Our Town Downtown - March 21, 2019

The local paper for Downtown wn

WEEK OF MARCH MIRÓ: POETRY IN PICTURES ◄ P.12

21-27 2019

AN AMAZON PROTEST IN MIDTOWN

Also inside:

PUBLIC ACTION The online giant remains a target of angry New Yorkers

COURT VICTORY FOR 200 AMSTERDAM OPPONENTS ▲ P.7

BY MICHELLE NAIM

If Amazon thought it had left its New York troubles behind last month when it pulled out of the deal to open a new headquarters in Queens, it was wrong. Dozens of protestors gathered in front of Amazon Books on West 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth Aves. earlier this month to remind the company, as well as city and state leaders, that the online giant is still not welcome.

Many community-building, housing, and education organizations took part in the March 7 demonstration, including the immigrant rights group Make the Road NY, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), a coalition of low and middle-income communities working for social and economic justice, and Chhaya CDC, which serves the city’s South Asian communities, to name just a few.

The sidewalk in front of the new bookstore was packed with people holding signs and chanting. Yelling “Sí, se puede!” (“Yes we can!”), and “When our workers are under attack what do we do? Stand up fight back!”, they let Amazon know just how they felt.

Although the company canceled its Queens plans, William Spisak, director of programs for Chhaya, made it clear in a phone interview that the protestors were out there that day to show their continued opposition to Amazon’s presence in the city. Many elected officials, he said, have tried to

CONTINUED ON PAGE 19

THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF FREE BOOKS▲ P.9 A map showing various coastal resilience projects aimed at protecting Lower Manhattan. The latest component is a master plan for the South Street Seaport and Financial District that will contemplate building new land in the East River to serve as a flood barrier. Image: Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency/NYCEDC

RESHAPING LOWER MANHATTAN ENVIRONMENT Mayor proposes expanding the downtown shoreline up to 500 feet into East River to protect city from impacts of climate change

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

Mayor Bill de Blasio pitched an ambitious plan last week to prepare Lower Manhattan for the projected impacts of climate change by literally transforming the island’s waterfront.

The proposal would push the shoreline anywhere from 50 to 500 feet into the East River along a roughly one-mile stretch of Lower Manhattan’s east side between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery. The new land would serve as an elevated flood barrier protecting the Financial District and South Street Seaport area from future sea-level rise and storm surge events.

These low-lying neighborhoods suffered some of the borough’s worst damage during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and will become increasingly vulnerable in the decades to come as New York City sea levels continue to

rise and extreme weather events occur with increased frequency and intensity, as projected in the 2019 report of the New York City Panel on Climate Change released on March 15.

By 2100, 20 percent of Lower Manhattan streets will be exposed to tidal flooding on a daily basis and almost half of all properties will be at risk from storm surge.

The shoreline expansion proposal is the latest in a series of coastline protection projects targeting specific segments of the Lower Manhattan waterfront.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Downtowner

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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

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

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MARCH 21-27,2019

ENTITLEMENT AND THE COLLEGE GAME

BY ALIZAH SALARIO

In the Chicago suburbs where I grew up, an elite college education wasn’t unusual. It was an expectation, and that came with a huge sense of entitlement.

Each spring, my high school newspaper published a list of colleges where every graduating senior was going. As an editor, it was my job to contact the classmates who didn’t submit their decision to the paper to find out their college of choice. A few were evasive; I knew they were waitlisted. I felt uncomfortable pressing them to say on the record they were going to the University of Illinois, for instance, knowing they were on the waitlist at Northwestern. It was the first time (but not the last) deadline pressure crushed my timidity. I pushed for what felt like crucial information the student body deserved to know.

something

have

Do

us to

?

into

My peers complained about pressure from their parents; I wanted to be pushed harder. What was wrong with my father?

my father refused. My grades and test scores were good, he reasoned.

Not good enough, I countered. Freshman year, he made me quit the swim team because practice before and after school was “too much” for me (our team won the state championships).

He complained that I stayed up all hours doing homework after my long rehearsals for our school’s near-professional plays. My peers complained about how much their parents pressured them; I wanted to be pushed harder.

This distinction caused me extreme humiliation as a teenager. What was wrong with my father? What I considered average exceeded his expectations. My father, a generation older than most of my peers’ parents, had gone to Roosevelt University on the GI Bill and later to the Chicago School of Optometry. He was old, to me, and spoke of going to “the school of hard knocks” and quotas for Jewish students that might have deterred him from going to medical school. My mother never attended college. I was expected to go to college, but not at all costs. It was understood I’d attend the college that gave me the most aid/ scholarship money and I did. It wasn’t

It seems strange to me now that I didn’t see a problem with publishing what was on some level a classist social hierarchy. In light of the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, the list (which included its fair share of Ivy League and legacy admissions) and the parents who illegally bribed test proctors and university employees to to falsify applications, are born of the same expectations and pressures. The belief that where you go to college defines you and your future — and the desperate measures parents and students go to in securing spots at top school — are even more intense nearly two decades after I graduated high school.

At least that’s where my social anxiety stemmed from. My high school is widely considered to be one of the best public schools in the country. College anxiety and application bolstering began early sophomore year. SAT prep courses and private tutoring were common, as were extensive college tours organized by high-achieving parents for their high-achieving kids.

I was quickly swept up in the notion that if I failed to achieve academically, I’d likely fail at life.

I begged for private SAT prep, but

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the most prestigious place I got in, and I learned my dad’s values differed from the people around me, who were shocked I wouldn’t attend the best school I got into. He never said it, but he didn’t need to. My father made it clear I wasn’t entitled to anything.

I ended up at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Though it’s a top liberal arts college, I still felt ashamed that its reputation fell short in the eyes of some striver friends. This was an early lesson for me in hierarchies, brand recognition and how money, or those willing to spend it, made a massive difference in who got ahead. I had taken so much for granted, and realized that although I felt I had it rough compared to those surrounding me, I was incredibly high-achieving and privileged by most standards. Though I scorned peers who did “better” than me because their parents paid for pricey tutors and pushed them to extremes, I too had felt entitled to success. That’s what bothers me most: the system makes even people like me feel they aren’t enough.

I was grateful I chose a school that provided an excellent education, and allowed me the freedom to find value and meaning outside of academics.

The author at Pitzer College. Photo courtesy of Alizah Salario But a feeling of inadequacy stuck with me. I was determined to attend an Ivy League grad school, and I did. I took out loans, and felt anxious about my debt. After a fellowship post-graduation, I took a paying job I didn’t want, adjacent to my field.

I don’t regret my choices. I just wish I’d better understood the consequences. Attending the best colleges does not equal happiness. It doesn’t guarantee success or financial security.

I also wish I’d better understood myself, and why I was both envious and scornful of so many people I grew up with. Maybe that’s why I was so annoyed at my father — he refused to play the game. Perhaps he was wise not to get swept up in a game that was rigged from the start.

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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 1st precinct for the week ending Mar 10 Week to Date

Photo by Tony Webster, via Flickr

CANDY CRUNCH

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENTS

At 12 noon on Sunday, Mar. 10, three men and a woman entered the 7-Eleven store at 111 John St. and were seen putting candy into bags, When a male employee approached the group and told them to put the candy back, one of men struck the employee in the face with a closed fist, causing a laceration above his eye, police said. The group then fled the location after stealing 20 candy bars valued at $40.

Two individuals were arrested in separate shoplifting incidents in the same Century 21 store recently. In the first incident, which took place on Monday, Mar. 4, police said a 38-yearold man entered the popular department store at 22 Cortlandt St. and removed two boxes of fragrance from a display shelf, concealing them in his jacket and attempting to leave the store without paying. According to police, when loss prevention personnel tried to stop the suspect he pulled out a folding box cutter and used it to menace them before fleeing the site. The items stolen

included Bulgari and Burberry fragrances totaling $84.98. Police arrested Adam Maldonado two days later and charged him with robbery.

In the second incident, which occurred on Thursday, Mar. 7, police reported that a 35-year-old woman entered the same store and removed merchandise without permission or authority, setting off an electronic alarm in the process. The items stolen included dresses, sweaters, skirts, perfumes, a jacket and earrings with a total value of $6,702. Police arrested Yeji Park and charged her with grand larceny.

Year to Date

2019 2018

% Change 2019

2018

% Change

Murder

0

1

-100.0 1

1

0.0

Rape

0

0

n/a

6

-66.7

Robbery

3

1

200.0 10

14

-28.6

Felony Assault

0

0

n/a

13

7

85.7

Burglary

2

0

n/a

19

8

137.5

Grand Larceny

16

30

-46.7

171

201

-14.9

Grand Larceny Auto

1

0

n/a

3

1

200.0

2

BYE BYE E-BIKE

PAGING AGATHA CHRISTIE

Unfortunately, e-bikes seem as easy to steal as they are to ride. At 9:30 p.m. on Monday, Mar. 4, a 30-year-old man chained his e-bike to scaffolding in front of 28 Warren St. before heading off to New Jersey. When he returned at 11:30 p.m., the chain and lock had been cut and the e-bike was gone. There were no surveillance cameras in the area. The stolen e-bike was an Arrow 10, valued at $1,730.

A guest at the Q & A Hotel had more questions than answers after her coat disappeared. On Sunday, Mar. 3, a 25-year-old woman was staying at the residential hotel at 70 Pine St. As she was leaving her room at 1 a.m. she noticed that her coat was missing. She told police later that a group of people had been in the room. The stolen coat was a navy blue Moncler valued at $2,000.

