Our Town Downtown - February 22, 2018 by OurTown Downtown

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WEEK OF FEBRUARY VISUAL NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND ◄P.12

22-28 2018

‘DOG-MAN’ MAKES FEW FRIENDS IN CHINATOWN PUBLIC ART Bitter battle over sculpture postpones its installation BY CLAIRE WANG

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried sends out Meatless Monday tips to constituents. Photo: Richard N. Gottfried

EATING SMART WHILE PRACTICING POLITICS HEALTH Some elected officials do eat real food — in varying shades of green BY CAROL ANN RINZLER

The New York Times recently published a piece linking the words “politicians” and “ziti.” It seemed to promise an explanation of the legendary political fondness for Italian cooking best captured in the Godfather books and on “The Sopranos.” Alas, it turned out to be about the pols’ using food names as code words for bribery, which is totally tasteless.

In fact, real politicians do eat real food, these days often in varying shades of green. Case in point: Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who “swears by green drinks,” the weaponized smoothies that may include spinach, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, avocados, bell peppers, Granny smith apples, celery, and eggplant, to provide the “energy and nutritional pick-me-up I need it in these challenging times.” UES State Senator Liz Krueger, who once told the Times she prefers diners to steak houses, also goes green: “Avocado toast for breakfast — where was this magic dish most of my life?” Assemblyman Dick Gottfried is a pescatarian, a person who’s expanded

vegetarianism to include ﬁsh and seafood. He’s so dedicated to the diet that each week he sends out yummy recipes and healthful eating tips from Meatless Monday (www.meatlessmonday.com), tempting the rest of us to join him. Public Advocate Tish James needs no urging. Her standard menu is oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, soup for lunch, and salmon for dinner plus “ice cream when I have to listen to Trump. A lot of ice cream!!” Former Councilmember Robert Jackson, who’s now running for the State Senate, is also a fan of fruits and veggies, particularly bananas, one or more every day.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

Months from now, we may still be talking about the legend of the Dogman: a cross-legged, tux-wearing creature with a man’s body and a golden retriever’s head and an oversized red apple in one palm. We may marvel at the ease by which Dog-man brought more mayhem upon Chinatown than did many land development projects. The irony, though, is that hardly anyone even saw him. To celebrate Lunar New Year — and the dog, this year’s zodiac animal — the Chinatown Partnership and Chinatown Business Improvement District (BID) commissioned the bronze sculpture from Australian artists Gillie and Marc Schattner. Mere days after it emerged that the artwork would be erected in Kimlau Square, a hallowed ground memorializing Chinese-American World War II veterans, local residents and activists mounted a fierce crusade against the sculpture and its proponents. A petition to halt its installation garnered more than 300 signatories within the ﬁrst 24 hours — with scores of signatures pouring in from Queens, Brooklyn and even San Francisco. The protestors’ chief grievances are that Dog-man — the full title of the sculpture is “He Thought This was Going to be a Year of Good Fortune” — perpetuates the Western stereotype that the Chinese are avid consumers of dog ﬂesh, and that its placement directly under the Kimlau Memorial Arch is an affront to reDowntowner

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Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts

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Restaurant Ratings Business Real Estate 15 Minutes

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WEEK OF APRIL

SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12

FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE

is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He ﬁrst writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereﬂect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice

9-16

MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20

2015

In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS

The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits

SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS

A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311

n OurTownDowntow

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Newscheck Crime Watch Voices

for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced

2 City Arts 3 Top 5 8 Real Estate 10 15 Minutes

12 13 14 18

CONTINUED ON PAGE

“He Thought This was Going to be a Year of Good Fortune,” a 900-pound ‘dog-man’ by the Australians Gillie and Marc Schattner, has provoked strong feelings in Chinatown. Photo: Community Board 3 vered community icons. The BID has indeﬁnitely postponed the project. Over what should have been the most jovial week of the year in Chinatown, the anthropomorphic canine became a symbol of Chinatown’s bitter existential battles: between economic revival and artistic truth, legacy and gentriﬁcation, and clashing factions of activists. The controversy began when false information was included on the petition, according to Wellington Chen, the executive director of Chinatown Partnership. For starters, the organization never planned to place the sculpture under the arch. It wasn’t even supposed to be in the square, he said.

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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MIND OVER MATTER SCHOOLS Hunter High School student will represent NYC at National Brain Bee BY SHOSHY CIMENT

For 15-year old Ryan Bose-Roy, the human brain has always been fascinating. “To see how one area affects the other area ... and to see all these connections come together is really, really interesting,” said Bose-Roy, the recently crowned champion of the 2018 New York City Regional Brain Bee, an annual competition that puts high school students’ knowledge of neuroscience to the test. Out of 40 competitors from 26 high schools from the five boroughs and Westchester County, Bose-Roy, a sophomore at Hunter College High School on the Upper East Side, came in ﬁrst place at the Bee on February 3. But Bose-Roy’s interest in neuroscience was present long before he started competing. A third-place winner in last year’s Bee, Bose-Roy attributes his initial interest in neuroscience to a visit to the Sackler lab at the Museum

of Natural History when he was in third grade. “I heard a lot of speakers talk about the brain and how it works and how it was divided and I thought that was really, really interesting,” Bose-Roy said. “I think as my understanding of the brain went greater, my interest also increased with it, so when I got the book to start studying, I kept getting more interested.” The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, an organization devoted to advancing research and education on brain science, hosts the now 16-year old competition to expose and encourage young minds to explore the latest developments in brain-related research. “My hard work definitely paid off,” said Bose-Roy, who made flashcards with information and practice questions to help him learn each topic in depth. Albert Tan, a senior at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, won the second-place prize and Amalia Korniyenko, a sophomore at Leon M. Goldstein High School in Brooklyn, came in third. The Great Hall at the City College of New York was the arena in which students competed for a $500 first place

Ryan Bose-Roy took ﬁrst place in the the 2018 New York City Regional Brain Bee earlier this month. He will represent the city at the National Brain Bee in Baltimore in March. Photo: Jacqueline Silberbush cash prize and an all-expenses paid trip to the next round of the competition at the USA National Brain Bee in Baltimore. Following his success, Bose-Roy, who lives in Murray Hill, will represent New York City at the National, which will be held during Brain Awareness Week (BAW ) in March. “It is hoped that activities such as the Brain Bee will motivate students to learn more about the brain and inspire them to pursue careers in neuroscience,” said Kathleen Roina, direc-

tor of the BAW Campaign at the Dana Foundation, in her opening remarks at the competition, as reported by the Foundation’s blog. While Bose-Roy’s career plans are not solidiﬁed just yet, he is interested learning more about Alzheimer’s disease. When told his grandfather had died of the neurodegenerative disease a few years ago, Bose-Roy’s curiosity was piqued. “There’s a lot that we don’t know,” Bose-Roy said. “I thought that was

very, very interesting to sort of ﬁgure out the root cause of a disease - why these things happen.” For the next month or so, Bose-Roy will be preparing for the National Brain Bee. But although he enjoys the thrill of competing, Bose-Roy sees a greater meaning in his studying for the Bee. “Most importantly, what I like the most is to learn things,” he said.

ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND

thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY

Public Forum: Civic Salon

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH, 12PM Public Theater | 425 Lafayette St. | 212-539-8500 | publictheater.org Filmmaker and activist Paola Mendoza is joined by songwriter/performer Shaina Taub and poet Alejandro Rodriguez for a brunch-time salon that endeavors to inspire “civic engagement and social change” (free).

Ariella Azoulay | Plunder: The Origins of Modern Art

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH, 7PM The Cooper Union | 7 E. 7th St. | 212-353-4100 | cooper.edu Ponder plunder as the prerequisite underlying modern art with “potential history” expert Ariella Azoulay (Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology of Photography) as part of Cooper Union’s IntraDisciplinary Seminar (IDS) Public Lecture Series (free).

Just Announced | Andrew Lloyd Webber: Unmasked, with Glenn Close

MONDAY, MARCH 5TH, 8PM The Town Hall | 123 W. 43rd St. | 212-997-1003 | thetownhall.org Andrew Lloyd Webber opens up the creative process with the release of his memoir Unmasked. In it, he describes collaborations with a long series of luminaries, including Glenn Close, who serves as guest host for this special Town Hall evening ($47-$57, includes hardcover copy of the book).

For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 1st district for the week ending Feb. 11 Week to Date 2018 2017

% Change

2018

2017

% Change

Murder

n/a

Rape

n/a

0.0

Robbery

n/a

12.5

Felony Assault

n/a

-77.8

Burglary

-100.0

-42.9

MOTORCYCLE DISAPPEARS

Grand Larceny

-8.3

111

113

-1.8

A 8 p.m. on Monday, January 15, a 41-year-old man parked his 2007 KTM Super Duke in front of 140 Thompson Street, securing the back wheel to a metal fence with a chain. The bike was still locked and chained when he checked it at 8 a.m. on February 2, but was gone when he returned on February 8. A search of the neighborhood turned up nothing. The stolen bike is valued at $7,000.

Grand Larceny Auto

n/a

Photo by Tony Webster, via Flickr

VIOLENT SHOPLIFTING Three men were arrested on robbery charges following a late-night shoplifting incident at Jubilee Market Place on February 8, police said. The three entered the John Street store and began taking energy drinks from a refrigerator, placing them into a white bin, according to police. When the trio of shoplifters, later identiﬁed by police as Jonathan Lopez, 25, Bilal Johnson, 20, and Steven Sparrow, 25, tried to leave the store without paying, two store employees intervened and held one of the men back while two others of the trio ﬂed. The third was taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment, police said. Lopez, Johnson and Sparrow were arrested on February 9 and 10.

