricature than to contemporary European painting trends; his large fresco of a steam engine (1934) captures pistons, wheels and boiler with meticulous precision.

Among several photographs, two by Stieglitz of nude torsos (dated 1918 and 1918-19) possess a straightforward sensuality transcending time and place; they could have been produced yesterday. One of the exhibition’s surprises is the work produced by his model for these photographs, Georgia O’Keeffe, whose tiny monotype of a woman painting (ca. 190708) stands out for its exquisitely colorful atmosphere. Dated ca. 1925, a small, early painting by Thomas Hart Benton startles,

too, for its vitality of color, almost fauvist in intensity and clarity.

Works by Marin, Hartley, Archipenko and Demuth round out this elegant show. But the biggest revelation may be Marguerite Zorach’s sparkling watercolor from 1913.

In motif and style, it somewhat resembles Matisse’s iconic “Joy of Life,” painted just a few years before. Zorach, however, suffuses her arcadian scene with an original and slightly mystical air. Accompanied by delicate, stylized butterflies and a lone dragonfly, her figures lounge through a deftly layered space, as airy and sensuously flat as a Persian miniature.

Defining Modern Through June 8, Gerald Peters Gallery, 24 E. 78th St., 212-628-9760, gpgallery.com.

Phillips de Pury showcases furniture, lighting and pottery dating from the 1930s to the present in a Design sale on June 15 that features a glamorous bedroom suite of amboyna veneer and other materials by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, circa 1925, and a bronze “London Papardelle” chair by Ron Arad, circa 1992.

Phillips de Pury, June 15 at 11 a.m. Previews June 6-14. www.phillipsdepury.com.

Out of Town In addition to works by French, American and Italian designers such as Perriand, Prouvé, Nakashima and Ponti, Wright’s June 7 auction of Important Design includes a section of Brazilian designs, concluding with an early piece of green architecture, the Demountable House, José Zanine Caldas’s circa 1980 pre-fab structure built of reclaimed and salvaged ipe wood. The June 9 sale consists of the gorgeous Frank Toskan Collection of Important Italian Glass.

Wright, Chicago, June 7 at 1 p.m. Previews May 31-June 6. June 9 at 1 p.m. Previews May 31-June 8. www.wright20.com.

May 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 9

CITYARTS CLASSICAL

At the Crossroads The musical language of The Balkans

By Judy Gelman Myers

S

ince the ’90s, horrendous images of war have dominated our perception of the Balkan Peninsula. To lay these images to rest, two European foundations engaged the universal healing power of music in “The Balkans—Crossroads of Civilizations,” an extravaganza of suites, sonatas and songs curated to underscore the cultural similarities throughout the Balkan nations. Her Royal Highness the princess of Bulgaria, as well as U.N. ambassadors and consuls general from Albania, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey attended the event at Carnegie Hall on May 21.

Though spoken languages abound on the peninsula, the Balkan nations share a common musical language, characterized

by Oriental sonorities, irregular rhythms like 7/8 or 5/16 and the rich harmonies brought to America by Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. At the same time, similari-

ties are also found in the coexistence of various musical trends, so that Balkan classical music halls comfortably offer atonal violin suites side by side with folk tunes.

In that spirit, “Crossroads of Civilizations” proffered a broad swath of styles, from the 12-tone Petite Suite No. 2 for Violin and Piano by Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas to an Albanian love song achingly drawn by cellist Rubin Kodheli, himself a composer of film music (Precious). The most emblematic work of the region—and the best received—were two excerpts from Petko Staynov’s Thracian Dances.

In 1933, Staynov co-founded the Union of Bulgarian Composers, whose aim was to encourage composers to recreate traditional music in artistic forms.

With its halting 7/8 rhythm and buoyant melodies, Thracian Dances epitomizes the classical reiteration of folk material.

Expanding on that idea, Turkish composer Fazil Say, a Balkan Satie, composed Sonata, Op. 7, whose unearthly harmonies launch us into space only to be grounded by the thumping of a prepared piano suggesting the timbre of traditional instruments.

Fazil Say

CLASSICAL CITYARTS

Personality Plus PianisTs Pires and zacharias Play concerTos in Pairs

By Jay Nordlinger

T

wo orchestras came to town, each bringing a pianist. The first orchestra to appear was from just down the road, Philadelphia. They played in Carnegie Hall with their chief conductor, Charles Dutoit. And their pianist was Maria João Pires, from Portugal.