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Useful Contacts

Word on the Street

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

POST OFFICES

“Chinatown: Horses Fly.” Photo: John Andrulis.

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NYC HAIKU SERIES

BY RACHEL E. DIKEN

NYC Haiku #1 An unlikely mix connected by human search to know one’s essence.

NYC Haiku #2 Everyone quickened their pace, like a collective turning of the page.

NYC Haiku #3 We will gravitate to places where who we are is permissible.

NYC Haiku #4 As passersby we exchanged the satisfied look of perfect timing.

Rachel E. Diken is a writer, actor and filmmaker. Visit www.rachelediken.com.

MARCH 21-27,2019

MARCH 21-27,2019

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MARCH 21-27,2019

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RESHAPING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The city has directed roughly $500 million to funding resilience strategies at the Battery, Battery Park City and the Two Bridges neighborhood, each of which will be under construction by 2021. The city’s study found that measures planned at the other sites — which include earthen berms, raised esplanades and “flip-up” flood barriers that could be deployed in advance of a storm — are not viable in the Financial District and Seaport area due to the complex infrastructure present, which includes the A/C subway tunnel and Hugh L. Carey tunnel.

To create new land extending as much as two blocks into the river would require a complex permitting and regulatory approval process. Still, the mayor and his advisors believe it is the best option available.

“We wanted to limit the shoreline extension to only the places where that was the only feasible solution,” Jainey Bavishi, director of Mayor’s Office of Recovery & Resiliency, said at a March 14 press conference. “And in the other areas where we know that there are technologies that will provide protection without going into the water, that’s what we are moving forward with.”

“It can’t move without a president” The mayor’s office projects the undertaking will cost approximately $10 billion, an estimate that includes $4 billion for new stormwater drainage infrastructure and $6 billion for construction to extend the shoreline. The ultimate cost will be contingent upon the design of the project as a master plan is developed over the next two years, including how many feet of shoreline extension the final plan includes.

The city will look to the federal gov-

This graphic shows the average grade elevation within the 2050s 100-year storm floodplain for various Manhattan neighborhoods.

Image: Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency/NYCEDC

This more resilient future cannot be paid for by private real estate development that would destroy the waterfront neighborhoods that we are trying to protect.”

Council Member Margaret Chin

ernment for funding, which de Blasio acknowledged is likely a non-starter as long as President Donald Trump is in office. (The mayor made no mention of his own presidential ambitions, which brought him to New Hampshire days after the climate announcement.)

“We have a climate denier in the White House,” de Blasio said. “He’s not going to change it. And it can’t move without a president. So I would say it’s after the 2020 election that we open up the possibility of a serious new national resiliency policy and serious money being applied to it, and it is consistent with the vision of the Green New Deal.”

The city will implement interim pro-

Post-Sandy flooding near South Street Seaport: Photo: NYC Department of Small Business tection measures such as temporary storm barriers in the Seaport district until the shoreline expansion is complete. The project might not be completed until 2030 under traditional permitting, de Blasio said, but could be completed by 2025 if the federal government cooperates to expedite the process.

The mayor was noncommittal on what, if anything, should be built on any new land that is created.

Whether the extremely valuable new

STUDENT CLIMATE STRIKE ACTIVISM PHOTOS AND TEXT BY JEREMY WEINE

SEE MORE PHOTOS ONLINE AT OTDOWNTOWN.COM

On Friday, students from around New York City walked out of school to protest government inaction on climate change. A group from the Beacon School in Hell’s Kitchen made their way to Columbus Circle, where they were joined by students from other schools who gathered around the U.S.S. Maine Monument at the entrance to Central Park. The various schools led chants as the crowd walked uptown along Central Park West to the American Museum of Natural History, where the students occupied the museum’s steps. The demonstration broke up around 4 p.m.

real estate would be dedicated parks, schools, housing or other uses would ultimately be subject to community input during the city’s land use review process, de Blasio said.

Turning to private developers?

The mayor’s proposal, which he announced in a New York Magazine op-ed titled “My New Plan to Climate Proof Lower Manhattan,” has some similarities to a 2013 proposal explored by the administration of

6 former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s plan, known as “Seaport City,” envisioned an entire new neighborhood build upon new land in the East River.

The mayor differentiated his vision from the Seaport City plan by insisting that his proposal is focused primarily on climate resilience and not new development. But absent federal funding, the mayor said, turning to private developers as a source of funding could become a necessity.

“From the perspective of the City of New York alone, this would be extraordinarily difficult to fund,” de Blasio said. “I think it comes down to simply this: if there’s federal money in play, it probably looks one way. If there’s not federal money in play, we have to get some private money and there has to be some development.”

Margaret Chin, who represents Lower Manhattan in the City Council, immediately pushed back against the idea of private development.

“With this plan to provide protection for the entire coastline of Lower Manhattan, we now have a roadmap to a more resilient and sustainable future,” Chin said in a statement. “However, this more resilient future cannot be paid for by private real estate development that would destroy the waterfront neighborhoods that we are trying to protect.”

Catherine McVay Hughes, the former chair of Community Board 1 and a leading voice in Lower Manhattan’s resiliency planning efforts, said she looks forward to learning more details of the proposal as the city prepares an engineering plan and engages local stakeholders. “To not do anything to protect the Financial District and the South Street Seaport is not an option,” she said, adding, “I encourage everybody who cares about the future of Lower Manhattan to attend and participate in the meetings.”

MARCH 21-27,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

A rendering shows the so-called “gerrymandered” zoning lot used to justify the tower’s 668-foot height.

Rendering: Municipal Art Society of New York

COURT VICTORY FOR 200 AMSTERDAM OPPONENTS DEVELOPMENT Judge rules against developers of planned 668foot residential tower

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

The controversial condominium tower under construction at 200 Amsterdam Avenue was dealt a significant setback March 14, when a state Supreme Court judge vacated and annulled the city’s earlier decision to approve plans for the 668-foot tower.

The ruling represents a victory for local groups and elected officials who have fought the project for over two years, arguing that the building’s large, irregularly shaped zoning lot — which critics liken to a gerrymandered political district — violates city zoning regulations.

“We’re delighted,” said Olive Freud, the president of the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, an Upper West Side nonprofit that jointly filed the legal challenge with the Municipal Art Society of New York. “It took a long time but we got the right decision.”

Judge W. Franc Perry’s decision sends the matter back to the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals, which last year upheld the Department of Buildings’ decision to issue a permit for the project, ruling against an appeal filed the proj-

ect’s opponents. The court’s order instructs the BSA to reevaluate the appeal under new criteria that seem to require the zoning appeals panel to arrive at the opposite conclusion.

“We believe the Board of Standards and Appeals will have to revoke the permit,” said Richard Emery, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

Until that happens, however, the court order does not prevent the developer from continuing work on the building, which now rises roughly 20 stories over Amsterdam Avenue near West 68th Street.

Emery said the plaintiffs may pursue a temporary court order to stop work on the project until the BSA revisits the case.

The building’s developers, SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan, may also choose to appeal the Supreme Court’s decision. An SJP spokesperson declined to address whether the company plans to file an appeal, but Emery believes an appeal will “undoubtedly” be forthcoming.

“The issue now is how much building is going to go on between now and when the appeal is determined,” Emery said.

“Something is changing in the air” Under the interpretation of the zoning resolution required by the court, Emery believes that 200 Amsterdam is already near its maximum permissible size in its current, unfinished state.

“We hope the developer will stop of his own accord, because he is taking a huge risk going forward,” Emery said, adding, “Because if they build further and we subsequently win the appeal, it will be a whole different kettle of fish for them to have to take stories off the building.”

In an emailed statement, an SJP spokesperson said the development team for 200 Amsterdam “followed the law completely and continues to make construction progress.”

“We respectfully disagree with some of the judge’s ruling, which calls into question the validity of the Certificate of Occupancy of several completed and fully occupied residential buildings,” the statement continued. “200 Amsterdam’s zoning permits were exhaustively reviewed by both the Department of Buildings and the BSA, the two city agencies with the primary responsibility for interpreting NYC’s zoning codes.

Following thorough analysis and public testimony, both agencies determined that the building fully conforms with the city’s zoning laws.”

Freud said the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development is prepared to press on if the developers appeal to a higher court.

“I think something is changing in the air around here,” she said. “People are recognizing that they have a right to sky and sun and that they don’t have to live in shadows.”’

He loves solving problems.

So he gives.

William Donnell turned to The New York Community Trust to help him share his good fortune.

Together, we preserve parks, support the LGBTQ community, and fight poverty.

He also put The Trust in his will.

“Long after I’m gone, The Trust will keep using my money to make New York better for everyone.”

What do you love?

We can help with your charitable giving.

(212) 686-0010 x363 or giving@nyct-cfi.org www.GiveTo.nyc

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MARCH 21-27,2019

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Voices

Write to us: To share your thoughts and comments go to otdowntown.com and click on submit a letter to the editor.