EXCHANGE STUDENT ROBBED A 26-year-old man drinking with three others unknown to him in an unspeciﬁed downtown bar left the saloon only to wake up at the Fulton Street subway station without his coat, money or credit cards early on Tuesday, February 6. He told police he believed he had been drugged but refused medical attention when he arrived at the First Precinct station house to ﬁle a report. The belongings stolen included his coat, valued at $180; $250 in cash; a cellphone; and his apartment keys.

Year to Date

CAMERA LENS LIFTED Unattended property can get stolen even in a venue advertising luxury vehicles. At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, February 6, a 32-year-old Brooklyn woman left a bag containing a camera lens under a table at the Cadillac House on Hudson Street. She left the equipment unattended for about 15 minutes, before returning her Canon lens, valued at $2,190, missing.

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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Useful Contacts

Drawing Board BY MARC BILGREY

POLICE NYPD 7th Precinct

19 ½ Pitt St.

212-477-7311

NYPD 6th Precinct

233 W. 10th St.

212-741-4811

NYPD 10th Precinct

230 W. 20th St.

212-741-8211

NYPD 13th Precinct

230 E. 21st St.

NYPD 1st Precinct

16 Ericsson Place

212-477-7411 212-334-0611

FIRE FDNY Engine 15

25 Pitt St.

311

FDNY Engine 24/Ladder 5

227 6th Ave.

311

FDNY Engine 28 Ladder 11

222 E. 2nd St.

311

FDNY Engine 4/Ladder 15

42 South St.

311

ELECTED OFFICIALS Councilmember Margaret Chin

165 Park Row #11

Councilmember Rosie Mendez

237 1st Ave. #504

212-587-3159 212-677-1077

Councilmember Corey Johnson

224 W. 30th St.

212-564-7757

State Senator Daniel Squadron

250 Broadway #2011

212-298-5565

Community Board 1

1 Centre St., Room 2202

212-669-7970

Community Board 2

3 Washington Square Village

212-979-2272

Community Board 3

59 E. 4th St.

212-533-5300

Community Board 4

330 W. 42nd St.

212-736-4536

Hudson Park

66 Leroy St.

212-243-6876

Ottendorfer

135 2nd Ave.

212-674-0947

Elmer Holmes Bobst

70 Washington Square

212-998-2500

COMMUNITY BOARDS

LIBRARIES

HOSPITALS New York-Presbyterian

170 William St.

Mount Sinai-Beth Israel

10 Union Square East

212-844-8400

212-312-5110

CON EDISON

4 Irving Place

212-460-4600

TIME WARNER

46 East 23rd

813-964-3839

US Post Office

201 Varick St.

212-645-0327

US Post Office

128 East Broadway

212-267-1543

US Post Office

93 4th Ave.

212-254-1390

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

SPIRITUALITY COMES TO WEST 96TH STREET EXCLUSIVE A soaring condo tower, now under development, will include a new fivestory Chabad House, complete with preschool and sanctuary, in the base of the building

We’re rabbis, we’re into Jewish outreach, not development!” Rabbi Shlomo Kugel, director and co-founder of the Chabad of the West Side

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

A prime 60-foot-wide site less than 300 feet away from Central Park on the Upper West Side is being developed as the future home of Chabad of the West Side, Straus News has learned. The Jewish center, which became the first Chabad House in Manhattan when it opened in 1984, will occupy five floors and some 20,000 square feet at a now-vacant lot at 15 West 96th Street. In a complicated real estate deal, the box-shaped religious institution will become the base of a planned 16unit luxury condominium tower that will soar above it, offering residents sweeping park views. The siting of the Chabad, with its own entrance and elevator, in the lower five floors of the 22-story building, allows the developer to claim a “community facility bonus” and erect, with city approval, a 312-foot structure, taller than zoning would otherwise permit, documents show. Two synagogues will be housed in the facility, the larger of which will occupy 2,000 square feet and sport a double-height, 20-foot ceiling, the two Chabad rabbis overseeing the project said in a joint interview.

A rendering of the condo tower planned for 15 West 96th Street shows the ﬁve-story base that will become the new home of Chabad of the West Side in late 2020, crowned with 16 ﬂoors of uberluxe residences. Image courtesy of Chabad of the West Side

CHABAD AND THE ART OF THE DEAL

Rabbi Meir Ossey, at left, associate director of the Chabad of the West Side, and Rabbi Shlomo Kugel, the group’s director and co-founder, stand before a construction fence on West 96th Street where Chabad is developing its new home. Photo: Chabad of the West Side There will be a children’s library and 11 classrooms spread out on three floors, with 3,500 square feet per floor, for dual use as both a preschool and a Hebrew school, the rabbis said. Plans also call for conference space, a 2,000-square-foot, second-floor terrace doubling as a playground, a training academy for early-childhood teachers, and a men’s mikvah, or ritual bath. The preschool alone will serve 150 children — as young as 18 months, as old as five years — with one head teacher and two assistants instructing as few as eight toddlers per classroom. “We are laser-focused on preschool,” said Rabbi Shlomo Kugel, director of the Chabad, which he co-founded with his wife Rivka and which has offered an early Jewish education from rented space at 166 West 97th Street since 2001. Why target the preschoolers? A verse in the Book of Proverbs (22:6) provides the answer, said Rabbi Meir Ossey, who with his wife Sarah is Chabad’s associate director, and he quoted the relevant couplet: “Train the lad according to his way, and even as he grows old, he will not turn away from it.” To be sure, the school will teach girls as well as boys, Rabbi Ossey added. Affiliated with the Lubavitch move-

ment, a Hasidic branch based in Brooklyn with a global presence, Chabad of the West Side endeavors to disseminate traditional teachings and practices to all Jews, regardless of background or level of observance. “Our overall philosophy is to provide every opportunity we can for Jews from every background to have a warm and a positive experience with their Judaism,” Rabbi Kugel said. The new religious-and-communal center — offering outreach, a stateof-the-art security system, and even a ground-ﬂoor “coffee lounge with a Starbucks-style layout for parents” — is expected to open in September 2020, the rabbi added.

A CHILD’S PARADISE ON A SINGLE BLOCK The institution won’t be the only major child-friendly nonproﬁt drawing large numbers of kids and parents as it puts down stakes on the north side of 96th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue: By late 2021, the relatively tranquil block will also be home to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, which is currently bursting at the seams in leased space it occupies at 212 West 83rd Street. CMOM late last year closed on the $45 million purchase of the landmark

First Church of Christ Scientist, at 1 West 96th Street, and it expects to move in after a four-year reconfiguration of the property. “We were gratified to learn of the museum’s purchase of the church because we will both benefit from its presence and also contribute to it,” Rabbi Kugel said. “It will bring an increased family presence to this part of the West Side, it’s consistent with what we’re trying to do, and we expect a good symbiotic relationship with them.” Like CMOM, Chabad has been operating out of leased quarters since the 1980s. It started at Congregation Ramath Orah on West 110th Street — it ran a nearby kosher hot dog stand outside the gates of Columbia University — before moving, first to West 103rd Street, then to West 92nd Street, and then to its current home on West 97th Street. A decade ago, Chabad bought a pair of rowhouses at 43-45 West 86th Street, but eventually, decided the landmarked properties didn’t meet its needs and were too great a challenge to redevelop. Now, it believes, it has found the ideal place to fulfill and expand its mission. “We’re rabbis, we’re into Jewish outreach, not development!” Rabbi Kugel says.

And that’s where the realm of the spiritual and the holy gets a helping hand from the grittier, earthier scrum of the real estate transaction. The story of the site begins when Sackman Enterprises Inc., through an entity it controls, West 96th Development LLC, purchased three centuryold, 20-foot wide brownstones, 15-1719 West 96th Street, over a nine-year period. Sackman, a longtime developer of West Side properties, then merged the three parcels, giving it title to a single valuable development site two lots west of Central Park. It then began demolition of the three brownstone in 2016, a process it completed last summer, and won a “community-facility bonus” that lets its condo tower rise to greater heights atop the facility. Enter P.E.Y. Realty LLC. On June 16, 2017, P.E.Y. and West 96th Development filed a “memorandum of contract of purchase and sale” with the city’s Department of Finance (DOF) in which P.E.Y. agreed to buy a condo unit identified only as the “Community Facility Unit.” Details of the contract weren’t available in the memo. But DOF records identify the “sole member” of P.E.Y. as a David Slager, according to DOF records. Slager, a citizen of the Netherlands who runs a hedge fund on West 57th Street, maintains a low profile as an Upper West Sider — but a very high profile as a philanthropist in Lubavitch circles. Along with his wife Lara, he underwrites Jewish institutions globally, and much of his charitable work has been focused on Chabad — in particular, its preschools. Sackman, through a sales unit at Cushman & Wakeﬁeld, is now seeking to sell the “shovel-ready” development site, with city-approved plans, for $45 million. As for the community facility, it’s being sold, under a “fully executed contract,” for $29.8 million “upon substantial completion of the space,” C&W says in marketing materials. “David and his wife Lara are among the principal benefactors of this new Chabad center,” said Rabbi Ossey. “The entire Chabad community is extraordinarily grateful to them for their generosity and vision.”