She is very well-known from recordings, but not so well-known from personal appearances, at least here in New York. She has a big reputation for Chopin, and, in fact, played Chopin’s Concerto No. 2 in F minor.

In the first movement, she was competent—but also stiff, workmanlike. The music lacked its fluid nature. The closing rondo was much the same—competent, acceptable, but without flair. A wet noodle.

So, how did Pires acquire her big reputation? She gave the answer in the middle movement, Larghetto, which was a thing of beauty: graceful, sensitive and altogether musical. Chopin himself would have smiled.

Three nights later, an orchestra from

Bavaria, the Bamberg Symphony, played in Avery Fisher Hall. They were led by their longtime chief, Jonathan Nott, an Englishman. And their pianist was Christian Zacharias, a German. He is a pianist who is capable of perfection, no less. Other nights, he is commendable all the same.

This was one of those nights. Zacharias played Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G major. Its opening chord is hard to get right: You have to play all the notes together, with the top note, B, having prominence. Zacharias got it exactly right.

In the first movement at large, he had a few slips, but nothing major. His playing tended to be dry. Sometimes a bigger, fatter sound was desirable. But Zacharias obviously understood the logic of the music, and he was no-nonsense without being cold.

He is a conductor too, and, at the keyboard, he could not quite resist the urge to conduct the orchestra. He was champing at the bit to do so. Did this bother the actual conductor, on the podium? Ask Nott.

The second movement, that sublime creation, was matter-of-fact—very much so. Zacharias could have been a little freer.

And the rondo could have been sprightlier and more graceful. But, again, you will want

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Maria João Pires

to hear Zacharias on any night, no matter what.

Incidentally, his concert clothes are

those austere black pajamas, the modern uniform. It seems to suit the clinical side of his personality.

NY Press.co m

CITYARTS GALLeRIeS

Happy Lives, Steel Lifes alice neel’s rich dimension

ing and close. Their bodies, side by side, flow into each other. Their wrinkles and tousled hair hint at a private world from which they look out at us.

By Kate Prengel “Sherry Speeth” is a totally different character. Nervous and taut, he sits lice Neel’s subjects stare calmly on the edge of his chair, bursting with out from the canvas. They’re in energy. Neel takes the best of him, makthe middle of a conversation ing a little man in a little chair into a or they’re in the middle of just dynamo. Her colors do a lot of the work being themselves—whatever it is, Neel’s here; red accents at his ears and hands late paintings, on exhibit now at the David mark him for action. And, as so often, Zwirner gallery, are richly intimate. Even the still lifes here show signs of an inner life, Neel uses gentle caricature—elongated fingers, sharp knees, oversized glasses—as shorthand to express personality.

“Kevin and Andy,” a fatherand-baby portrait, may be one of the oddest pieces in this show. Kevin and Andy look incredibly awkward and unfinished.

The baby’s teeth are ludicrous, taking over half his face; his father’s arm, holding him, hangs out over empty space, and the chair they sit in is just a few dark lines on the plain white canvas. But then, these two people are unmistakably happy—and isn’t this what having a baby does, makes the whole world look unfinished and new?

Neel’s still lifes also bristle with personality, especially “Roses.” The Alice Neel, “Sherry Speeth,” 1964. Oil on canvas, 42 x 28 inches. flowers’ strong, © The Estate of Alice Neel sinewy stems, their bright simple faces and their tangle and the people, awkward smiles and all, are of green leaves are all full of life. They sit warm and real. in a lopsided vase on a messy, misshapen I spent a long time looking at “Geoftable. Everything in the painting is flat; frey Hendricks and Brian,” a portrait of it’s the awkwardness, the loose lines, that a couple, one of the first pieces in the gives it all a little dimension. The same exhibit. The subjects are on record as could be said for all the rest of Neel’s grumbling about Neel’s manners—apparpaintings. ently she hardly said a word to them over the long posing sessions. Still, they almost Alice Neel: Late Portraits and Still Lifes glow on the canvas. Their skin is blotchy, Through June 23, David Zwirner, 533 W. their bodies are lumpy and their clothes 19th St., 212-727-2070, davidzwirner.com. are frumpy, but they look patient and lov-

New Site.