TRUMP IN THE RUSSIAN TEA ROOM? EAST SIDE OBSERVER

BY ARLENE KAYATT

Nyet 101 — While everyone’s figuring out who’s in and who’s out for 2020’s Big Race, Staten Island’s former assemblywoman and mayoral candidate, Nicole Malliotakis, is now tossing her hat in the ring and going for the gold with a run for Congress against first-term Democrat Max Rose, who beat then incumbent Dan Donovan last November. Malliotakis voted for Trump and is a Trump supporter. It’s amusing that the venue for her big coming-out fundraiser on March 21 is, of all places, the Russian Tea Room. With the ever-vigilant wags out, it’s hard to imagine that Trump won’t resist a

tweet about “No collusion.” But then he probably won’t show up anyway. It would be fun if he did — imagine all the “fake news” that would accompany a Trump visit to the Russian Tea Room! And who knows, Malliotakis could find herself in a primary against two avid Staten Island Trump supporters and erstwhile congressmen — the aforementioned Dan Donovan, and the inimitable Michael Grimm. With three supporters, whom would Trump choose? Could be Russian Roulette.

Liking bikes — Bikes have become a rallying cry in our town. How much bike space? How much pedestrian space? How much space for other life activity that is appropriate for the city’s streets and sidewalks?

In most instances, it comes down to

how old you are. Nothing unusual about that dynamic in the public square. As a transportation issue, there’s the individual biker biking to get where he or she is going. Then there’s the non-biker crossing the street to get to where he or she is going — maybe to a bus, a train, or just the other side of the street. The age part also falls into the safety aspect of all-bike-all-the-time. The young are resilient and can take a fall-offthe-bike in stride and get right up.

Not so for the not-so-young and perhaps the very young. Recently, a twenty-something related that there was nothing to worry about, she easily got up, dusted off, and continued on after a bike accident.

Lucky lucky.

E-bikes are a growing hazard

on the streets, and the Stuyvesant Town area is doing something about it. The 13th precinct has confiscated 135 e-bikes and has issued summonses. As reported in Town & Village, there is some confusion among residents about what’s legal and what’s not regarding e-bikes.

These and other bike-related issues are vital and important and need unbiased listening and decision-making. It doesn’t do the community any good for electeds to use a litmus test when selecting community board members and to choose those who favor bikes. Or not. The tendency, I’m told, is that those being selected favor bikers.

Public officials are entitled to their own bona fide preferences, but as electeds they have a duty to be open-

LADIES WHO HOOP: EVERYONE WINS WEST SIDE STORIES

BY MEREDITH KURZ

“I used to wake up at 6 a.m. to play basketball before work,” Nedra Bryant, aka “Heat,” told me, as she took a break, catching her breath. “It was all men. Then I found Ladies Who Hoop. I never looked back.”

We were on the Upper West Side, in the Louis D. Brandeis High School gym at 145 West 84th Street, for an evening of three-on-three basketball games. Several generations of players warmed up, stretched, and gave each other a hug or handshake before some serious competition.

The games were a blur of passes, shots made, shots missed and a few falls. Through it all, Tonya Carter, aka “The Oracle,” gave a play-by-play, handing out names to the players like ‘Hollywood’ and ‘Blizz’ What is Iz’ and ‘Silent Movie’. “No good,” she called out as the ball missed its mark. After attempting three times to score, a player watched the ball finally slip through the hoop. “The fourth ‘hunh’ did it!” The Oracle called out, making

us all laugh.

Ladies Who Hoop was founded by Amber Batchelor, known as “The Mayor” on the Upper West Side. Now in its fourth year, the organization has more than 867 members from all over the city. The benefits of the program reach far beyond the pleasures of the games themselves.

According to the Women’s Sport Foundation, girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression. They also have a more positive body image and experience higher states of psychological wellbeing than girls and women who do not play sports.

High school girls who play sports are less likely to be involved in an unintended pregnancy, are more likely to get better grades in school and are more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports. Also, according to the National Cancer Institute, as little as four hours of exercise a week may reduce a teenage girl’s risk of breast cancer by up to 60 percent.

Ladies Who Hoop is all about fair play: fair in the level of skill distribut-

ed across the teams; fair in the amount of court time players and teams get; and, on this night, fair in the way the games are called by referee Chiene Jones. Jones, whose day job is director of children’s athletics at Harlem Children’s Zone, has just started her own group called “Grow Our Game”, a program that offers beginner skills and development for girls aged five to ten.

Another player, Kook Lim, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology.

You can tell she loves the game, and she played well, but she’s also studying how (perceived) verbal aggression can impact female basketball players’ mental health, game performance and career choices.

The Ladies Who Hoop scoring system tracks personal scores as well as team scores. This helps make sure the teams are evenly matched — the better players don’t all end up on the same team. It also motivates performance — players would occasionally check to make sure their score had been entered.

While the play was definitely competitive, I also saw a player helping her competitor off the floor, and a lot

Amber Batchelor, aka “The Mayor,” is the founder of Ladies Who Hoop, which now has more than 860 members citywide.

Photo: Meredith Kurz of passing, a lot of team play. There was no hogging the ball. These women were mature enough to know how this all works.

Ladies Who Hoop now has sponsors like the New York Times, the Today Show, the New York Liberty profes-

minded and to listen to and rely on diverse opinions and input from the community, experts, and interested entities. Same holds true for all matters that come before governmental bodies, including housing, homeless shelters, landmarks. No litmus tests for getting on community boards or other governmental bodies.

Hospital city — Can’t ignore it.

There’s barely a block in Manhattan that isn’t home to some sort of hospital entity. Be it a City MD, a walkin affiliated with a teaching or other hospital, or a dormitory or housing facility for medical students and staffers. And more are coming. And not only for humans. Look for dropin medical facilities for pets. New York’s new real estate. Nobody’s thinking moms and pops anymore.

sional basketball team, sportswear companies like Point 3 and Title IX, Advil, and the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development. Last April, well-known athletes like WNBA star and cover girl Kym Hampton and Ivy League allstar and current pro Armani Cotton, worked with Ladies Who Hoop to host the First Annual Free-Throw Contest at the opening of a new condo building on the UWS. The popularity has enabled Batchelor to create two youth groups, one for kids under 12, the other for teens.

Batchelor’s group has also worked with Goddard Riverside’s Beacon Program, which offers sports activities for youth on the UWS. With the passing of Title IX, the impact of women’s sports has been felt in the board room. Ernst and Young did a study on women leadership and athletics. The research showed that 94 percent of women in the top tier of their companies played sports, and over half continued to play while going to college. This suggests a strong connection between success in business, and continuing sports.

If you’re missing the game, or want to start playing, look up Ladies Who Hoop on Facebook or Meetup. It’s a great place to reconnect with the ball, the sport, and team play.

President & Publisher, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com

STRAUS MEDIA your neighborhood news source nyoffice@strausnews.com 212-868-0190

Vice President/CFO Otilia Bertolotti Vice President/CRO Vincent A. Gardino advertising@strausnews.com

Associate Publishers Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Regional Sales Manager Tania Cade

Account Executives Fred Almonte, David Dallon Director of Partnership Development Barry Lewis

Editor-In-Chief, Alexis Gelber Deputy Editor David Noonan

Senior Reporter Doug Feiden Staff Reporter Michael Garofalo

Director of Digital Pete Pinto Director, Arts & Entertainment Alizah Salario

MARCH 21-27,2019

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF FREE BOOKS

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST Jan. 10, 2019 8

Jan. 18, 2019 JANUARY 10-16,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

OUTSIDE COMES IN AT OUTSIDER ART FAIR

SCHOOLS

BY MARY GREGORY

tan Museum’s recent exhibit “History Refused to Die,” featuring Gee’s Bend quilts and major works by Thornton Dial, or the Smithsonian’s current “Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor,” the first major museum exhibition for an artist born into slavery.

The Outsider Art Fair includes works

by Dial and Traylor.

So inside has outside become that even Hollywood stars are gathering at this year’s fair. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey will be exhibiting political drawings, and photographs by Mark Hogancamp, whose life and work are the subject of “Welcome to Marwen,” a film starring Steve Carell, will be presented by 1 Mile Gallery.

What brings it all together is the inclusive vision of Wide Open Arts, organizers of the fair. “For outsider art, the fair utilizes the definition of self-taught or non-academic work. We try to be very broad so we can be open to all work that comes our way,” said Becca Hoffman, Outsider Art Fair director. “We start with self-taught, and from there we explore.”

Some of art’s most groundbreaking greats, like Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Joseph Cornell, were selftaught. So was William Edmondson, who made sculptures so powerful that, in 1937, they earned him the spot as the first African American artist to be given a solo exhibition at MoMA.

In 2014, art critic Walter Robinson made a wave (that swelled to a tsunami) in art world circles when he identified a trend in contemporary art he called “Zombie Formalism,” where countless young MFA-wielding painters cranked out innumerable eerily similar works. But you won’t encounter those types of paintings at the 27th annual Outsider Art Fair.

What you will find instead are deeply personal, idiosyncratic glimpses into unique personalities with singular visual voices.

Art is the soul’s language, and our polyglot culture is richly reflected in the breadth, depth and emotional impact of art that is at times quirky, elegant, boisterous, whimsical, mysterious, touching, unsettling and elevating. Many of the works, presented by some 65 international galleries, stand squarely outside the mainstream. Others, like Morton Bartlett’s photographs of meticulously sculpted, dressed and posed figures (from Julie Saul Gallery), might spark thoughts of James Casebere or Cindy Sherman, though they were created decades earlier. This year’s Outsider Art Fair proves there’s a fine line between the art world’s insiders and outsiders.