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

DOG-MAN CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

A dance studio in a building at the northeast corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, said to have been home in the 1960s to Merce Cunningham’s ﬁrst studio, closed last month ahead of the four-story building’s demolition. Photo: Clarrie Feinstein

THE LAST DANCE BUILDINGS The wrecking ball comes to a renowned downtown studio BY CLARRIE FEINSTEIN

On January 31, PMT Dance Studio, housed in a historic building on the northeast corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, closed its doors for a ﬁnal time. The building was sold to Extell Development and will most likely be demolished in the coming year. The building was home to various dance studios over the last several decades, including, it’s said, Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham. Its last was PMT, an acronym for its founder, Pavan M. Thimmaiah, who opened his studio in 2001. While Thimmaiah is hoping to move his studio to a space at 25th and Sixth Avenue, the closure and, ultimately, the wrecking of the 14th Street building is distressing to many who have spent time at the studio or in other venues at the building. “People are mourning the closing of this building,” Thimmaiah said last week. “Some people have been coming here since the 1960s and have seen all the incarnations the space has gone through. I’ve just been consoling people. People came to the studio crying.” The studio’s shuttering was ﬁrst reported on the blog Jer-

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emiah’s Vanishing New York. Thimmaiah recalls a couple who met at the studio — she was the teacher, he was the student — who would later marry. “These are the stories that I love,” he said. “Just to see how this space changed people’s lives. For some, dance gave them a purpose, or they met their partners here, or they just found they belonged in this community. We’ve cultivated the arts here in an original way. B-boys, dance crews.... Anyone can come in here and use the space to create.” PMT seeks to foster community, a place where artists can support their peers, which follows in the tradition of the building’s history, Thimmaiah said. After the Stonewall riots in 1969, the newly formed Gay Liberation Front (GLF) used the space as a political activist outpost. It was home to Alternate U. – a free counterculture school and leftist organizing center. There were several classrooms on the second floor of the building. Meetings were also held there in the aftermath of the Snake Pit bar raid in 1970. But one of the most popular events for the GLF were the weekly dances, which provided a rare opportunity for LGBTQ people to dance together in public. Now the building, and three more to the north of it, are empty with just a Sol Moscot sign on display on the first floor of 69 West 14th. Nine storefronts there are shuttered. Thim-

maiah cited forbidding rent increases for smaller businesses such as PMT, which are at a signiﬁcant disadvantage when competing against tech giants such as Google, Amazon and others. Businesses are asked to bid between six to seven-digit ﬁgures just to have a seat at the negotiations table. That’s why Thimmaiah started a GoFundMe campaign to support PMT’s new incarnation, which he said would become a nonprofit in the coming months. “The scene in the city has really changed,” he said. “It’s become so outpriced here for artists and that doesn’t allow for individuality to be cultivated. The talent is going to other cities. When you don’t have affordable venues, we can’t offer artists the space to create. That’s a real problem.” The sentiment is shared by Greenberg, who has been in New York since 1976 and remembers when he rented studios for three dollars per hour in the 1980s, whereas now, even a moderately priced studio goes for at least $25 an hour. “It’s much more difficult for artists to do the work they want to do,” Greenberg said. “It’s unaffordable.” Greenberg is pleased PMT is relocating — it’s a rare occurrence for a dance studio to be able to achieve in Manhattan. Thimmaiah is hoping to move into his new dance studio in March or April.

The BID initially applied for permits near the Chinatown Information Kiosk, on Canal Street near Baxter; Mahayana Buddhist Temple, on Canal just north of the Manhattan Bridge offramp; and Confucius Plaza, but was rejected each time, Chen said. With the Lunar New Year installation rapidly approaching and no other viable locations, BID staff decided to place the sculpture under the flag at Kimlau Square to remind visitors and residents alike of sacrifices made by the commemorated figures. Chen said he, too, would have been offended if he heard that a dog-man would be sitting underneath the arch, but no dissenters asked him for clarification — or anything at all — before circulating the petition. That members of his own community would traffic in “fake news” and racist tropes saddens Chen. “Why would you twist it around to say we’re dog eaters? Do you even hear white people say that anymore?” he asked. Karlin Chan, the lone Chinese member of the Parks, Recreation, Cultural Affairs, & Waterfront Committee of Community Board 3, said that the sculpture is reflective of “a well-intentioned but wrong approach.” Given that it is specifically commissioned to celebrate the Year of the Dog, he thought the artwork should have had contained more Chinese touches. The design, he continued, makes it looks like the mascot of a sporting goods stores. More troubling than the stylistic mismatch is the composite figure of a dog-man itself, which Chan, a well-respected activist, said represents a malicious canine spirit. Anthropomorphic characters have a storied history in Chinese mythology, primarily as fierce warriors or vessels of doom. The most popular among the group is Sun WuKong, an immortal shape-shifting monkey man. A more appropriate, propitious design for Chan would have been a poodle cradling a pot of gold.

Chen, on the other hand, has more flexible standards for cultural art, which he said can be “an abstract representation of a symbol of tradition” that the viewer does not necessarily have to agree with. Growing economic concerns also meant that the BID often has to consider an artwork’s commercial value over its symbolic nuances. Public art, a reliable generator of foot traffic, pumps revenue to the 2,000 struggling merchants that Chen’s organization represents. “As one of the largest BIDs in the city, we don’t have a single piece of artwork in 240 sidewalks,” he said. “Why is it that our community is being so hard on ourselves?” A n internationa lly-acclaimed duo like Gillie and Marc, whose works stretch from New York to Indonesia, could attract more diverse cohorts to Chinatown, Chen said. Amy Chin, a veteran arts and cultural activist who helped community members set up the petition, rejects the notion that the neighborhood is starved of homegrown talents with global reputations. Trailblazing contemporary artist and dissident Ai Weiwei once lived in Chinatown, she said. Award-winning muralist Tomie Arai was recently commissioned to paint the new San Francisco Chinatown subway station. (Arai shared the petition on Facebook and, on behalf of Chinatown Arts Brigade, a grassroots coalition of artists and activists, applauded Chin and others for working to establish a more transparent public art selection process.) The eery, enigmatic glass mosaics and aerial gardens of Ming Fay, a longtime resident, can be found in landmark buildings from Philadelphia to Puerto Rico. More than to preserve Chinese culture, the petition backs art that reflects and increases public awareness, Chin said, adding that “those qualities are not mutually exclusive.” Manhattan has countless examples of commercially appealing public art that pays homage to a group’s history. That other BIDs have created open selection processes for

public art shows the possibility and importance of community engagement, Chin said. While she admits that the district is too understaffed and underfunded to implement a similar system, Chin thinks the Chinatown Partnership could still do more to support local artists. A realistic — and logical — step forward is to enlist their help in public art ventures not only based in their community but which also reaffirm their identity. But Chen, of the Chinatown Partnership, said that the BID’s decision to commission an art group from overseas for a cultural project is not to shun local creatives but to accommodate unusual circumstances. In the past, Lunar New Year installations — the horse and rooster, for example — have been created by local artists. Chinatown Partnership did not plan on commissioning artwork this year because staffers had to complete other projects, Chen said. The initiative only came to be because the Village Alliance, which runs the East Village BID, contacted several BIDs to transfer its lease on a Gillie and Marc sculpture. After Chinatown lost out on the piece, Chen said, it was the Australian pair who reached out and negotiated the collaboration. To Chen, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this controversy may be that it entirely missed the sculpture’s message: peace, which is symbolized by the apple, not the monkey. The first character of the Chinese word for “apple” is also the ﬁrst character of “peace,” Chen said. And its color, a radiant crimson, embodies both good fortune in Chinese culture and the cosmopolitanism of New York, the “Big Apple” that embraces diversity and shields undocumented immigrants from deportation. The Chinese diaspora is no stranger to systemic discrimination; some of its graying members can recite family tales about the Chinese Exclusion Act. By so publicly and vehemently rejecting the Dog-man’s implicit values, Chen said, “We look like fools — and hypocrites.”

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LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS EAST SIDE OBSERVER BY ARLENE KAYATT

Scam’s on — Notice that the number of faux phone calls on your cellphone have either the same area code as your own — 917, 646, 347 — or the same area code as your last incoming call? The incoming number seems familiar and you want to pick it up. It’s familiar and even though it’s not in your contacts, you pick it up only to find the caller is trying to sell you an all-expenses-paid trip to wherever or some opportunity of a lifetime when all it is is an opportunity to be scammed. It’s good to know that the telephone service provider is on the job and protecting their customers. About to answer, I

noticed that the incoming call had a warning along with the incoming number: “Scam Likely.” Whoa. I’m not taking this call. And I realized that the call that immediately preceded the scam had the same 917 area code. A legit call from a friend. It seems that the scam kicks in when the called and callers area code matches. Whatever. The good thing is there’s an alert. Thanks T-Mobile. Curbing enthusiasm — The good news is that the city’s sidewalks are expanding. Wider streets are making it easier for pedestrians, pets and various modes of sidewalk transportation (bikes, wheelchairs, baby carriages, scooters, skateboards) to use the city sidewalks. The bad news is that the sidewalk curbs are now higher, really higher, so high that

it’s dangerous to step off the curb. While it’s best to cross the street only at the corner curb, it shouldn’t be a danger to step off the curb to get to a bus or to hail a taxi the old-fashioned, New York-way by stepping off the curb onto the street and waving your hand with reckless abandon. It’s a buzz you’ll never get by riding Uber, Lyft or Via. In the last week I’ve heard about and seen several people who have had the misfortune of misjudging the height of the step from street to curb and were injured. Some weeks ago a football-injured teenager fell as he tried to step down off the curb. He couldn’t get near the corner cut curb to cross the street because the indented curb and the surrounding area were ﬁlled with pedestrians waiting to cross the street. Makes you wonder about who gets to do the planning. We know who gets to pay for it, ﬁnancially and otherwise. With all the time and money and inconvenience that goes into upgrading and modernizing the cityscape

you would think that factors such as accessibility would be in the mix. Apparently not a priority.