New Content.

Newly relevant.

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HIGHEST PRICES PAID

ANTIQUES WANTED Paintings, Jewelry, Silver, Porcelain, Lighting, Furniture, Oriental Rugs, Tapestries etc.

WE ALSO BUY ENTIRE ESTATES

212-751-0009 Fighting to make Lower Manhattan the greatest place to live, work, and raise a family.

Assemblyman Shelly Silver If you need assistance, please contact my office at (212) 312-1420 or email silver@ assembly.state.ny.us.

M ay 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 1 1

Summer, When a Young Man’s Fancy Turns to Thoughts of...Spice?

By Regan Hofmann I don’t know if you noticed, but it got real hot real fast last week, catapulting the city from genuine springtime directly into the gaping maw of summertime.

It’s a well-worn trope that when the going gets hot, the hot eat spicy foods. It’s wellworn, sure, but if you’re like 98 percent of the Western world, it’s also totally unthinkable.

Spicy foods are hot, right? And when you yourself are hot (a totally flawed linguistic leap of logic—we’ll get to that), the best way to counteract it is with cold things, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no. The primary problem is with that word, “hot.” Spicy foods aren’t actually warmer than others, they simply make you sweat, for a complex set of chemical reasons that have to do with pain receptors and neural trickery.

In the Western cultural repertory of foods, there is no indigenous source of serious spice, so we never evolved a language for dealing with it. The first time someone brought Christopher Columbus a jalapeño, he popped it whole, started sweating like a fiend and determined that witches had made him “hot,” and it stuck.* (*This scenario may not be historically accurate.)

Chile peppers have helped people in warmer climes survive summers since air condi-

tioning was a palm frond fan and ice in your drink was a dream. Now that global warming is evening the score and energy costs have us thinking twice about letting the climate control run nonstop for the next three months, it’s a good time to revisit their techniques and, as a wise man once said, give spice a chance.

Thai food may be the second most bastardized food in this city, trailing only behind Chinese in white-guy-ification. Think of all the ketchupy Pad Thai you’ve been suckered into; the sickly sweet Tom Kha Gai that tastes more of Hawaiian Tropic than tropical climes.

Thankfully Thai, like Chinese, is experiencing a revival that is placing an emphasis on regional differences—and like Chinese, you finally no longer have to go out to Queens to find chefs doing their thing.

At Zabb Elee (75 2nd Ave., betw. 4th & 5th Sts., zabbelee.com), the chefs specialize in the notoriously chile-laden cuisine of Isaan, the northeastern region of the country. Some dishes, like Som Tum Thai, green papaya salad, are recognizable in name, but their execution is miles beyond that of your corner takeout. Others, like Gang Som, a sour, coconut milk-less curry, and Khai Jiaw Kratiem Dong, omelet with pickled garlic, are full of flavors you’ve never experienced.

When you order, you will be asked about your spice level preference—be prepared to

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be assertive when asking for full strength, as every meal there sees at least one bro trying to impress his pals who ends up gasping for water and white rice.

It’s a balanced heat, though; the kind that was designed to get you sweating happily through the summer night.

Miracle of miracles, there is now a surfeit of seriously spicy Sichuan restaurants in New York City. One of the best, and the most reliably spice-happy, is Szechuan Gourmet (21 W. 39th St., betw. 5th Duck larb at Zabb Elee. Photo by Garrett Ziegler & 6th Aves., szechuan-gourmet.

Not enough? Take the phaal challenge at Brick com). Sichuan food uses fierce dried chiles and Lane Curry House (235 E. 53rd St., betw. 2nd & Sichuan peppercorn, which will numb you 3rd Aves., or 308 E. 6th St., betw. 1st & 2nd Aves., faster than a dentist’s novocaine, to achieve ma bricklanecurryhouse.com). A true bro dare for la, the signature spicy and numbing taste. The the guys at Zabb Elee who managed to make it combination of the two means you’re never sufthrough and want their photos in a Hall (sorry, fering for the sake of it.