That fact will resonate with museum-goers who’ve seen the Metropoli-

Even in this digital age, good old books, the kind you can hold in your hands, are prized possessions in New York City classrooms

BY BRIAN DEMO

Earlier this month, more than a dozen New York City teachers were lined up in a hallway in the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan, empty suitcases and backpacks in hand, waiting patiently to be called into the Gold Ballroom. When the call finally came, they rushed into the large space and found tens of thousands of books of every description. They filled their luggage with chapter books, history books, science books, books for pre-K, books for high school, reference books and more. This printed treasure, which they would lug back to their home boroughs, was bound for their classrooms and libraries. And the beauty of it all: the books were free.

Project Cicero, started in 2001, is a nonprofit organization that gathers new and gently used books written for kids and young adults. Its goal is to help boost student development in under-resourced New York City public schools. Its annual giveaway, which takes place over a single weekend, has, in some years, attracted more than a thousand teachers and administrators who eagerly await their assigned book-selecting slots. In 2018, according to a Cicero survey, some 1,200 teachers participated as Project Cicero added an estimated 150,000 books to city classrooms and school libraries.

The books are gathered over the course of a year and come from a variety of sources, including private schools, publishers, book drives by Cicero’s corporate partners and even individual donors. The organization’s website, projectcicero. org,is a clearinghouse of information for donors (you can give money as well as books) and people interested in volunteering. Susan Robbins, chair of Project Cicero’s executive committee, said they received a grant from News Corp., which

original exhibitor at the fair, spoke of the artists she championed as ones who made art “not because they might want to but instead because they had to.” (One might, of course, say the same of workaholics like Michelangelo and Picasso.)

Ms. Kind, who is honored with a tribute exhibition organized by the critic Edward M. Goméz, certainly did not associate compulsion with lack of aesthetic control. Control is evident at every turn.

It’s pinpoint fine in 1940s crayon images of fantasy landscapes by the German artist identified only as Angelika (at Henry Boxer, Surrey, England). It’s coolly stripped-down in drawings of what look like Bauhaus temples by the Senegalese-born street artist Ousseynou Gassama, known as Hassan (at Ricco/Maresca, New York). And control feels explosive in paintings mixing antique Japanese themes and contemporary cartoons by Yuichiro Ukai (at Yukiko Koide Presents, Tokyo).

After time spent with Mr. Ukai’s detonations of detail, you may be in need of retinal relief, and you’ll find it in the show’s scattering of abstract art: in biomorphic pastels by Julian Martin (at Fleisher/ Ollman, Philadelphia); in tantric paintings from western India (Galerie Hervé Perdriolle, Paris); and in sewn canvases by Sidival Fila (James Barron Art, Kent, Conn.)

With Mr. Fila’s work, outsider shades into the less dramatic category of self-taught work. A Brazilianborn Franciscan monk living in Rome for decades, he began to make art only in 2006. Yet his monochromatic paintings, with their meticulous stitching, have gained a following and earned him some money, most of which goes to paying for the education of children in Africa and elsewhere.

Mr. Fila is, in a sense, an outsider by choice, as are — but again, only in a sense — the artists in a special exhibition, “Good Kids: Underground Comics From China,” assembled by Brett Littman, director of the Noguchi Museum, and Yi Zhou, partner and curator of C5 Art Gallery in Beijing.

Jayne County, “See Me in No Special Light,” 2004, mixed media on paper. James Barron Art. Photo courtesy Outsider Art Fair.

His work can be seen at the Ricco/ Maresca booth.

There are plenty of contemporary artists to discover, as well. Jana Paleckova, represented by Fred Giampietro Gallery, starts with vintage late 19th or early 20th century photographs. She obscures some parts, paints others in, and creates astonishing, complex, surreal imagery that’s at once haunting and elegant. Mary F. Whitfield’s watercolors convey themes of poverty, slavery, survival, love and triumph. Her work, on view at the Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects booth, has been called visionary.

And then there is Jayne County.

“Jayne County was Punk Rock’s first openly transgender performer, inspired Andy Warhol, David Bowie and participated in the Stonewall uprising,” said Hoffman. “She’s someone that people should know, but might not.” Her technicolor dreamscapes, peopled by mythic figures, are presented by James Barron Gallery Also a highlight for Hoffman are the assemblages of Staten Island artist, John Foxell, whose life and art spilled into one another. “Foxell was an administrative assistant in the Manhattan family courts for a long time. He was also a poet and a preservationist,”

explained Hoffman. His small, saltbox house became so transformed by his art that it’s now a landmark. His eccentric, often humorous tabletop assemblages will be on view at the Norman Brosterman booth.

The Outsider Art Fair will also present off-site exhibits at Ace Hotel, including a pop-up Troll Museum, a presentation of Boro textiles from Japan, and a group of short films. A talk titled “Unusual Brains: Neurodiversity and Artistic Creation” will be held at the New Museum, and two curated spaces, one featuring underground comics from China and another dedicated to gallerist Phyllis Kind, will also be part the fair. God’s Love We Deliver will be the beneficiary of a silent auction and part of the opening night’s proceeds.

Some things can be taught in art schools, like theory, history, materials and techniques. But art, itself, comes from a deeper place – from the heart, from life lived. “This work speaks from a place of warmth and authenticity,” Hoffman said. “It’s exciting for me to watch people come into the fair and discover something they love. The art dealer will tell them about the story of the artist, and suddenly the visitor will be talking about themselves. It’s a really connected experience.”

Mary F. Whitfield’s “4 Swans in Alabama,” June 2003. Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects.

Photo courtesy of Jeanette May.

IF YOU GO What: Outsider Art Fair Where:Metropolitan Pavilion 125 West 18th Street When: Jan. 17-20 www.outsiderartfair.com Outsider Art, which once had fringe cachet, is now pretty well inside the mainstream fold. As a genre, it has developed branding strategies, a collecting base and a marketable canon of (mostly male) stars, with Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez and Bill Traylor leading the list. All three are present, like tutelary deities, in the 27th New York City edition of the show, at the Metropolitan Pavilion.

With 66 exhibitors from seven countries, it’s an expansive display of mostly smallish, textured, densely detailed things — modest-size figurative paintings and drawings dominate — but with a good share of stop-and-stare surprises.

One comes with a group of large-scale architectural models by the Philadelphia artist Kambel Smith.

Born in 1986 and diagnosed with autism as a child, Mr. Smith began painting, and when his family could no longer afford to buy canvas and oil paint, he turned to constructing models from cardboard, with the goal of creating what amount to sculptural portraits of historical Philadelphia buildings.

At the fair, the booth of his dealer, Chris Byrne, from Dallas, is all but filled by a model of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, replete with pediment murals. The city’s Betsy Ross House hugs the wall nearby. According to the gallery, Mr. Smith’s work now takes up more than half of his family’s home.

Bill Traylor’s “Man and Cat on Organic Form,” Poster paint and graphite on cardboard, c.1939-42. From California’s Just Folk. Photo courtesy Outsider Art Fair.

And in the house-crowding category, there’s the sculpture of another artist making his solo debut, John Foxell (1944-2016), represented by the East Hampton, N.Y., dealer Norman Brosterman. Mr. Foxell, who lived alone in a snug 1840s house on Staten Island, had post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the events of Sept. 11. To relieve anxiety, he used art as therapy and filled his home with tabletop assemblages made from stuff he found in flea markets and on the street — toys, buttons, acorns, bones. The results are funny, erotic and macabre. He’s a consumerist Joseph Cornell.

Busy is a word that might be applied to this work. And there’s a good amount of busyness in the fair, which perhaps supports the art-making-as-compulsion narrative by which outsiderness is often defined. The term embraces artists with psychiatric disabilities, like Darger and Ramírez, as well as those like Traylor, who had no conventional art training. The American art dealer Phyllis Kind, an

Feb. 21, 2019

The saga of these “kids” is complicated. It began when a small group of artists, disaffected by mainstream culture, began sharing images online. The group grew in size to become a self-exhibiting and self-publishing enterprise. What didn’t change was its underground status. Participants still operate under government radar. The fact that much of the work deals with officially frowned-on subject matter, including homosexuality, keeps the project marginal even within the contemporary Chinese art world.

By contrast, certain other political art in the show delivers an antiauthoritarian message in plain sight; indeed, in the spotlight. Such is the case with a recent series of satirical Trump cartoons by the actor Jim Carrey, brought by Maccarone Gallery of Los Angeles. The drawings have bite, but their over-the-top insult style is now the common language of American culture. To speak it is to take few risks. Mr. Carrey qualifies as an outsider artist by being self-taught. Yet because, he is also a celebrity insider, he has been awarded the kind of critical enthusiasm and (I’m guessing) collecting attention that most of the artists in this fair could only dream of. Maybe true Outsider art, which this is not, really is still far outside after all.

Outsider Art Fair Through Sunday. Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, outsiderartfair.com.

Correction: Jan. 18, 2019 An earlier version of this review referred incorrectly to the dealer Phyllis Kind. She was an original exhibitor at the Outsider Art Fair. She was not one of the fair’s founders.

Holland Cotter is the co-chief art critic. He writes on a wide range of art, old and new, and he has made extended trips to Africa and China. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2009.