Flickering light syndrome — Just look up at the residential building fronting on Second Avenue between 78th and 79th Street as night falls and you’ll see the ﬂickering light that foretells the building’s coming demise. All the storefronts on the block are long gone, including High Line. The good news is that the synagogue, Temple Shaaray Teﬁla, didn’t make the cutting block and will remain on the northwest corner as the rest of the block is razed and rebuilt. While Yorkville is becoming home to more and more high-rises and big-box and chain stores — and as an older generation is either priced out of their homes or made to move because the buildings where they’ve lived for most of their lives are being torn down — there are those who remain in Yorkville and its environs and are raising families. Matthew Bondy,

a lawyer and Community Board 8 member, remembers his youth in the East 60s in the home where his father still lives. Matt still lives in the area with his wife and two young daughters. In May 1988, Matt’s mom, Joan Bondy, now deceased, received an OTTY award for bettering the community through her work with the Girl Scouts. In that year, Ruth Halberg, who still lives in the same Yorkville apartment where she and her husband brought up their three daughters, is still very much a part of the life of Yorkville. She is active in UES Democratic Party politics and was elected as state committewoman last year. Ruth received her OTTY for outstanding constituent service work in the office of then Assembly Member Mark Alan Siegel. Another 1988 OTTY recipient never lived in Yorkville. Not all do. He received an OTTY for his contribution to the community by completing the work on Wollman Rink in Central Park. His name is Donald Trump.

CLOSING TIME AT PARLOR BY ZAC HOWARD

Last February, I sat at the second floor bar in Five Mile Stone, a block away from my Yorkville apartment, and shared a beer with my old college roommate. As we discussed my desire to get a better serving job, I asked the bartender what restaurants I should target in the neighborhood. “If I were you, I’d go to Parlor,” she responded. “It’s the steak and ﬁsh place off 90th and I think Third Avenue. That place is really nice.” It was a good suggestion and I ended up taking her advice. As it turns out though, I’m back on the job hunt again this February. Having lived in New York City for more than two years, I was aware of the growing concern over local businesses closing due to rent increases. But I had yet to experience the consequences ﬁrsthand, until recently. Just before a Saturday evening shift last November, Parlor owner Michael Glick gathered the staff downstairs to inform us that he had reached a stalemate with the landlord regard-

ing a new lease. After ten years of establishing the restaurant as a staple in the neighborhood, and months of rigorous negotiations, he could not meet the increased rent demands, which he said included a $10,000 per month spike to the previous arrangement. When Glick and his wife Suzy opened Parlor in 2008, I was a sophomore in high school working at a Chick-fil-A in Tallahassee, Florida. I had no idea I would wait tables for the better part of the next decade and had given no thought to moving to New York City. Certainly the Glicks didn’t know that I would be the last server they’d ever hire at Parlor. They were running a bar on 90th Street and Second at the time, BB&R (short for Blonde, Brunette and a Redhead), when they ﬁrst identiﬁed the space Parlor would call home. The Glicks matched the “ridiculous” asking price of roughly $38,000 per month, according to Glick. “We demolished the entire restaurant, except for the bones, and rebuilt the entire thing from the ground up,” he told me recently. “It was basically my wife and

I taking every dollar we had and putting it in. And people thought I was nuts. People thought it would fail.” “The vision was to bring a downtown or a midtown feel to the Upper East Side, which didn’t exist,” Glick said. The original plan was to serve American cuisine, but the restaurant became Parlor Steakhouse and later Parlor Steak and Fish in 2015. “While we were building, it kind of took on its own personality,” he said. “And it was busy from day one.” The restaurant stayed aﬂoat despite the stock market crash of 2008, months after opening. “There was nothing like it on the Upper East Side,” Glick said. “People said ... ‘You saved our neighborhood by opening this restaurant.’” In 2012, the Glicks opened The Writing Room, in the space previously home to Elaine’s, off 88th Street and Second Avenue. It will employ some Parlor staff members, though many won’t be making the transfer. I worked “the last supper” at Parlor. There was mirth in the air, spirits in the drinks and tears in eyes of patrons

Photo: Zac Howard and employees alike. Much of Parlor’s legacy and beloved service will continue at The Writing Room, but the corner of 90th and Third won’t be the same. According to longtime New Yorkers, it will likely stay vacant. “I think people are aware that this is a problem in New York City,” Glick said. “They’re starting to realize that unless they support these places, this is going to keep happening.” I have now waited tables at six restaurants; Parlor is the only one that wasn’t corporately owned and operated. Despite my brief tenure, I have never experienced such an intimate

atmosphere among staff and clientele. It was a refreshing shift from the monotonous drumbeat I was used to at corporate chains, which produces robotic servers, apathetic managers and unsatisfied customers. Parlor proved what I always suspected: loose and professional can coexist. Almost every night was fun. If I had known Parlor would close months after I started, would I go back and apply somewhere else? I can’t say for sure, but I will treasure the memories and I’m grateful for what I learned from the experience, including the inauspicious realities of working in NYC.

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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NOT SO GUILTY PLEASURES Calories (g) Total Fat (g) Saturated Fat (g) Trans Fat (g) Medium Apple (3 inches) 95 0.3 0.05 0 Dunkin Donut (1/glazed) 180 8 1.5 4 Ice Cream (vanilla 3.5 oz) 207 11 6.8 0 McDonald’s Hamburger 251 9.59 3.5 0.4 Pizza, Cheese, Tomato Sauce 285 10.32 4.8 0.258 (one standard fast food slice)

Cholesterol (mg) Medium Apple (3 inches) 0 Dunkin Donut (1/glazed) 0 Ice Cream (vanilla 3.5 oz) 44 McDonald’s Hamburger 27 Pizza, Cheese, Tomato Sauce 18

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney “swears by green drinks.” Photo: Carolyn B. Maloney

Since taking office, Councilmember Keith Powers has been “committed to having a healthy breakfast and substituting a salad for lunch.” Photo: Keith Powers

EATING SMART

moderation — actually healthful choices. An average fast-food cheeseand-tomato slice has about 200 mg calcium. That’s 20 percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for an adult man, 17 percent for a woman. James’ ice cream has nearly 4 grams protetin and 42 mg calcium per half-cup serving, not a lot of calcium, but hey, every bit counts. And let us not forget the simple glazed Dunkin Donut, which at least one of these people has secretly nibbled at some point. The glaze may not be green but the cake, made with enriched, unbleached wheat ﬂour, and skim milk, reports 3 grams protein and zero cholesterol. Better yet, the company plans to stop using polystyrene foam cups by 2020, a move that will eliminate a billion polluting products from the U.S. waste stream. What could be greener?

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Sometimes an election changes a person’s nutrition vision. “Since I took office,” says Councilmember Keith Powers, “I have been more committed to eating a healthy breakfast and substituting a salad at lunch.” For Assemblyman Dan Quart, “breakfast in the City is my kids’ leftovers, usually remains of an Eggo waffle or half eaten bagel. In Albany it’s usually just coffee. But a new deli in the legislative office building in Albany has dramatically improved my lunch choices.” One-time Assemblyman Steven Sanders has a smart helper: “Lunch is a salad of some kind, or slice of pizza, or grilled cheese sandwich. Dinner is usually something healthy because my wife is back in charge.” It’s important to note that Sanders’ pizza and James’ ice cream, which sound like guilty pleasures, are — in

Carol Ann Rinzler is the author of more than 20 books on health, including “Nutrition for Dummies.”

Dietary Fiber (g) 4.4 1 0.7 1.2 2.5

Protein (g) 0.47 3 3.5 12.4 12

(one standard fast food slice) Sources: USDA National Nutrient DataBase for Standard Reference; Dunkin Donuts & McDonald’s nutrient web sites

Public Advocate Tish James has oatmeal with fruit for breakfast. Photo: Letitia James

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EDITOR’S PICK

Mon 26 MANNES AMERICAN COMPOSERS ENSEMBLE John L. Tishman Auditorium at the New School, 63 Fifth Ave. 7:30 p.m. 212-229-5150 newschool.edu/mannes Founded by Mannes faculty composer Lowell Liebermann, Mace (the Mannes American Composers Ensemble) focuses on the music of living American composers. Conducted by Alan Pierson, Mace will present works by iconic American masters such as John Adams and Elliott Carter, as well as cutting-edge works by up-and-coming composers showcase the diversity of contemporary music.