P’hall) of Fame. By all reports a British invention, For a real summertime treat, get the double the so-called “spiciest curry on earth” uses 10 or whammy of heat and cool with cold dishes more ground chiles per serving. like ox tongue and tripe doused in ma laFinish it, and you get a certificate of honor heavy chile oil, ground peanuts and cilantro, and a free beer, while your companions cool and the spicy cucumber salad, which is like off the old-fashioned way, with top-notch curtaking a Katz’s deli half-sour and lighting it on ries like Nilgiri Korma, a brightly green South fire in your mouth. You’ll leave flushed and Indian specialty. At least the beer is a guarantingling, with a buzzing mouth that makes teed cooler. even drinking water a sensory delight.

NY Press.co m

CITYARTS FILM

Zombie Mantra from the inside, as a confession of ethnic commonplaces and familial discontent that have become his specialty. Abe is as much an archetype as Gopnik in the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, only Abe’s unhapBy Armond White piness leads to loathing of self, not of his circumstances. n an answer to contemporary culture’s Abe’s first line, “I don’t dance,” is such manic competition for fame, Todd a self-abnegating thesis statement that if Solondz offers Dark Horse, a film about Dark Horse was indeed produced on stage Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old rather than as an independent film, it Jewish man—overweight, living with his would probably receive enormous acclaim, parents, employed in his father’s real estate like Mike Nichols’ current rehash of Death business yet still playing with toys, desperof a Salesman or shows like Other Desert ate to begin his life and enjoy the culture’s Cities and The Lyons. But Solondz’s film empty cheer. does what those plays don’t; he dramaAbe’s not a frontrunner, the sports tizes the spectacle of Abe’s lack of self-consciousness, the moral perspective that contemporary culture drowns out.

Solondz’s subtext elevates Abe’s private condition into a larger social matter. His suffering tribe Jordan Gelber and Donna Murphy in Dark Horse.

(Walken overstresses the father’s misery, while Mia Farrow’s metaphor used by his father (Christopher supplicating mother does not—or maybe Walken). His dim prospects reflect Everyit’s just their bad wigs) is contrasted with man pessimism through a lower middlethe empty cheer of American Idol-type pop class experience that’s more authentic than music that has become our national, anesDeath of a Salesman, yet rarely acknowlthetizing soundtrack. edged. Solondz, almost alone among Gelber’s Abe is an uncanny figure of Jewish-American filmmakers, presents pampered Jewish miserabilism, and Murethnic uniqueness frankly, with unsmiling phy’s Marie is one of those definitive Solondz mockery. His tough, deadpan compassion is more humane than fashionable cynicism. performances: a phantom life ranging from repression to sexual spite (her sullen strut Solondz abhors irony, the sarcastic sympathetically corrects the predatory Mrs. cultural disposition that oppresses all of his Robinson). Their obvious contrast recalls characters. When Abe proposes to suicidal, stage drama rather than cinema, but it’s still withdrawn Miranda (Selma Blair), she asks, piercing.

“You’re not being ironic—like performance Solondz uses an even better, ultra-cineart or something?” matic device when Abe sits alone in a movie Dark Horse continues the narrative experitheater, waiting for a film to begin, and ment of Solondz’s previous film, the almost idly mouths the answers to an on-screen masterly Life During Wartime, where depuzzle: “George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, pressed characters phase in and out of psyBrad Pitt.” This zombie mantra is a daring, chic dream/nightmare states. Abe’s visions brilliant summation, calling out the stars about his father’s sympathetic secretary, of our culture’s contemporary anomie. And Marie (Donna Murphy), suggest a yearning it casually lays waste to Woody Allen’s The so deep and unwittingly compassionate it is Purple Rose of Cairo. almost, Solondz suggests, telepathic.