Feb. 24, 2019

THE ETERNAL ORPHANAGE A New York City teacher loads up on free books for her classroom at Project Cicero’s 2019 book giveaway. Photo: Brian Demo funded trucks to help transport the books.

After moving hundreds of boxes into the ballroom — which Hotel Pennsylvania lets them use for free — workers and volunteers stack and sort books. The annual event takes place from 10 to 5 on both Saturday and Sunday. Committee member Ellen Hay Newman said that Project Cicero works hard to create “an equitable distribution” of books, meaning that teachers arriving at later times will not be left with the scraps.

To help maintain flow, Project Cicero gives educators one-hour slots in the ballroom (through online registration).

Attendees hear of the event in different ways, such as word of mouth and social media. Susan Fisher, an executive committee member and the director of volunteers, said groups who volunteer include the Muslim Volunteers for New York, Daughters of the American Revolution, the New York Junior League and the Girl Scouts.

For all its success, Fisher said Project Cicero does face some challenges. One goal is to get an accurate figure regarding how many readers the books actually touch. Also, they are working to understand why teachers sign up for the giveaway and then don’t show up.

In 2018, some 2,400 teachers registered and around 1,200 attended. “We know the percentage,” said Fisher, “We want to

know why.”

What they already know is the impact their work can have on students. Hay Newman recalled a teacher who spoke to Project Cicero’s board about 15 years ago. A boy in the teacher’s class had asked if he could take the class dictionary home with him. The teacher asked why and the boy said he loved books but didn’t have any at home. And then one day the teacher walked into class with two rolling suitcases filled with books for the boy and his classmates to take home.

Kaitlin Parker is a speechlanguage pathologist at District 75, which she said is “the special education district for the entire city.” She said some principals in the public school system are more focused on purchasing curriculums and new technology than acquiring physical copies of books.

But Parker is a book person.

She’s attended the Project Cicero event for about five years, and goes in with a game plan.

“I make sure to go to the children’s books first. Everything else is secondary.” This year, she brought a suitcase with pockets on the outside and a large backpack to fit more books of different sizes.

Stephanie Luciano is a special education teacher in PS 35 in the Bronx. This was her first year at Project Cicero and she piled as many books as possible into a hard suitcase. “I think I’ll come back,” she said.

COMMUNITY A Yorkville priest and the head of an elite private school thrash out a plan to memorialize a beloved vestige of a 19th-century chapel — even as its inevitable disappearance looms

I do not doubt that one day, this relic of the past will reemerge to astonish future generations.”

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

The clock is quickly ticking on the future of the Ghostly Remnant of East 90th Street.

But there’s good news, too: Due to a breakthrough deal hammered out in a Feb. 15 meeting, the majestic ruin will be commemorated forever.

Construction of a new field house for the Spence School on the block between First and York Avenues is already underway.

And as it advances, the beloved fragment that survived from the chapel of the old St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum will vanish from view.

Built in 1898 to serve the orphanage, which was founded in 1857, the neo-Classical, brick-and-stone church has endured, in truncated form, ever since.

That won’t change. But late this year or in 2020, the vestige is expected to be obscured, perhaps indefinitely, behind the six-story, 85-foot tall athletic complex that Spence is now building directly to the east.

It won’t go quietly: Its fans have been fighting to save it ever since Our Town chronicled its history, status and uncertain future in two articles in January, “The Ghostly Remnant” and “Rallying for a Remnant.”

In response, East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos — who once lived in the condo at 402 East 90th St. in which the remnant is spectacularly

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

City Council Member Ben Kallos

A seven-story vestige of an old Yorkville chapel, embedded into a neighboring building, stands sentinel over an empty lot where the Spence School is constructing a new field house. The facade will vanish from view when the work is completed, but the chapel will be memorialized both inside and outside the new Spence building.

Photo: Sarah Greig Photography / FRIENDS of the Upper East Side Historic Districts

Oct. 19, 2018

Nov. 20, 2018

‘GRAMMAR ZEN’ IN VERDI SQUARE COMMUNITY New Yorkers talk tricky tenses, punctuation passions and more at Ellen Jovin’s UWS pop-up table

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

Are you prepositionally challenged? Hesitant around hyphens? Undergoing a comma crisis? Simply enraptured by the beauty of a well-placed ellipsis?

Ellen Jovin wants to talk grammar with you.

Jovin has become familiar to Upper West Side word lovers in recent weeks as the face and founder of Grammar Table — a public forum for open-ended discussion of all things language. Armed with a folding table and an array of reference books and style guides, Jovin sets up shop near the northern entrance to the 72nd Street subway station on Broadway to d l li ( ih

dole out complimentary (with an “i”) pointers, guidance and emotional support to all comers, from devoted syntacticians to the downright grammar-averse.

“Hi, this looks lit,” a young woman said on a recent afternoon as she approached Grammar Table (lately Jovin has been trying out the name without the definite article). The woman introduced herself as

a fifth-gr and soon had found vin. A spi the joys o ensued.

A steady paused in hour scru the Gram were wa embolde

FI R S T I N YOU R N E I G H BO R H O O D

(212) 868-0190

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EDITOR’S PICK

Sun 24 WE STAN TOGETHER SubCulture 45 Bleecker St 10:30 p.m. $9 subculturenewyork.com 212-533-5470 Comedians Caitlin Bitzegaio & Lauren Brickman bring their pop culture expertise to the UCB stage each month to unpack and celebrate the most important pop culture news, fan theories, and Instagram stories that they can’t stop thinking about and, frankly, you can’t either.

Cultural Events in and around where you live (not Brooklyn, not Westchester)

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Thu 21 Fri 22

Sat 23

▲ CRAFTERNOON

MIHO HATORI: SALON MONDIALITÉ

► POWER OF THE SACRED HUMAN

The Kitchen 512 West 19th St 8:00 p.m. $25 Inspired by Edouard Glissant’s words, Salon Mondialité is an imaginary, experimental TV talk show. Instead of conversations, Hatori creates sound stories through improvisation and ambient chanting. thekitchen.org 212-255-5793

The Rubin Museum 150 West 17th St 11:00 a.m. $80 Through an interactive experience that will include sacred rituals, concerts, meditations, lectures, and panel discussions, attendees will learn about the presenters’ visions, wisdom, and ways of life. Join us in celebrating the Power of the Sacred Human. rubinmuseum.org 212-620-5000

Mulberry Street Library 10 Jersey St 4:00 p.m. Free Make a seasonal craft in the Children’s Room. For children 5-12 years old. nypl.org 212-966-3424

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

MARCH 21-27,2019

ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND

thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY

Buddhism for Beginners: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism

TUESDAY, MARCH 26TH, 7PM Jewel Heart Buddhist Center | 260 W. Broadway | 212-966-2807 | jewelheart.org Jewel Heart’s Resident Spiritual Advisor Demo Rinpoche leads a session guiding guests into the Tibetan Buddhist approach to mindful meditation, which includes concentration (jo gom) and analytic (che gom) meditation (free; $10 suggested donation includes latest copy of Tricycle).

Optimal Decision Making in Everyday Life–A (Bar) Talk

TUESDAY, MARCH 26TH, 7:30PM Subject | 188 Suffolk St. | 646-422-7898 | subject-les.com NYU professor and psychologist Lawrence Ian Reed shares his expertise in moods and emotions.

In this talk, he’ll lay out the how and why behind the optimal answers to all your dilemmas ($15 online advance, $18 day of).

Photo of Panama Canal Gatun Locks. Photo: Stan Shebs, via Wikimedia Commons

Sun 24 Mon 25 Tue 26 ▲ CANAL ZONE Anthology Film Archives 32 Second Ave 8:00 p.m. Free “Canal Zone is about the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone. The film explores the operation of the canal, the various governmental agencies related to the functioning of the canal and the lives of the Americans in the zone. The film includes sequences of ships in transit, the work of special canal pilots, aspects of the civil government, the work of the military, and the social, religious, and recreational life of the Zonians. anthologyfilmarchives.org 212-505-518

SHIZ: BROADWAY MEETS SKETCH COMEDY

REDUCTRESS PRESENTS: HAHA...WOW!

UCB Hell’s Kitchen 555 West 42nd St 10:30 p.m. $9 Your favorite musical theater characters find themselves in the middle of sketches in this Broadway-meets-comedy show. SHIZ is a love letter to Broadway, with a few notes scribbled in the margins. No parody lyrics, only parody riffs. ucbtheatre.com 212-366-9176

Caveat 21 A Clinton St 6:30 p.m $10 Join Reductress writers and hosts Eva Victor and Taylor Garron for a stand-up/variety show that will leave you saying, “Haha...WOW!!” caveat.nyc 212-228-2100

Just Announced | TimesTalks: Dr. Ruth

MONDAY, APRIL 29TH, 7PM Merkin Concert Hall | 129 W. 67th St. | 212-501-3330 | timestalks.com Learn more about Holocaust survivor, Washington Heights resident, and author of dozens of books on human sexuality Dr. Ruth Westheimer. She’ll be in conversation with op-ed columnist for The New York Times Jennifer Senior, in anticipation of the new documentary Ask Dr. Ruth ($60).

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

sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.

The local paper for Downtown

Advertise with Our Town Downtown today!