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Thu 22 Fri 23 PROSECUTING THE 1993 BOMBERS National Sep. 11 Memorial and Museum 180 Greenwich St. 7 p.m. Free To mark the 25th anniversary of the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White of the Southern District, who oversaw the prosecution of the plotters, will discuss the challenges of prosecuting terrorism and her role in bringing the perpetrators to justice. 212-312-8800 911memorial.org

▲ QUESTIONING THE ORIGINS OF SEXUAL DESIRE The Strand 828 Broadway 7 p.m. $20 Where does sexual desire come from, and how do we talk about it? Come to this philosophical discussion about the nature of desire, and how language itself is unable to capture such a subjective, and psychological, experience. thinkolio.org

Sat 24 ‘JUST IN TIME’ COMMUNITY BALL University Settlement 184 Eldridge St. 5 p.m. Free For three years, “Just in Time,” the German transnational dance project, has been collecting personal memories, experiences, opinions, clichés and anecdotes in “letters to dance” written by people in Berlin, New York and Tel Aviv. They return to New York to invite people to “dance” their favorite movements that New Yorkers contributed to the project. universitysettlement.org

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Sun 25 Tue 27 Wed 28 PUBLIC FORUM: CIVIC SALON The Public Theater 425 Lafayette St. Noon, Free, RSVP required Join potential friends at this brunch gathering where strangers are invited to come together in the spirit of community to nurture their minds and bodies. Each month will feature a different theme and different participants who will bring readings and songs and a keynote address. 212-539-8500 publictheater.org

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▼ SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO TALK AND SIGNING Barnes and Noble Tribeca 97 Warren St. 6 p.m. Free Join comedian Sebastian Maniscalco for a talk about his new book, “Stay Hungry,” about hard work, fatherhood and always staying hungry for the next thing. 212-587-5389 barnesandnoble.com

GENERATION WOMEN: #TIMESUP Caveat 21 Clinton St. 7 p.m. $25 This cross-generational storytelling night features ﬁve women of note reading an original piece on the theme of #TIMESUP, the rallying cry of 2018. They will share personal stories of what they’ve said “time’s up” to in their lives that will make the audience laugh, cry and think. 212-228-2100 caveat.nyc

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Mon 26 ▲ WOMAN-SPLAINING ROMANCE The Strand 828 Broadway 7 p.m. $15 includes admission & store gift card The romance genre has been objectiﬁed since its inception, but has grown into a feminist genre, written for women/by women. This panel features some of the foremost authors of the genre, and a few of the young, diverse voices actively working to evolve the genre and general public perception. 212-473-1452 strandbooks.com

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

VISUAL NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND The Morgan showcases cult figure Peter Hujar’s photos of a lost New York BY VAL CASTRONOVO

Peter Hujar never, by a long shot, achieved the success and notoriety of Robert Mapplethorpe, the most prominent downtown photographer of the 1980s. In fact, a great rivalry existed between the two. “Mapplethorpe was a fantastic selfpromoter, and Hujar a dismal one. He also was a slow-goer as an artist, so in the late 1970s they wind up at the same point despite the fact that Hujar had been working 20 years longer,” curator Joel Smith said in an interview about the photographer who was known to be difficult and refused to

pander — to dealers, to collectors, to anybody. “But he derived satisfaction from the fact that Mapplethorpe’s work was about artifice and perfection and beauty. And his work was about ﬁnding the beauty in reality and the beauty of imperfection.” Both chronicled the East Village before it became prime real estate, and both trafficked in taboo subjects. Both were gay men, and both died prematurely of AIDS-related complications — Hujar at 53 in 1987, Mapplethorpe at 42 in 1989. In 2013, The Morgan acquired more than 100 prints by Hujar, along with 5,700 contact sheets, correspondence, job books and tear sheets. The current show includes most of the prints, plus items from nine other collections.

Peter Hujar (1934–1987), “Self-Portrait Jumping (1),” 1974, gelatin silver print, purchased on The Charina Endowment Fund, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2013.108:1.37. © Peter Hujar Archive, LLC, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

Peter Hujar (1934–1987), “Candy Darling on her Deathbed,” 1973, gelatin silver print, collection of Ronay and Richard Menschel. © Peter Hujar Archive, LLC, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1934, Hujar had a difficult personality in no small part because he had a difficult childhood. His father left home before he was born (they never met). His mother subsequently turned him over to his Ukrainian grandparents, who lived in a semirural neighborhood in Ewing Township, New Jersey. When his grandmother died, his mother brought him to Manhattan to reside with her and her second husband, a bookie, in a one-bedroom apartment on East 32nd Street. He left home after his mother, a drinker, threw a bottle at his head when he was 16. In 1953, he graduated from the School of Industrial Arts on East 79th Street (now the High School of Art and Design at 1075 Second Avenue), where he had the good fortune to befriend his English teacher, Daisy Aldan, a lesbian poet and literary-journal editor who encouraged him to follow his dream and enter the world of photography. Her whimsical portrait, “Daisy Aldan” (1955), kicks off the show. According to Smith in the exhibit catalog, Hujar’s “tribal sense of identification with the rejected of this world” caused him to gravitate to outsiders. “He admired underdogs bent on lonely causes — the ‘All-In’ people, in his phrase — and he was as enticed by impossibility as any of them. The signature move in his art is to lavish

a portraitist’s attention on a subject that deﬁes it.” But he ﬁrst worked for 15 years as an assistant to commercial photographers. And then he befriended Richard Avedon in a master class in 1967, a transformational encounter that led to freelance work for music and fashion magazines, like “GQ” (1970-71) and “Harper’s Bazaar” (1968-69), and gigs in advertising. But it all felt too mainstream, so in 1973, he took a “bohemian vow of poverty,” Smith writes, and rented a loft on Second Avenue at 12th Street (now the site of Village East Cinema), where he could devote himself completely to his art, money be damned. The exhibit boasts an eclectic mix of black-and-white photos, presented side-by-side and top-to-bottom and seeming to bear no relationship until a closer look reveals a common thread, like a strong diagonal line. Or not. As the curator said about Hujar’s style: “He was drawn to a very clear, emphatic view of a single thing, whatever it was. Highways, a leg, the World Trade Center.” There are portraits — individual ones, mostly, but also group shots — nudes, landscapes, cityscapes and numerous sympathetic photos of animals, an interest that carried over from his early childhood in New Jersey. One of our favorite city scenes:

“San Gennaro Street Fair at Dawn” (1976). Celebrity portraits, such as the leggy picture of Madeline Kahn (1981), keep company with portraits of artists, writers, friends, lovers and drag queens — a snapshot of the bohemian circles that Hujar dipped in and out of throughout his life and career. He met Susan Sontag in Sicily in 1963 through a mutual friend. She wrote the introduction to his only monograph, “Portraits in Life and Death” (1976), which includes an admiring photo of Sontag reclining. In 1974, he captured another writer and friend, Fran Lebowitz, in bed, in a prettily decorated room in Morristown, New Jersey. But his most iconic image, “Candy Darling on Her Deathbed” (1973), immortalizes transgender Andy Warhol superstar Candy Darling, subject of The Velvet Underground song “Candy Says.” The darling of the downtown drag-queen scene, Candy glammed it up for the camera, Hollywood-style, as she lay dying of cancer in a hospital room. The picture appeared in the New York Post the week after Candy died in 1974, and on the cover of Antony and the Johnsons’ album “I Am a Bird Now” in 2005. Now it’s here at The Morgan, through May 20.

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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Comic drama about a man and woman who meet at a party and ponder beginning the relationship that eluded them 30 years ago.

AMY AND THE ORPHANS 73 REVIEWS IN PREVIEWS

THEATRE ROW / CLURMAN THEATRE - 412 W 42ND ST

83 FROM $49

After their father’s death, three siblings reunite for a raucous family road trip.

CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD

LAURA PELS THEATRE - 111 WEST 46TH ST

A revival of the Tony winning play about a spirited deaf girl and a devoted teacher.

PREVIEWS START MAR 22

FROM $30

STUDIO 54 - 254 W 54TH STREET

EDWARD ALBEE’S A HOME AT THE ZOO 82 REVIEWS JUST OPENED

FROM $16

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S LONG LOST FIRST PLAY (ABRIDGED) OPENS MAR 2

82 A revision of Albee’s ‘The Zoo Story,’ from 1959. Starring Tony Award-winners Katie Finneran and Robert Sean Leonard.

The “Bad Boys of Abridgement” are back! Uproarious and rapid-fire, the Bard’s 39 plays are spun into a fast, funny and fictional 40th.

PERSHING SQUARE SIGNATURE CENTER - 480 W 42ND ST

THE NEW VICTORY THEATER - 209 W 42ND STREET

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS

Crown Fried Chicken

117 Avenue D

FEB 7 - 13, 2017

Mary O’s

32 Avenue A

The following listings were collected from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website and include the most recent inspection and grade reports listed. We have included every restaurant listed during this time within the zip codes of our neighborhoods. Some reports list numbers with their explanations; these are the number of violation points a restaurant has received. To see more information on restaurant grades, visit www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/services/restaurant-inspection.shtml.

Nobody Is Perfect

235 E 4th St

Not Yet Graded (23) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, crosscontaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Fat Cat Billiards

75 Christopher Street

CLOSED (42) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Queen Vic

68 Second Avenue

Blue & Gold Bar

79 E 7th St

Follia

179 3rd Ave

Don Angie

103 Greenwich Ave

Tompkins Square Bagels

184 2nd Ave

Benedicts

516 Hudson St

The Kati Roll Company

128 2nd Ave

Kona Coffee And Company

57 2nd Ave

Amsterdam Billiards

85 4 Avenue

National Arts Club

15 Gramercy Park South

Not Yet Graded (36) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked ﬁsh and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Food Protection Certiﬁcate not held by supervisor of food operations. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Bar Sardine

183 West 10 Street

Ramen Setagaya

34 1/2 St Marks Place A

Bowery Road

132 4th Ave

Barn Joo

35 Union Sq W

Bocca

39 East 19 Street

Bagel Boss

263 1 Avenue

Grade Pending (27) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewageassociated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Tortaria

94 University Place

Wogies

39 Greenwich Avenue

Le Midi Bistro

11 East 13 Street

Panca

92 7 Avenue South

Big Arc Chicken

233 1st Ave

Amber

135 Christopher St

Grade Pending

Le Cafe Coffee

145 4th Ave

Ballato’s Restaurant

64 3rd Ave

Grade Pending (10) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

55 East Houston Street

The Ainsworth

Jacques 1534

20 Prince Street

Takahachi Restaurant

85 Avenue A

Bar Veloce

103 Avenue A

146 West Houston Street

Hayaty Josie’s Bar

520 East 6 Street

The Dutch

131 Sullivan Street

Gruppo

98 Avenue B

Cafe Habana / Cafe Habana To Go

17 Prince Street

Tai Thai

78 E 1st St

Grade Pending (37) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/ sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Hand washing facility not provided in or near food preparation area and toilet room. Hot and cold running water at adequate pressure to enable cleanliness of employees not provided at facility. Soap and an acceptable hand-drying device not provided. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.