These episodes play out in a nearly Follow Armond White on Twitter at theatrical flatness, as if Solondz were 3xchair indeed rewriting Death of a Salesman—but

I

NYPre ss.com

Fine Art, Midcentury, and Antique Auction Monday, June 4th at 5:30pm View 400 lots at www.ClarkeNY.com

Pictured (clockwise from left) : Jean Jansem Oil on Canvas, Clock and Ivory Lamp by Caldwell, Zebra Wood Front Midcentury Chest

Clarke Auction ∙ 2372 Boston Post Road ∙ Larchmont, NY 10538 Ph: (914) 833-8336 ∙ Fax: (914) 833-8357 ∙ Email: info@clarkeny.com

www.ClarkeNY.com

Joshua South Photography

Solondz abhorS irony in Dark Horse

Sacred Music in a Sacred Space N.P. Mander Organ Recital Series Presents

Kent Tritle

Organ

Wednesday, June 6, 2012 at 7:30 PM FELIX MENDELSSOHN Sonata in F minor, Op. 65, No. 1

CÉSAR FRANCK Chorale No. 3 in A Minor

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542

VINCENT PERSIGHETTI Shimah B’Koli

NICOLAS DE GRIGNY Recit de Tierce en taille

MAURICE DURUFLÉ Prelude and Fugue on Alain, Op. 7

Tickets $20 General | $15 Students/Seniors THE CHURCH OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA 980 Park Avenue New York, NY 10028

Tickets & information available at www.smssconcerts.org | (212) 288-2520 May 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 1 3

Five Facilities_ManMed 5/15/12 11:06 AM Page 1

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The new 390,000 sq. ft. Fiterman Hall at Borough of Manhattan Community College replaces the one lost on 9/11, with new classrooms, instructional and computer labs, an art gallery and café.

D

4

Bronx Community College’s, 98,000 sq. ft. North Instructional Building and Library, provides classrooms, a library, a café, a two-story commons, study rooms and lounges.

5

CUNY Law School moves to 2 Court Square, an environmentally green building in Long Island City with 260,000 sq. ft. of classrooms, library, law clinic, moot court, an auditorium and offices.

ESIGNED TO INSPIRE INQUIRY AND INNOVATION, five new, state-of-the-art education hubs — part of The City University of New York’s capital program to upgrade and build facilities to meet record

enrollments and 21st-century needs — open their doors this fall. CUNY’s construction program is a job-creating economic engine for New York, responsible for nearly 20 percent of all construction in New York City.

— Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor

1

The New Community College at CUNY, an exciting new college opens in the center of midtown Manhattan at 50 West 40th Street, overlooking Bryant Park. The first entering class will be 300 students.

2

Lehman College’s 69,000 sq. ft.

New Science Facility, Phase I, showcases its strength in plant science teaching and research with high-tech sustainable laboratories, science learning centers and offices.

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Visit www.cuny.edu/admissions for more info.

NY Press.co m

INTeRVIeW CITYARTS

The CityArts Interview Bill Bragin

B

ill Bragin, “curator/presenter” of Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing and Lincoln Center Out of Doors, clued into music’s transcendental effects early on. As a teen on Long Island, friends gathered after school in his record-strewn bedroom to hear his latest vinyl discoveries. Before one track had even finished, Bragin would be setting up the next—“Now you need to listen to this!”

Not much has changed, really, except the size of his playing field—today it’s Lincoln Center-sized audiences that he directs to the world’s most visionary performing artists, often billed together in audacious mash-ups. His commanding musical instincts have only refined and expanded.

That precocious missionary zeal for opening ears and expanding minds is now enabled by his position and wide-ranging contacts gathered over decades of developing and showcasing talent. It began with his very first day of college, when the young music junkie joined the campus radio station and the alternative concert series.

He interned the following summer for Carla Bley and Michael Mattler’s New Music Distribution Services and, while still getting his B.A. in sociology, worked for George Wein’s Festival Productions.

After graduation, a life-changing gig setting up concerts for Summerstage connected him to knowledgeable niche music advisors such as Afropop’s Sean Barlow. Then, Bragin dived into the opportunity provided by the Public Theater at Joe’s Pub, where his artist development and programming of approximately 3,000 shows turned the club into the crossroads for the scattered affiliates of New York City’s most adventurous music scenes. [Elena Oumano] How do you bring in people who normally wouldn’t go to a Joe’s Pub or a Lincoln Center?

It starts with going to people where they are. In college, I’d find a great article about the artist, turn it into a flyer and paste it on the back of every bathroom stall on campus. In the performing arts we call this artist contextualization, preparing the audience for the show, a grassroots form of audience development and social marketing. Now you just send an article to Facebook or post it on a website to let people know, “Here’s an artist whose name you don’t know but NYPre ss.com

ARE YOU THE BEST WRITER OF NONFICTION ON THE EAST END?