Call Vincent Gardino at 212-868-0190

Wed 27 ART IN THE ROUND PUBLIC TOURS The Guggenheim 1071 Fifth Ave 2:00 p.m Free Spend one hour exploring and discussing Hilma af Klint’s painting series IV, The Ten Largest (1907). guggenheim.org 212-423-3500

otdowntown.com

12

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

MARCH 21-27,2019

MIRÓ: POETRY IN PICTURES An imaginative new exhibition offers fresh insights into the work of the popular and beloved artist

BY MARY GREGORY

Picture in your mind’s eye what you think of when you think of the work of Joan Miró — curious little bowlingpin shaped people, pencil-line stars, triangles, primary colors. Now think of things you don’t envision when you picture Miró’s work — like Baroque Dutch interiors, earthy still lifes recalling Chardin, Fauvist portraits, and tilted Cubist tabletops with newspapers. You’ll find all those and more in “Joan Miró: Birth of the World” at the Museum of Modern Art through June 15.

You’ll also find poetry, in both the installation and the inspiration. MoMA’s galleries are filled with bright, joyous, thoughtful, inventive works in this presentation of some 60 paintings, sculptures, books and mixed media works. Most are from the museum’s own significant Miró collection, augmented by wonderful loans.

IF YOU GO WHAT: Joan Miró: “Birth of the World” WHERE: Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd St. WHEN: Through June 15, 2019 The exhibition is organized by senior curator Anne Umland, with Laura Braverman, curatorial assistant, and focuses on the years between 1920 (when Miró made his first trip to Paris) and the early 1950s.

Curating an exhibition of a beloved artist like Miró isn’t about taking some pictures out of the closet, dusting them off, rearranging the lights and sending out a memo, though all that does happen. It’s about making new discoveries, reframing old questions and relationships, and finding ways to connect the art to a new audience. Umland and Braverman do all that by presenting poetry as a lens through which to see Miró’s works in

Joan Miró, “Hirondelle Amour,” Barcelona, late fall 1933-winter 1934. Oil on canvas.

Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller. © 2018 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Adel Gorgy.

Joan Miró, “Mural Painting,” Barcelona, October 18, 1950 -January 26, 1951. Oil on canvas. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. © 2018 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Adel Gorgy.

“Object,” a sculpture coma new light. prised of a stuffed bird, strings, A friend of the Surrealists, balls, a map, and other curipoets, and writers, and an auosities, presages both Robert thor himself, Miró once stated Rauschenberg’s “Combines” that he made no distinction and Joseph Cornell’s assembetween painting and poetry. blages.

“I try to apply colors like words Witness Miró’s freedom in that shape poems,” he said. his imaginative use of materiRhythms between language, als. In “Relief Construction” color and line create a sense of (1930) staples incompletely syncopation throughout the fastened to a painted wooden exhibition, and poetry keeps surface create shapes and seeping in, like rhymes at the shadows replacing drawn end of lines. We learn that on lines. Crinkled papers turn a seeing “Still Life II” a small 1929 collage into a bas-relief panting in muted tones, Pablo sculpture. Miró’s subjects are Picasso stated “This is poalso freely imagined, as seen in etry.” We see Miró’s etchings so many feathery spider forms, and engravings printed as colfloating shapes with faces, and laborations in books of French feet with heads. His surreal poetry. We see his use of words dreamscapes seem welcoming as both snippets of poetry and and filled with light, perhaps ways of marking canvas. In from his sunny Catalan roots. the large painting “Hirondelle “Joan Miró: Birth of the Amour,” the curators point out World” is a beautiful, energizthat “interweaving of visual ing exhibition that presents and verbal motifs epitomize Joan Miró. “The Birth of the World,” Montroig, late familiar favorites while inthe fluid exchange between summer-fall 1925. Oil on canvas. Acquired through an troducing important insights painting and poetry in Miró’s anonymous fund, the Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Slifka and about the poetic nature of the work.” Swirling lines trailing Armand G. Erpf Funds, and by gift of the artist. © 2018 from the ends of words seem to Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / artist and his creations. As Umland notes, “Throughout suggest the flight path of swal- ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Adel Gorgy his decades-long career, Miró lows (hirondelle in French).

The centerpiece of the exhibition is chronologically, the exhibition shows sought to reveal the marvelous in the Miró’s “Birth of the World.” Limited the artist’s evolution from early in- quotidian. His work celebrates the to mostly black, white and red, with a fluences to completely uncharted wildness of the imagination even as vast empty space populated by simple territories. It’s fascinating to see not it remains firmly rooted in the realishapes and a single line (recalling the only where Miró broke free, but how ties of his life and times. Today, when string of a balloon) to create a sense his freedom influenced others. “Still so much value is placed on the prosaic of movement and flight, it is a kind of Life—Glove and Newspaper” from — the data-driven, the quantifiable, birth of something new. But, the show 1921 seems to channel earlier works hard numbers — Miró’s poetic vision itself starts earlier. Arranged roughly by Georges Braque, while his 1936 is newly urgent.”

MARCH 21-27,2019

13

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

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MARCH 21-27,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS MAR 6 - 12, 2018

Yunshang Rice Noodle House

53 Bayard St

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. Shellfish not from approved source, improperly tagged/labeled; tags not retained for 90 days. 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.

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.

Ox Verte

63 Reade St

A

Mulberry Street Bar

176 1\2 Mulberry St

A

Vivi Bubble Tea

325 Broadway

A

Audrey Bakery & Cafe

174 Canal St

Akimoto Sushi

187 Church Street

A

Open Kitchen

123 William St

Grade Pending (27) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

Grade Pending (26) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. 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.

Aizumi Sushi

283 Broome St

CLOSED (63) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding. 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. No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Boys Dont Cry

22 Orchard St

Grade Pending (21) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Live animals other than fish in tank or service animal 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.

Mee Cafe

26 Rutgers Street

A

Essex Taqueria

123 Essex St

A

Soft Swerve

85B Allen St

A

V-Bread Cafe NY

11 Allen St

A

Bep Ga

70 Forsyth St

Grade Pending (5)

Manna One Bakery

27 Catherine Street

A

Dim Sum Go Go

5 East Broadway

A

Matryoshka (Spa 88)

88 Fulton Street

Grade Pending (22) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Sophies Cuban Cuisine

76 Fulton St

A

Stout NYC

90 John St

A

IPIC Theaters

11 Fulton St

A

Sticky’s Finger Joint

21 Maiden Ln

A

Yondu

254 Front St

Not Yet Graded (30) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Cha Cha Matcha

373 Broome St

A

Pizza Grill Cafe

89 Canal St

A

Kung Fu Tea

234 Canal St

Grade Pending (19) 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. Tobacco use, eating, or drinking from open container in food preparation, food storage or dishwashing area observed.

Kodawari

100 Forsyth St

A

Aqua Grill

210 Spring Street

A

Slainte

304 Bowery

A

The Red Lion

151 Bleecker Street

A

Goemon Curry

29 Kenmare St

Grade Pending (20) Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or nonfood areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Spring Natural

98 Kenmare St

A

Xi’an Famous Food

68 Kenmare St

A

V-Bar & Cafe

225 Sullivan Street

Grade Pending (2)

Golding Cafe (New York University Law School Vanderbilt Hall)

40 Washington Square South

Grade Pending (30) No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment.

Promix Cafe & Provisions

182 Mulberry 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.

Tacombi at Fonda Nolita

267 Elizabeth Street

A

Starbucks

93 Greenwich Avenue

A

Aperitivo Di Palma

30 Cornelia St

A

King

18 King St

A

The Elk

128 Charles St

A

Dunkin Donuts

303 Canal St

A

Kuro-Obi

261-267 Canal St

A

Amazing 66 Restaurant

66 Mott Street

Grade Pending (19) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Buddha Bodai One Vegetarian Restaurant

5 Mott St

CLOSED (74) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

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. Evidence of mice or live mice 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.

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. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Heermance Farm Purveyors 183 Christopher St

A

MARCH 21-27,2019

15

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

THE DAY THE MUSIC LIVED NEIGHBORHOODâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BEST PRESERVATION

To place an ad in this directory, Call Douglas at 212-868-0190 ext. 352.

Singers, pianists, composers, lyricists, publishers and â&#x20AC;&#x153;song pluggersâ&#x20AC;? once flocked to Tin Pan Alley on West 28th Street.

Now, their musical legacy will endure forever

EDUCATION

DINING

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Take Me Out to the Ballgameâ&#x20AC;? was published on the block. So was â&#x20AC;&#x153;Give My Regards to Broadway.â&#x20AC;? It was where â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sweet Adelineâ&#x20AC;? was immortalized. And â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bill Bailey, Wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t You Please Come Homeâ&#x20AC;? came to life.

West 28th Street on both sides of Broadway between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was once the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best known musical block â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and it peddled popular songs to America just like the Fulton Fish Market sold ďŹ sh.

Famed as Tin Pan Alley, it kicked off the golden age of songwriting. And it flung open the doors to such African-American greats as W.C. Handy, known as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Father of the Blues,â&#x20AC;? and Scott Joplin, who published his mega-hit, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Maple Leaf Rag,â&#x20AC;? on the block in 1899.

Now, after a campaign by preservationists that started a dozen years ago, the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Landmarks Preservation Commission is poised to give protected landmark status to a strip that boasted the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest concentration of sheet music publishers at the turn of the 20th century.

The LPC â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after ďŹ nding that the area has cultural, musical, historical and architectural merit â&#x20AC;&#x201D; voted on March 12 to â&#x20AC;&#x153;calendarâ&#x20AC;? a five-building swath of the block, a key step toward protecting those exteriors from any future demolition and development.