Uncle Boon’s Sister

203 Mott St

Pasquale Jones

86 Kenmare St

Piccola Cucina

75 Thompson St

Not Yet Graded (30) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/ refuse/sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Cafe Español

172 Bleecker Street

The Half Pint

234 Thompson Street A

The Red Lion

151 Bleecker Street

Blue Haven

108 West Houston Street

Spring Natural

98 Kenmare St

Kusharista

106 Macdougal St

Cafe Cafe

80 Wooster St

Not Yet Graded (36) Food contact surface improperly constructed or located. Unacceptable material used. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Mama Fina’s

Dunkin’ Donuts

167 Avenue A

266 1 Avenue

Not Yet Graded (38) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Food from unapproved or unknown source or home canned. Reduced oxygen packaged (ROP) ﬁsh not frozen before processing; or ROP foods prepared on premises transported to another site. Food Protection Certiﬁcate not held by supervisor of food operations. CLOSED (71) Food, food preparation area, food storage area, area used by employees or patrons, contaminated by sewage or liquid waste. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Sewage disposal system improper or unapproved. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

‘THE VITAL STREET’ LIVES ON EXHIBITIONS The late artist Mari Lyons painted the scene at Broadway and 80th for nearly four decades, capturing a piece of New York history BY ALIZAH SALARIO

On one particular Manhattan street corner, the artist Mari Lyons was able to stop time. For nearly forty years, Lyons painted the scene outside her studio window at Broadway and 80th Street, just above the former H&H Bagels and across the street from Zabar’s. She captured the changing storefronts, from the old Guys & Dolls pool hall and Woolworth’s to the Filene’s Basement that came in next, and the DSW after that. On canvas after canvas, Lyons, who passed away in 2016, pressed pause on a city in constant motion. Now at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery, “The Vital Street: Upper Broadway from Her Studio” showcases the late artist’s cityscapes. The memorial show was curated by her husband, the writer and book publisher Nick Lyons, to “celebrate the vitality that Mari brought to painting, and her immense love for that scene outsider her window.” “When she looked out the window she saw this enormous sense of activity ... the cars, the people, the changing seasons. She responded to it immediately,” he says. Nick Lyons always adored his wife’s work; she even illustrated ﬁve of his

Mari Lyons, Self Portrait with Yellow Head Piece, 47x29 oil on paper. Image courtesy of Nick Lyons books. The couple met at Bard College in the ‘60s, where Lyons first spotted the tall young woman with frizzy hair who would become his wife. Not long after they started dating, he was posing nude for one of her paintings. “I was crazy about her from the beginning,” says Lyons. They spent time in California, where Mari studied art at Mills College and took classes with the legendary German expressionist Max Beckmann, who remained a profound influence on her work. They eventually came back to New York, had four children in five

ON THE FRINGE OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE FESTIVALS A taste of the acclaimed Edinburgh festival comes to a corner of Manhattan BY CHRIS DASTOOR

Ryan’s Daughter, location for EdFest on Feb. 24 and 25, at 350 East 85th St. Photo courtesy of Ryan’s Daughter

Inspired by their experiences at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, three New Yorkers are bringing the magic of the Fringe to Manhattan. Neighborhood pub Ryan’s Daughter will host the “Unofficial Upper East Side EdFest,” showcasing a variety of acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival performers. This is the second EdFest since last October hosted by Peter Michael Marino, Walter DeForest and Harmon Leon, who attended the Edinburgh

“Thursday Afternoon on West 80th Street,” 2001. Photo courtesy of Nick Lyons years, and lived a life immersed in the arts. Mari had various studios over the years, until settling in the one on Broadway and 80th in 1979. “Mari always painted. It was the center of our life. When we went anywhere, it was always to go to some museums, or someplace like Montana where she painted plein air,” says Lyons. Mari considered herself an “every-

Fringe festival and desired to bring a bit of Scotland back home, turning the Manhattan version into a mainstay. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest fringe arts festival in the world, with over 50,000 performances around the city of more than 3,000 shows in 300 venues last year. The festival is open to anyone to produce a show. The styles include theater, comedy, children’s shows and music. In addition to producing the festival, Marino is presenting “Desperately Seeking the Exit,” a live reading about the making and unmaking of the London theatrical flop “Desperately Seeking Susan,” based on the 1985 film starring Madonna. “[The] majority of the shows [in Edinburgh] are in unconventional places, storefronts, bars, which is the inspiration for using Ryan’s Daughter,” Marino says. “It’s a place to ... bring the artistic globe closer together.” Co-producer Harmon Leon is a comedian and former VICE contributor; his show “Harmon Leon’s Big Fat Racist Show” peaks into extremist groups he has infiltrated in the past. “Now what we’re doing is taking that group of performers that go overseas to perform and bringing it to the Upper East Side,” Leon says.

day painter” and always made time for her work. One of her great joys was going across town to the Met. “She was there constantly,” says Lyons. “There was always something to learn, and she saw her favorite painters — Cézanne, Beckmann and a whole raft of others.” Mari also maintained a studio in Woodstock, where after her passing

Edinburgh Fringe isn’t a household name in America, but aspiring performers are familiar with the festival, with many considering it the holy grail of performing. “There’s artists that have heard about it, but don’t know much about it. It’s America, there’s probably people who aren’t aware where Scotland is on a map,” Marino says. “I just always knew I had to go, so it’s become an expensive addiction, although aren’t all addictions expensive?” DeForest performs “Van Gogh Brunch Yourself,” where the audience sketches each other over brunch. EdFest consists of performers from New York City, Philadelphia and London who all have the shared experience of performing at Edinburgh. “You don’t have to go to Edinburgh to see shows that travel the world, and performers who are doing things that others are not,” DeForest says. EdFest provides a unique experience for New Yorkers, as there isn’t the same space and separation common in conventional performances. “That’s what makes it a festival and different from any other experience. Everyone is cramped in, everyone is hot. Broadway theaters are comfy and air conditioned, but they cost $175 a

Lyons discovered nearly 60 paintings of the scene at Broadway and 80th that he’d never seen before. The view Mari returned to again and again was the one Lyons chose to showcase in his wife’s memory at First Street Gallery. “We were married 58 years and it was one of those great love affairs,” he says. “We just loved the world of art, and loved each other very much.”

ticket,” Marino says. “I look at Edinburgh as performer boot camp,” Leon says. “If you’re doing the whole month, you come out a completely different performer than when you went in. You have a whole layer of performance skills you never thought you had and all the performers at the Upper East Side EdFest have gone through that.” Other performances include Katie Kopajtic’s “Confessions of a Personal Trainer;” Christine Holt’s “Domesticated,” a metaphorical look at how women are domesticated, compared to cats; Amanda Miller’s “How to suffer better” is an interactive show where the audience decides who of her characters is suffering the best; and Chris Davis’ “Drunk Lion,” a monologue from the point of a view of a lion, based on Davis’ experience of having to learn Spanish. The local Coney Island Brewers will be offering craft beers especially for EdFest, including their “Everything But the Schmear,” inspired by New York bagels. “This year we have someone from London who did Edinburgh last year,” says Marino. “He’s bringing in a very unusual program ... it’s a nun with a variety show.”

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Business

EMPTY ON BROADWAY Vacancies on a key UWS corridor BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

The Barneys New York between 75th and 76th Streets became the latest Broadway retailer to join the ranks of the recently departed when it closed its doors for the last time on Feb. 18 at the storefront it occupied for more than 10 years. Next door to Barneys, another shop sits vacant after the Art of Shaving location that formerly occupied the site closed in recent weeks. On the east side of Broadway, opposite Barneys, spaces that once held a dry cleaner, travel agent and Duane Reade now feature signs advertising retail space for lease. A block north, the West Side Market between 76th and 77th Streets was shuttered last fall after nearly 40 years at the location. The former grocery is one of three empty storefronts that now dot the block’s western half, with a fourth across Broadway. Though the causes of vacancy vary from storefront to storefront, the empty shops on this stretch of Broadway in the West 70s seem to be representative of a Manhattan-wide phenomenon. A conﬂuence of factors, including competition from online retailers and ballooning retail rents, which rose 44 percent in Manhattan from 2006 to 2016, have squeezed businesses out of storefronts, sometimes leaving them vacant for extended periods. Nearly every resident of the neighborhood seems to lament the recent loss of at least one erstwhile stalwart shop. “Every time I walk down the street there are stores that have closed,” Upper West Sider Elsa Honig Fine said as she shopped in Barneys the Friday before it closed. “It’s very depressing.” The city does not comprehensively track retail vacancies, but others have collected unofficial and unscientific data on the topic. A May 2017 study of vacancies along the entire length of Broadway conducted by the office of Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer identiﬁed four vacancies between the 72nd and 79th Street subway stations. Over the summer of 2017, the staff of