I think you’ll be curious about—come because it’s free. Either you’ll like it or you won’t, but at least you’ll be taking a chance.”

These cross-cultural, cross-genre bookings are interesting because they can fall flat on their faces or be really illuminating.

I’m fundamentally a generalist with very broad tastes, so the context I work in is not necessarily about being the definitive presenter in any one style. A lot of the focus is on understanding the different niches of different dynamics. It’s about how and where you communicate to them in terms of the protocol and audience expectations—is it an audience that will want to

Enter the 2012 Dan’s Papers $6,000 Literary Prize for Nonfiction.

For the last 25 years, Dan’s Papers has showcased artists on the cover of the publication. Now Dan’s Papers wants to similarly showcase writers. We believe this is the first literary prize ever offered on the eastern end of Long Island for nonfiction in literature.

Visit Our Website for Official Rules and to Enter

Bill Bragin

dance or come on stage and give money to the performer or sit and be very quiet? Does this relate to anything happening out in the world politically?

It’s important to me that the audiences have a base of those who are familiar with the artist and recognize his or her cultural importance as well as audience members who are encountering not just the artist but that style of music or dance for the first time. There’s that immediate moment of discovery, when your mind is blown because you’ve never heard or seen something like that and there’s interaction between all of the audience—that process of cultural sharing, a sort of pride and eye-opening.

That’s why I wanted to be at Summerstage and why I came to Lincoln Center—those points of intersection are key.

I look at the work I do both from an aesthetic standpoint and also as communitybuilding and how the work will resonate within society. Festivals like Midsummer Night Swing and Lincoln Center Out of Doors have a huge social mission that works in tandem with the artistic mission.

Danshamptons.com/literaryprize Entries must be nonfiction and between 600-1500 words. You may send in memoirs, biography, autobiography, account of a day, opinion, history, profile of a person or institution, essay or humor.

Works must reference eastern Long Island in a meaningful way.

Contest begins March 31 and ends August 1.

First Prize $5,000 • Two Runners Up $500 each.

Winners announced at the John Drew Theater of Guild Hall in East Hampton on Saturday, August 25.

Entry fee is $20.

Schedules for Midsummer Night Swing and Lincoln Center Out of Doors can be found at lincolncenter.org.

May 3 1, 2012 • O UR TOW N D OW NTOW N • 1 5

Alternative Health

a monthly advertising supplement

A Guide to Living in the Now Author offers techniques for reducing stress by staying in the present

By Ashley Welch Whether worrying about the future or rehashing the past, it may always seem difficult to focus on the present.

However, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D, makes the case in his new book, The Now Effect: How This Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life, that living in the moment can lead to a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.

“The ‘now effect’ is those moments of clarity during the day when we connect to what really matters at any given time,” Goldstein said.

Research shows that how people pay attention and what they pay attention to affects how the brain grows. Sensory overload and numerous distractions from what is going on in the present moment allow the brain to go on autopilot, allowing the mind to make decisions automatically.

Goldstein argues that by becoming aware of our thought processes, we have the ability to rewire how we think, stop automatic thoughts and choose to think differently. Life is decided, he said, in these spaces, or “choice points,” where we can decide how to respond to what is going on around us.

“We have the ability to retrain our subconscious mind to be more present to what’s here right now,” he said.

In The Now Effect, Goldstein highlights several benefits of living in the present. These include focusing better at work and at home and opening up to feelings of love, hope, empathy and compassion. It also lends itself to increased emotional intelligence and the ability to relax more effectively in moments of distress. Goldstein offered the following example: “Say you’re walking down the street and in the distance you see an acquaintance. As you walk closer, you smile and wave but he doesn’t look at you and just walks by. If you’re in a good mood, you may think, ‘Oh, he didn’t see me,’ but if you’re anxious or depressed, you may think, ‘Is he mad at me? Did I do something wrong?’ and become insecure.”

Goldstein said that becoming aware of how our moods affect our perception of situations can help us relax and gain control over our emotions so we can alter how we react to what goes on in our lives.

In addition, Goldstein said being present in the here and now can allow for greater connections, both internally and to others, and help us

be more flexible in decision making and responses to people and challenges. Finally, the “now effect” can open us up to what is good in life.