Once the agency calendars a structure, it is usually on a fasttrack for a formal landmark designation. The process involves a public hearing on the quintet of buildings, between 47 West 28th St. and 55 West 28th St., followed by final review, a public meeting and a binding vote typically resulting in designation.

When that happens later this year, the Italianate row houses, all built between 1854 and 1857, will stand in perpetuity as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;powerhouse of pop hitsâ&#x20AC;? that incubated such one-time classics as â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonightâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the Good Old Summertime.â&#x20AC;?

Â&#x203A;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2014;Â?ČąÂ&#x2019;Â&#x2014;ČąÂ&#x2DC;Â&#x203A;Čą Â&#x2013;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2014;Â?Â&#x2019;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2014;ČąÂ?Â&#x2018;Â&#x2019;Â&#x153;ČąÂ&#x160;Â? Â?Â&#x2DC;Â&#x203A;ČąÂ&#x160;Čą Čą Â&#x17D;Â&#x153;Â&#x153;Â&#x17D;Â&#x203A;Â?ǡ Â&#x203A;Â&#x2019;Â&#x;Â&#x160;Â?Â&#x17D;Čą Â&#x160;Â&#x203A;Â?¢ȹ Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2013;Â&#x153;ČąČ&#x160;Čą Â&#x17D;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022;¢ȹ Â&#x160;Â&#x2014;Â&#x152;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2014;Â?ČąČ&#x160;Čą Â&#x160;Â?Â&#x17D;Â&#x203A;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2014;Â? Ĺ&#x2122;Ĺ&#x2014;Ĺ&#x2013;Čą Â&#x17D;Â&#x153;Â?ČąĹ&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2122;Â&#x203A;Â?Čą Â?Â&#x203A;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D;Â?ČąČ&#x160;ČąĹ&#x2DC;Ĺ&#x2014;Ĺ&#x2DC;ČŹĹ&#x2DC;Ĺ&#x153;Ĺ&#x203A;ČŹĹ&#x203A;Ĺ&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2013;    ǯÂ?Â&#x17E;Â&#x203A;Â&#x201D;Â&#x17E;Â&#x160;ÂŁÂ&#x203A;Â&#x17D;Â&#x153;Â?Â&#x160;Â&#x17E;Â&#x203A;Â&#x160;Â&#x2014;Â?ÇŻÂ&#x152;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2013;Čą

Science FUN with Dr. Wow!

shows and American vaudeville,â&#x20AC;? they wrote.

You would hear piano music all up and down the street, and it would sound like this: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tin, tin, tin, pan, pan, pan!â&#x20AC;?

Mario Messina, president of the 29th Street Neighborhood Assn.

It will also enshrine their role in ushering inclusivity into the music industry, providing work for minorities and immigrants â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and tearing down barriers of segregation in what was then the theater district, according to an LPC research report: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the heart of the Tenderloin, Tin Pan Alley gave unprecedented opportunities to songwriters of color and of Eastern European Jewish descent,â&#x20AC;? agency researchers found. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The ďŹ rst African-American owned and operated music publishing businesses in the U.S. had offices on this block, and some of their songwriters deliberately tried to rework stereotypes which were popular in music of the time because of the influence of minstrel

Seeking â&#x20AC;&#x153;stage-worthyâ&#x20AC;? numbers It is difficult to overstate the global cachet associated with West 28th Street â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even though its heyday in the music business lasted a mere 20 years, from 1893, when the ďŹ rst music publisher, M. Witmark & Sons, put down stakes, to 1913, when the last remaining purveyor of sheet music relocated to the Times Square area. â&#x20AC;&#x153; Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a n enor mou s amount of international recognition for Tin Pan Alley,â&#x20AC;? said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a coalition of community groups that advocates for landmark districts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We would sometimes get calls from Australia in which people would ask us, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on with Tin Pan Alley?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;?

The block boomed in an era before play-back machines and recordings and record players, said Bankoff, whose group has been pressing for the landmarking of multiple buildings on the block, some of which were later razed, since 2007. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People would go to concerts and music halls and bars and

CONTINUED ON PAGE 19

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West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues â&#x20AC;&#x201D; better known as Tin Pan Alley â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in a circa 1915 photo. The block boasted the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest concentration of music-related businesses from the 1890s to the start of World War I. Photo: Courtesy of Historic Districts Council

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Ask a Broker

Business ART AND REAL ESTATE HAVE MANY THINGS IN COMMON the online image without going to see the piece. But I know that part of the process involves paying the auction house a 25 percent buyer’s premium. When I buy from galleries, I know that the gallerist retains anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the sale price. Private art dealers charge similarly. I don’t begrudge these organizations their money because I know how much work is involved in styling a property to maximize value, creating buzz around it, and then working strategically to make a market. It’s what I have done every day of my career.

Every day I read about new online apps being designed to remove real estate brokers from the transactions in which they are involved.

And every day I read about start-up companies who want to devalue the service we provide by cutting our fees (which at their highest are rarely even a third of what art auction houses are charging) by half or two thirds while claiming their staff agents can provide the same service that we do (they can’t).

I have always liked to say that brokerage is the second oldest profession. The need for the service we provide has existed ever since people began to trade with one another. Over the decades, as the homes we sell have become more expensive and the transactions more complicated, the broad array of skills real estate agents require has expanded to include issues regarding financing, title, open permits, liens, and tax issues in addition to the market analysis and negotiating expertise which remain the bedrock of our craft. I am not suggesting that we, like Christie’s or Bonhams, should receive a 15, 20 or 25 percent premium for what we do. But the service real estate agents provide has real value.

For too long, the complexity of that service has received inadequate recognition. It’s time the marketplace, and public opinion, recognize us for the skilled practitioners that we are.

REAL ESTATE Both are commmodities, valued at what the market will bear. So why aren’t real estate agents valued as much as art dealers?

BY FREDERICK W. PETERS

The all-white kitchen, popular in the 1980s, lingers like a bad dream in many NYC apartments.

Photo: Anastassios Mentis

BY ANDREW KRAMER

We live in a 1980’s one-bedroom condo and haven’t made any improvements since buying it from the developer. We’re getting ready to sell, and our all white Formica kitchen is showing its age. How can we update its look without spending a fortune?

I know the look — white cabinets with white plastic pulls, white Formica countertop and backsplash and white appliances. Welcome to the postwar 1980’s kitchen.

It’s amazing how a new granite countertop (pick your color) with a contemporary under-mount sink and a stainless steel appliance package can bring your kitchen into the 21st century. Throw in some stylish cabinet hardware and a colorful floor mat and your kitchen just shed 30 years! And if you source it right, you can pull this off for under $5,000!

It’s money well spent.

Andrew Kramer is a Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker with Brown Harris Stevens. Direct your real estate questions to askandrew@bhsusa.com. You can learn more about Andrew at www.kramernyc. com or by contacting him at 212-317-3634.

MARCH 21-27,2019

The value of great art and great real estate often travel hand in hand. When great paintings set price records, great real estate often follows suit. While art often sells at auction, real estate more typically gets brokered between individuals. That said, the great private art dealers control large parts of the art market, sourcing paintings for their clients, contacting collectors, amassing stock. The great real agents deploy many of the same skills. Both art and real estate are commodities, valued at what the market will bear. So different styles and periods go in and out of fashion, prices rise and fall, and the dance goes on.

Why then, are the skills of the art dealer or auction house so vastly more valued than those of the real estate dealer? Are the great houses and apartments we represent so much less the work of great artists and artisans? Are the spatial arrangements of the great Timothy Pfleuger and Bernard Maybeck buildings of San Francisco, or the Addison Mizner estates of Palm Beach, or the layouts and detailing of the great Candela apartments in New York, not works of art in themselves? What’s the difference?

The best agents have developed enormous knowledge around the architects and styles which abound in New York. Like a great art dealer, we frequently guide our clients towards what we intuit they desire, which may not be exactly what they describe on a first meeting. In New York, we work with them to craft a financial and social picture at which co-op boards will look with favor, while reassuring them as the process drags on.

I like buying art at auction, especially prints. For artists I know well, I will sometimes buy from

Frederick W. Peters is Chief Executive Officer of Warburg Realty Partnership.

Candela building at 280 Riverside Drive. Photo: Deansfa, via Wikimedia Commons

MARCH 21-27,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

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MARCH 21-27,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

5 COOL SPOTS AT HUDSON YARDS SHOPS As the new shopping destination opens for business, some places you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in NYC

Everything you like about Our Town Downtown is now available to be delivered to your mailbox every week in the Downtowner From the very local news of your neighborhood to information about upcoming events and activities, the new home delivered edition of the Downtowner will keep you in-the-know.

BY EMILY MASON

And best of all you won’t have to go outside to grab a copy from the street box every week.

It’s your neighborhood.

It’s your news.

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The Vessel’s crossing stairways loomed overhead as windswept crowds walked towards the Hudson Yards entrance, the day after the new shopping center’s grand opening, which boasted celebrity guests like Anne Hathaway, Karlie Kloss and Dylan Sprouse.