Four consecutive blocks on the west side Broadway in the 70s are covered in whole or in part by sidewalk sheds — under the scaffolding on each block sits at least one vacant storefront. Council Member Helen Rosenthal canvassed the Upper West Side and found nine empty stores along the same stretch. With the closure of Barneys, there are now at least a dozen empty storefronts between the two subway stops. The unique and often complex factors behind each individual vacancy make it difficult to draw broad conclusions or an overriding narrative explaining the phenomenon. Each storefront has its own story — certain businesses just don’t work, some depart because of rent hikes, some owners retire without successors in place, and others outgrow their space or move to new locations for different reasons. And vacancies themselves can be difficult to track, as leases are signed and storefronts filled in the city’s ﬂuid market. Despite the perception that vacancies have increased and persisted in the near-term, one recent report found that the total number of commercial establishments on the Upper West Side actually increased by 10 percent from 2000 to 2015. Brewer, Rosenthal and other local leaders have called on the city to conduct a systematic study of vacancy rates to provide consistent, reliable data with which to inform solutions. There are signs of adjustment in the market. Last fall, the Real Estate Board of New York reported that the average asking rents along Broadway between 72nd and 86th Streets dropped by 15 percent over the previous year. “Generally speaking prices have come down, and I think that’s an opportunity for tenants that want to enter or re-enter the market,” said Doug

Broadway on the Upper West Side had a 14 percent retail vacancy rate, a recent study found. Photo: Michael Garofalo Kleiman, a retail broker with Ripco Real Estate who works with both landlords and tenants. “It’s actually an excellent time to do business on the Upper West Side, ironically.” “The good news is that the momand-pops are coming back and I hope to see the number of them increase,” he added.

CHAIN STORES Rosenthal’s study found that Broadway between 62nd and 109th Streets had a 14 percent vacancy rate — higher than the neighborhood-wide rate of 12 percent and tied with Amsterdam Avenue for the highest rate of the Upper West Side’s commercial corridors — and the largest total number of empty storefronts of any corridor in the neighborhood. The report also found that national chains accounted for 40 percent of all stores on Broadway, signiﬁcantly higher than the proportion of chain stores on Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues (11 percent and 17 percent, respectively). Rosenthal’s ofﬁce estimated that the percentage of chain stores on Broadway more than doubled from 2007 to 2017. Faith Hope Consolo, a broker with Douglas Elliman Real Estate who helped negotiate the lease that landed Barneys in the Broadway space, said that she expects that vacancies will increasingly be filled as the market corrects itself. “Now that a lot of the rents have come down I think we’re

going to see a lot more of the neighborhood filling in this year,” she said. “It’s kind of just a natural attrition, but it’s not going to stay there long because Broadway on the Upper West Side has some of the best foot traffic in the city, seven days a week.” But Rosenthal and others on the City Council have advocated for measures designed to promote retail, including a law passed last year exempting some small businesses from the city’s Commercial Rent Tax. “[W]hile we found that our area has a 12 percent commercial vacancy rate, other Manhattan retail centers like Times Square, Herald Square and SoHo have vacancy rates that are far higher,” Rosenthal wrote in an emailed statement. “There are solutions that policymakers can implement to help retain small businesses and keep our commercial corridors vibrant. We won a significant break for Manhattan small businesses by securing relief from the Commercial Rent Tax, and some of the City Council’s land use strategies have shown real promise. We need to continue to explore every possible tool.” With the closure of Barneys on Broadway, the high-end retailer has two remaining stores in Manhattan, one in Chelsea and its flagship store on Madison Avenue, which the New York Post reported in December is the subject of ongoing arbitration between Barneys and its landlord over a potential rent hike.

“Barneys New York has enjoyed serving the community on the Upper West Side for over a decade,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We sincerely appreciate the loyalty of our customers, and we look forward to continuing to serve them at our Madison [Avenue], Downtown and Brooklyn locations.” The former homes of Barneys and the Art of Shaving now sit in shadows beneath a sidewalk shed — a familiar feature of the neighborhood streetscape that are frequently a subject of complaint from retailers who ﬁnd their storefronts covered by the uninviting structures, which can also make vacant spaces more challenging for landlords to rent. On the west side of Broadway from 75th to 79th Street, four consecutive blocks are covered in whole or in part by sidewalk sheds. Under the scaffolding on each block sits at least one vacant storefront. “There’s a tremendous amount of them, and the stores are hurting,” said Community Board 7 Chair Roberta Semer, who added that the board plans to weigh in on pending City Council legislation aimed at reducing the amount of time scaffolding is required to stay up. “From the board’s standpoint, thriving retail makes for a thriving community,” Semer said.

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

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IWantToBeRecycled.org

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

DATING DANGER? RETHINKING WORKPLACE POLICIES CULTURE In the post-Harvey Weinstein world, business owners have created or updated rules on dating and sexual harassment BY JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

It happens in so many workplaces — two colleagues begin a romantic relationship. But a heightened awareness about sexual harassment means small business owners can get more anxious when employees start dating. Many owners have consulted with employment attorneys or human resources professionals since the accusations against movie executive Harvey Weinstein in November. Some owners have created or updated their policies on dating and sexual harassment, and they’re making sure staffers know the rules and to speak up if they feel harassed. Bosses who in the past just watched with interest as a relationship blossomed are being proactive, telling couples that if the romance sours, both people are expected to behave appropriately. And some owners are even asking couples to sign statements acknowledging that their relationship is consensual. Sammy Musovic has seen many romances — and breakups — at his three Manhattan restaurants. After the reports about Weinstein and others, Musovic consulted with an attorney to understand what his legal liability could be if an employee relationship

led to harassment charges. He decided against changing his policy that allows dating, but he’s keeping a closer eye on interactions between employees. “When I know staffers are dating, I speak to each of them in private and just try to understand the situation,” says Musovic, who owns Sojourn, Vero Bar and Selena Rosa. A few years ago, a manager at one of his restaurants dated a hostess, and became jealous when he saw her chatting with customers. “I told them, `You guys have to stop this or someone’s going to have to find another job,’” Musovic recalls. The manager quit. On another occasion, Musovic fired an employee who wrote unwanted love letters to a co-worker. Jacqueline Breslin, an executive with HR provider TriNet, is fielding more questions from businesses that want to know how to handle employees dating. The first step is often to determine whether companies have policies on dating and sexual harassment; if not, they need to be written. Dating policies should set expectations for staffers’ behavior, such as that emotions should not be displayed at work. Policies must also address issues like relationships between supervisors and subordinates. Some owners might be tempted to ban employee relationships altogether. But people attracted to one another may still date on the sly. And strict policies can backfire — talented employees may choose love over a job and leave. One option for owners is to have dating staffers sign what’s called a relationship contract, stating they’re

in a consensual relationship and that they’ve read and will abide by the company’s written policy on sexual harassment. Many bosses may not even be aware of a relationship until someone mentions it. HR professionals say an owner should approach the couple, discuss the situation, and if the company requires a relationship contract, have them sign it. More complicated is when an owner suspects there’s an attraction or budding relationship — when’s the right time to step in? There’s no one answer, but a boss should certainly talk to the employees when it’s clear there’s a romantic connection. A greater concern is what to do if the romance ends. As long as there’s no sign of a problem, the boss should respect everyone’s privacy. But if one person keeps pursuing another, an owner needs to be on alert. “The person who’s repeatedly asking for an unwanted date needs to be told, ‘This is against company policy and we don’t tolerate this kind of harassment,’”says Michael Schmidt, an employment attorney with Cozen O’Connor in New York. Even if unwanted contacts take place off the company’s premises or on social media, a boss needs to intervene, Schmidt says. Businesses can be liable if they don’t address potential harassment because employees might feel they’re in a hostile working environment, Schmidt says. Even business owners who have been part of workplace romances say they’re warier now.

Sign of the times: bosses make sure staffers know the rules and speak up if they feel harassed. Photo: Alex Perkins, via flickr Marianne Bertuna was an intern and then an associate in Arthur Aidala’s small New York law firm, starting in 1997. Aidala was attracted to her, but told himself, “This is a work person and nothing is going to happen.” He married someone else. Meanwhile, two attorneys who were dating joined the firm and eventually

married. But now, Aidala says that if any employees start a relationship, he would tell them, “You need to proceed with caution because there are a lot of lives on the line here.” And Aidala himself? He got divorced, and he and Bertuna became a couple. In 2016, they got married.

NYC LAWMAKER: BAR PET STORES FROM BUYING FROM PUPPY MILLS PETS A new proposal would require NY State shops to get animals from licensed rescue shelters or humane societies BY DAVID KLEPPER

Photo: Elena Giglia, via ﬂickr

Pet stores in New York state would be prohibited from buying dogs or cats from puppy mills and other large commercial breeding facilities under a legislative proposal announced Thursday. The legislation sponsored by Democratic Sen. Michael Gianaris of Queens would require pet stores to get their animals from licensed rescue shelters

or humane societies. It also would ensure that rescue organizations retain ownership of the animal if it is not adopted. Gianaris said the bill is intended to help ﬁnd good homes for rescue animals while discouraging large commercial breeding operations linked to animal mistreatment and poor conditions. “We have a huge population of rescues that need homes,” he said. “We are judged as a society by how we treat our animals. We have a long way to go because we are mistreating our companions on this earth.” California passed similar rules last year that effectively banned the sale of animals from puppy mills. Gianaris said his bill attempts to build on that law by ensuring that unadopted dogs

and cats remain the property of the rescue shelter, where they can return if not adopted out by the pet store. Under the law, private or household breeders still would be allowed to sell dogs, cats or other animals directly to the public. Gianaris predicts bipartisan support for the measure, which hasn’t been scheduled for a vote. There’s no organized opposition to the legislation so far in New York state, where many pet stores already acquire animals from local rescue shelters. In California, pet store owners opposed the bill, saying it would put a strain on their business and diminish consumer choices.

FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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FEBRUARY 22-28,2018

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THE WISDOM BEHIND THEIR YEARS A New York Times reporter reflects on a life-changing project BY ANGELA BARBUTI

John Leland found the key to happiness in an unexpected demographic. It all started when Leland, a reporter with The New York Times, was given an assignment to cover the Census. What sparked his continued interest in the topic was the boom in the 85-and-over population. He thought about how he could approach reporting on one of the fastest growing age groups. “And so I came up with and got the go-ahead to do a series that would just follow six people around for a year and let them tell us what the stories are,” he said. After that year was over, he missed his subjects and sought a reason to stay involved in their lives. That’s when the idea for his new book, “Happiness is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old,” was born. Released in January, its title is based on the inspiration he got after spending quality time with these elders — with no agenda in mind. “I realized all the people had plenty of reason to be unhappy. They had a lot of challenges in their lives. And they managed to get through the day with resilience and gratitude and a sense of purpose that I really admired.”

How did you ﬁnd your subjects? In all different ways. I spent a lot of time in senior centers, nursing homes, professional associations of retirees,, anywhere where here older people gathered. Jonas Mekas ekas I found through his own website. I knew some elder lawyers. I was trying ying to find somebody involved in a certain kind of family dispute and that hat didn’t work. One of the people who ho worked in one of the elder firms volunteered olunteered at an organization called ed Heights and Hills in Brooklyn and it turned out they had somebody who ho was wonderful, but also the mother er of the woman who ran it had been bounced unced from her assisted living center, so she was like homeless at 90. She became ame one of the people in my series, Ruth h Willig.

John Leland, a reporter with The New York Times, chronicled ed the year he spent visiting siting with six elderly people in the book ook “Happiness is a Choice You Make.” Photo: Erica Berger

mother? There was one couple who met at a nursing home and were dating. What’s their story? That’s Helen Moses and Howie Zeimer who met at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale. And I’ve come to really admire their courage. I was looking for a couple that met later in life, not a couple that had been together for, you know, 60 years, although those are out there too and interesting. But I wanted to see who had the courage to start a new relationship and make themselves vulnerable at 85, 90 years old in the way that we do when we start a relationship. And what I’ve come to see is the courage it takes to get involved with somebody at that age knowing it’s probably not going to last that long and that one of you is going to watch the other one die. And that’s tremendously courageous to do and it takes a lot of ingenuity to ﬁgure out how to put together a relationship at that age. They’re an interesting couple because Helen is the older of the two by about 20 years. Howie had been in a terrible car accident and was left in a coma when he was younger and there was a series of brain damage there and that’s why he was in the nursing home. And because Helen was so much sharper than Howie, I was trying to see what she got out of it and then I realized it was that Howie needed her and she was essential to him. And she had worked a job when she was younger; she had raised her kids; she had nursed her husband when he was dying. So she had been needed all this time and then reached old age g and wasn’t needed in quite the same way. And it’s a great gift Howie has given her by needing her and it’s a great gift that she’s given Howie by being there for him.

Did the experience change the way you spoke to your 89-year-old

It really did because when I saw the elders, I wasn’t trying to fix them. I didn’t have to solve the problems in their lives. I could just be with them and recognize that I was getting a lot out of it. And in my previous dealings with my mother, I always thought about the things I could do for her. I was happy to do them. I love my mother and owe her a lot. But it could be tiring sometimes. And it was a one-way relationship. And then, having spent all this time with the elders, I could appreciate what I was getting from them and what I was getting from my mother. So it became more, in my eyes, a two-way relationship and it was so much more pleasant. Now my mother’s not a project; she’s a lunch date or a dinner date.

You were going through a divorce and talked to all the elders about it. What did they say? Since most of them had had long relationships, I would ask them what’s the secret to a 50 or 60-year marriage. And the answers were always disappointing. There is no secret, apparently.

Out of the people in the book, how many are still alive? There’s four who are still alive. Fred Jones, the guy who lived in a walk-up apartment in Crown Heights and was losing parts of two toes to gangrene, died in April of 2016. He died a week after his daughter and the social worker said he died of a broken heart. I think that’s true. And then in June,, John Sorensen, who was a gay man who lived on the Upper West Side, who said every time I saw him, that he wanted to die. Because he missed his partner; they had been together for 60 years. His partner had died a few years ago and John really missed him. And ﬁnally, he just gave out and decided to stop eating. And the end went fairly quickly and quite courageously. I learned a lot from John, even at the end. He was in a lot of pain and was starv-

Fred Jones, then t 88, and John Leland in Brooklyn in October 2015. Photo: Nicole Bengiveno ing himself to death and at the same time, was listening to the arias that l he loved. And A he was giving thanks to anyone who w spent time with him. I think one of o the last times I was with him, a physical therapist came by and phys said, “I’ll be b back again tomorrow.” And John said, sa “I look forward to it already.” That’s Tha a great way to live.

What do you hope readers take away from this bo book?

I think you see ways of living lived out by real people. A lot of the wisdom in this book has come our way before. It’s in most of the faith traditions, some of it’s in the self-help books. But when you see the elders, you see these things being lived out under what might be, very difficult conditions. It changed my life. It made me much happier and much more content with my own life. It made me more generous in my relationships. I hope some of that

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Y Q K G U Y C Z R H Z X E O R

Y D P Q E W M A U C U W A K N

U O K L H P L M R T Z H R M V

G N L I T D D Z A L S V J Z V

N O T X A K L M Z U E H K L B

W E F O T D A C P P V T B R O

E Q O W D O H Z G C X E O B L

P U R P L E E B R O W N I S I

D Z Q W E P B B E E Z P O D V

A C X B G I W C E E Y Y X O E

The puzzle contains the following 15 words. They may be diagonal, across, or up and down in the grid in any direction.

K M C O B L U E N N Y Z S A V

Black Blue Bronze Brown Cream Emerald Green Maroon Mauve Olive Orange Purple Scarlet White Yellow

ANSWERS

B O

R O

30 23

15 12 1

L E

G O

G R 45

Y O

N N 4

D W E

D 7

G O A M

G O 31

E M O

25 3

M 44

21 18

G G E L

A S

G A

17 14 8

C O 9

G A N

G S

Y D P Q E W M A U C U W A K N

U O K L H P L M R T Z H R M V

G N L I T D D Z A L S V J Z V

N O T X A K L M Z U E H K L B

W E F O T D A C P P V T B R O

E Q O W D O H Z G C X E O B L

P U R P L E E B R O W N I S I

D Z Q W E P B B E E Z P O D V

A C X B G I W C E E Y Y X O E

K M C O B L U E N N Y Z S A V

3 8

1 4 5

9 6

7 2

1 9 4

2 9 7 8 4 1 3 6 5

6 2 3 5 8 4 9 7 1

4 5 1 6 9 7 2 8 3

8 7 9 3 1 2 4 5 6

9 1 2 4 5 6 8 3 7

7 6 4 2 3 8 5 1 9

5 3 8 1 7 9 6 4 2

25 Relative of an ostrich 27 Heavy-duty cleanser 28 Journey segment 29 Hang down 33 “Hotel ____” ﬁlm 34 Squat 35 Sign up 36 A bell tower 37 In times past 38 Chased 41 Hair curler 42 Sheltered 43 “Darn it all!” 44 Arab ruler 45 Part 46 Pr____, Czech Republic city 47 Inﬂuence greatly

Y Q C O B S M X C E T W O Y F

Y Q K G U Y C Z R H Z X E O R

M K A O R A N G E V M R K P G

Y Q C O B S M X C E T W O Y F

H Q L Y A N G M G B A E H X Z

M K A O R A N G E V M R K P G

H T B V I C R E A M A G O X V

H Q L Y A N G M G B A E H X Z

H T B V I C R E A M A G O X V

WORD SEARCH by Myles Mellor

50 Nightclub dancing (2 words) 51 No longer working: abbr. 52 Military address 53 Jewish month 54 Level top of a mountain 55 Tackle 56 Home paper Down 1 College-based military training 2 Brilliantly colored ﬁsh 3 “Buona ___” (Italian greeting) 4 Alias 5 Hypocrite 6 Smell 7 Swirled 8 Move to and fro 9 Type of berry 10 Help, ﬁnancially ___ on (2 words) 11 Hurdle 19 Gunk 20 Just produced 23 File folder feature 24 Brazilian town

Level: Medium

Across 1 Civil rights activist Parks 5 Horror writer, Edgar Allen 8 Luxury cars 12 Ready for business 13 Peculiar 14 PC monitor symbol 15 Tropical Asian plant 16 Lawn 17 Mother of the Titans 18 Sounding church bells in a certain way (2 words) 21 “__ make me feel brand new” The Stylistics 22 An oily ﬁsh 23 Shake 26 Lives 30 Intend 31 Word of success! 32 Matt Damon character 36 Rotten apple (2 words) 39 Gain victory 40 Freudian word 41 Geometric shape 48 Flair 49 Global ﬁnance group, for short

7 2

2 8

Each Sudoku puzzle consists of a 9X9 grid that has been subdivided into nine smaller grids of 3X3 squares. To solve the puzzle each row, column and box must contain each of the numbers 1 to 9. Puzzles come in three grades: easy, medium and difficult.

SUDOKU by Myles Mellor and Susan Flanagan

by Myles Mellor

CROSSWORD

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