“Our brains are naturally inclined to anxiety and negativity,” Goldstein said. “We can train our minds to focus more on the positive.”

So what keeps us from being able to live in the present?

Goldstein said that our greatest gift as humans may also be our greatest curse.

“The biggest barrier to being in the present is the same thing that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom,” he said. “That’s our ability to think, reflect, formulate plans and exert free will.”

Whether we are anxiously awaiting tomorrow or fixating on what happened a year ago, many people find it hard to live in the moment because they are wondering what could or what would have happened.

“The No. 1 thing that takes us away from the present is playing the ‘what if?’ game,” he said.

In the book, Goldstein offers practical techniques to counter this kind of thinking and bring readers back to the now.

The simplest technique, he said, is to ask the questions “Where am I starting from now? What is my body doing? Where is my mind?”

“Doing that,” said Goldstein, “widens the space between stimulus and response.”

Another method is to use what he calls present nostalgia to connect ourselves to what really matters.

“Project yourself into the future and ask yourself what the more distant you would say you’re missing in this very moment,” he said. “It’s a way of tricking your brain to think with more perspective.”

Goldstein also offers simple breathing exercises, recommending envisioning breathing in to keep calm and breathing out to release burdens.

He also warns of the disconnected culture we live in. Facebook, Twitter and other social media may make us feel we are connected to others, he said, but that is only a surface connection. He recommends focusing on real relationships in the present.

Goldstein provides video demonstrations of these practical techniques accessible via Microsoft Tags throughout the book and embedded videos throughout the e-book.

He emphasized that The Now Effect is not a universal guide; the techniques can be tailored by individuals to what suits them.

“As readers go through the book, I don’t want them to swallow it whole,” he said. “I want them to use the book as a guide and see what works for them. What is most valuable is the person’s experience.”

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I love Lower Manhattan this time of year. I have at least 50 (no exaggeration) different spots along the water where I can sit and watch boats or the sun or children playing. I never get tired of seeking out new vantage points on the Hudson and East rivers because, like my ancestors of long ago, I am drawn to water.

Soon I’ll be bringing to you a project I’ve been working on for several months, a catalog of sorts of all of the open spaces where you can sit, eat a quiet lunch, rest or just people watch in our district. The tableaux from many of these spots are spectacular, particularly the views that encompass the deep blue. Look for this report on our website in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have a few new businesses to report on, including a hip lounge you should visit after the sun sets, a yogurt shop and a café. As usual, if you see any new retailers or spot changes to a longtime establishment, please email me at tre@downtownny.com and I’ll check them out.

Demi Monde

90 Broad St. (betw. Broad & Whitehall Sts.), 212-248-7220, demimondeny.com.

It’s not every day you run into a cocktail lounge that employs Japanese bondage knots in its edgy décor and yet still maintains a feeling of class. The chandelier-lit,

blue velvet-draped Demi Monde (designed

by Warren Red) is the sort of place you want to end up at rather than leave for your ultimate destination.

Co-owner David Blatt, who also just moved to an apartment on Wall Street, said he and partners David Kaplan and Alex Day wanted to create a place for neighborhood residents who are looking for more upscale nightlife—people who don’t want to get a cab at 10 p.m. and head far north.

“We’re recognizing the shift in the neighborhood, which has become a 24-hour place,” he said. “Residents can stay—walk down the block.”

Demi Monde’s chef and the food he is creating weren’t afterthoughts, and that’s what separates this lounge from many others, Blatt said. Groups can reserve a tasting table and enjoy a nine-course tasting paired with cocktails from the elegant and classic to the bold and experimental.

The food, described as new American small plates, includes king crab rolls, tofu skins, a wagyu strip steak, sashimi and oysters.

Or get a bottle of champagne and order caviar service from the tobiko to the golden osetra.

Blatt says the establishment is about revelry and celebration, so sparkling beverages rate high on the menu. Demi Monde batches its own soda, make its own tonic

and uses these mixers to best advantage. I think I’ll try the Whisper Campaign, composed of Calvados, chamomile, chartreuse, lemon and sparkling wine. If you have a favorite you don’t see on the menu, don’t worry; the bartender will know how to make it.

Brooklyn Yogurt Factory and Cravings Catering and Café 17 Trinity Pl. (at Greenwich St.), 212-344-1111.

Though both establishments have the same owner, Harry Ashkenazie, are kosher and are side by side on Trinity Street, neither is a step-child of the other.

They are each unique and bring some much-welcomed variety to this little strip between Broadway and Battery Park City.

Ashkenazie said parents have already come over from the other side of West Street to ask just how late the yogurt shop will stay open.

Brooklyn Yogurt features a self-service bar where customers can mix flavors and dole out as large, or small, a serving they desire. In homage to Brooklyn, Jennifer Giuglianotti, who hails from the same city, has painted the walls with whimsical trees and a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge. The café, which has its own bold, colorful décor, features pizzas, paninis and soups and will have outdoor seating for patrons who want to enjoy their meals in the fresh air.

8 MILLION STORIES

Should Jordan Zakarin use heart disease to get laid?

I

n my younger and more vulnerable years, my cousin gave me a piece of advice I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Dude, use your heart disease to get laid,” he told me; it’s what he would do, and he once had a threesome, so he was an expert in these things.

I was 15 years old and facing my second open-heart surgery, and the suggestion came counter to all that I had known and practiced.

As a short, awkward teen, I was the emo kid in the WASP world of an old-money high school where Darwinism was more than just a lesson in freshman bio class. It was survival of the fittest, and they didn’t need to know why I wasn’t taking gym class.

And so until then, I had kept my aortic stenosis—a narrowed and damaged heart valve—secret, save for a few trustworthy friends. Now I was being told it could lead me to the Holy Grail in the Forbidden City, seemingly real only in legend and fuzzy channels on cable (and on the Internet, if you could guess some passwords).

Still, even with that promise, I couldn’t risk total alienation and I never did carry out my cousin’s advice. Not that it was entirely my choosing—as it rarely is for an awkward 15-year-old.

Off I went to college, jagged, dislocated chest bone tucked safely under hoodie, diving into

what promised to be a booze-soaked four years. Except that medication made me an involuntary straight edge, a dry vessel dropped into uncharted, rocky seas of watered-down beer and weekly wreckage.

My small consolation was the sense of superiority I had over drunk partygoers, offering deadpan conversation and tall, dramatic tales to justify the bottle of Diet Coke that was impossible to hide in the land of knockoff Polish potato poison and Pabst. I was, you see, always “super drunk the night before,” and still hungover 24 hours later. And as easy as it would be to engender sympathy from tipsy college girls, I still kept the ticker under wraps.

On and on that went, sarcasm, self-hatred and secrecy, even through a third surgery at age 23, when Brooklyn bars replaced college house parties.

Chicks dig scars, I’ve been told, but I’m pretty sure they’d prefer the ones that are earned by bravery in battle, not being rolled on a gurney.

Maybe, though, it’s not a zero sum game. Or so recent news has me hoping, anyway.

In a few weeks I’m headed back for some more tune-up work (and at this point, that’s not a metaphor). It’s all rather inconvenient, a betrayal of a recent promise of decades of good health, and I’m frankly annoyed by this latest episode, even if it is relatively minor.

Some doctor is going to knock me out and

then do some bizarre microsurgery that I can only describe as something that the SpiderMan villain Doctor Octopus would have done, if being a mad scientist wasn’t such a lucrative job in the comics world (now you understand my teenage years). There will be lots of tiny, coordinated moving parts that make me wonder if we aren’t all headed toward being cyborgs.

At this point, I understand that those promises of perfect health are the same sort of guarantees you see on TV, before the speed reader runs through the clauses and potential hazards for which they are not responsible and refunds will not be granted. And if it’s going to break, might as well use it first, right?

So that’s where I’m at: open to new things, new ideas and, well, sympathy from the fairer gender. Time to get selfish, right?

Really do something for me for once. I’ve been burdened with this pain for so long, it wouldn’t even be selfish…

No, I can’t do it. I’m too honorable to use a column to call attention to how brave and complicated a guy I am, that I have stared death in the eye and come out on top, again and again, persevering and even thriving and conquering physical malady. Nope. I’ll continue to face the world alone, like a stoic, square-jawed urban cowboy with a pen on the subway tracks, unafraid of what may come hurtling my way.

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