The Hudson Yards shopping center and the Vessel structure opened to the masses on Saturday, free for climbing and shopping. The two attractions are intimately connected, with the shopping center featuring a wall of windows so that from each of the four floors patrons have a view of British architect Thomas Heatherwick’s massive honeycomb-like creation. While the center hosts well-trafficked and recognized brands like Muji, Uniqlo, Aritzia and Banana Republic, the real reason to head to Hudson Yards — despite the crowds — are for the spots you’ll be hardpressed to find anywhere else in New York.

Inside the Hudson Yards shopping center. Photo: Emily Mason

1. B8ta

3. 3den

Drawn in by strange contraptions in the windows, customers enter B8ta confused, but soon discover a new-age shop where one can learn about, discover and try an assortment of tech products new to the market. A cluster of people watch a robot spider crawling about a table, children type frantically on a new Bluetooth-enabled typewriter keyboard, while adults marvel at the robot bartender that boasts “perfect cocktails every time.” Each month B8ta will feature new products for customers to test out, then have shipped straight to their doors.

Two young men stand at the entrance, directing curious patrons to download the 3den app, promising it’ll only take a minute. Inside, adult swings and peaceful tables adjacent to a giant window overlooking Vessel is intriguing enough to persuade onlookers to download the app. At 3den, customers can access showers, fresh ready-to-go food, a meditation den, private phone booths and soon even nap pods which can be reserved for 30 minutes sessions. The first store of its kind, 3den is designed for all of the “in-between” times, providing any space or amenity you may need to make your day go smoothly. All purchases are made through the app, including the $6 fee for every 30 minutes spent in the space.

2. sundays

Return Completed Form to: Straus News, 20 West Avenue, Chester, NY, 10918 or go to otdowntown.com & click on Subscribe

sundays brings manicures to a new level of relaxation with headphones playing a guided meditation for customers while they get their nails done. The polishes are all from the com-

pany’s own non-toxic, vegan, cruelty-free line of colors. At the end, they apply quick-dry oil that means you’re ready to walk out the door in 15 minutes — without having to listen to a hand-dryer. During your 15 minute drying time, you can enjoy fresh herbal tea, write a letter to yourself (which sundays will mail to you in a month) or write what you’re grateful for in their communal gratitude journal.

4. Snark Park Snark Park is the latest ven-

ture of Snarkitecture, bestknown for creating the cereal ice cream bar treats inside many of the Kith brand clothing stores. The Park is an interactive art space where patrons can jump on bean bags, enter columns and rotating chairs, and touch and feel everything inside, unlike the restrictions in typical art museums. Currently on display is the “Lost and Found” exhibit where tickets cost $28 for adults and $22 for children. For those who aren’t into interactive art, there are also clothing collections on display and Kith ice cream bars. Regardless of what you’re there for, be sure to be ahead of time — the line gets long quickly!

5. HYxOffTheWall Each level of Hudson Yards has at least three large-scale commissioned works by influential artists, like Jeanette Hayes and Willie Cole. Many of the pieces are interactive, like “I WAS HERE,” a wall of sequins where people can draw and write with their fingers in multi-colored glimmering panels, or “Combing Season” where children can be spotted combing a white, black or pink hairy square with a face attached to a yellow wall with black dog bones painted on.

The project pursued unusual pieces to encourage reflection and interaction with the pieces.

MARCH 21-27,2019

MUSIC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 saloons, and they’d hear all the new songs, which had been written down on music sheets and promoted by song pluggers,” he added. “If they liked what they heard and wanted to replicate it, they would buy sheet music from Tin Pan Alley and play it on the home piano.”

The scene was rhythmic and rollicking, the block teeming with well-known singers and pianists and vaudevillians and the occasional opera diva, all marketing songs to an eager buying public: All-powerful music industry publishers — there were 38 of them at the peak in 1907 — held court. Socalled tune-smiths, meaning lyricists and composers, would peddle their works.

Choreographers and orchestrators would seek out the most “stageworthy” numbers. Paid pluggers, or “boomers,” would artificially, and aggressively, inflate a song’s catchiness and popularity.

And through it all there was the music. You’d catch a few bars of “Hello Central, Give Me Heaven,” a tearjerker about a lost mother, or “Hello!

Ma Baby (Hello, Ma Ragtime Gal),” about an early telephone courtship, or “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” the

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com first breakout hit by an unknown Russian-Jewish immigrant songwriter named Irving Berlin.

“This is where modern American music was born,” said Mario G. Messina, president and co-founder of the 29th Street Neighborhood Assn., an advocacy group that has fought to landmark the block ever since it was established in 2012.

“This is the cradle of the best songs that came out of America to the delight of the world,” he added.

Sheet music sales peaked at around 2 billion copies in 1910, according to LPC research.

But the growing popularity and affordability of record players and longplaying recordings in most American households ultimately led to a huge shift in the in-home music culture.

And as domestic piano-playing declined, Tin Pan Alley withered, and most of its surviving businesses followed the theater and entertainment district up to Times Square.

So where did that evocative name come from anyway? According to Messina, it was birthed by the inescapable banging and rattling and pounding and jangling of the ivories: “You would hear piano music all up and down the street, and it would sound like this: ‘Tin, tin, tin, pan, pan, pan!” he said. invreporter@strausnews.com

AMAZON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 get the company to come back, insisting that New York needs the giant corporation to survive and thrive economically. One of the protestors’ messages, he said, is that economic development should be placed in the hands of small business owners. Amazon “would only end up displacing those people, rather than helping economic development,” said Spisak.

A recent study by his organization, he said, found that one in four immigrants were concerned about their immigration status and the longevity of their small businesses. Thanks to the fear of being deported, Spisak explained, many of these immigrants were not making longterm plans for their businesses.

City Council Member Brad Lander, from District 39 in Brooklyn, addressed the protestors. “I would say we don’t only have a right to speak out,” he said, “we have a responsibility to speak out. Amazon has terrible health facilities. Seven workers have died at Amazon facilities.

Not a single worker is represented by the union. They do not want their workers to have a voice ... New York City can and

City Council Member Brad Lander looked ready for a fight as he spoke at an anti-Amazon rally on West 34th St. earlier this month. Photo: Michelle Naim

must do better. I’m going to be damned if I’m going to be quiet.”

Another speaker, Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director with the New York State Alliance for Quality Education, has been fighting for education in small and immigrant communities for 20 years. Directing her comments at Governor Andrew Cuomo, she said: “It’s time to move beyond billionaires and focus on the $4.1 billion that’s been owed to our schools for the last 12 years. Surely, we can give that money to children. The fact that [Governor Cuomo] was willing to slip this one through is appalling.” She accused Cuomo of “failing drastically” to make sure that the city’s marginalized communities have all the resources and support that they need to be whole and healthy.

“Most of those communities are black and brown,” she said, “and my question to him is ‘Do you really care about us?’”

It was not the first Amazon protest in New York and will likely not be the last. Many have dismissed such protestors as “fringe” and “illegitimate,” Spisak noted. Which is another reason they continue to protest, he said — to show that they deserve to be heard, no matter what their background or immigration status might be.

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YOUR 15 MINUTES

To read about other people who have had their “15 Minutes” go to otdowntown.com/15 minutes

THE STAGE IS HER FUTURE Theater director Lauren Kiele DeLeon is determined to succeed on her own terms

BY JOSHUA NASSER

With her career in New York off to a great start, Lauren Kiele DeLeon is looking ahead to a life making theater that is diverse and accessible for actors, writers, producers and audiences of all backgrounds.

She wants to help make a world where “everyone can take part and see themselves reflected on stage and in production.”

When did you start doing theater?

It kind of happened by accident. In middle school I was in the chorus and like any middle school, they had the chorus put on a musical with the drama club in our super-gross cafeteria. I skipped auditions and just stage-managed tage-managed the first show.

But the year after I played Mrs. Mayor in “Suessical the Musical.” al.” (I can’t believe I’m admitting ing that). That led me to audition ion for this arts conservatory high school in Miami called New World School of the Arts.

I originally auditioned for musical ical theater but got called back and accepted into the acting conservatory onservatory and was so confused used about it cause I had no history with acting. But, one thing hing led to another and that brought me to discover playwriting since I started to hate acting and, years later, playwriting faded into directing.

Did you do theater in college?

Yes I did! SUNY Purchase College! Got my BA in theater & performance directing with a minor in playwriting.

What exactly got you into nto directing?

So, when I discovered playwriting I thought that hat was the end all be all of my theater career. areer. I was good at it, I liked it, I had positive responses, s, and I was finally in control of the content on stage. What drove me insa a ne about acting was that hat I would spend all my time in

rehearsal rooms thinking “I could do this better than it’s being done.” and going crazy that I had no control over the content in the room. In turn, I thought playwriting was the answer to that problem — I was finally creating the content. But then I realized, as a playwright there’s a good chance that when you finish the play you hand it off and then you’re really not involved in the process of production.

The only way to really achieve what I wanted was to direct.

In all honesty, though, I have to give the credit to my mom cause she knew the entire time that I was studying theater that I should be a director, but I would not hear it. I was constantly disregarding her opinion on it until one day, a semester into my junior year of college, I called my mom freaking out after a screenwriting class saying “I don’t

want to be a playwriting major anymore, I want to switch to directing.” And she literally just went “Yup, I knew it. I told you so.” And then I freaked out thinking “I’m graduating soon and I can’t graduate as a director without ever really directing anything.” So I threw myself into independent projects starting with a workshop of “The Vagina Monologues.” And after that I was lucky enough that people actually liked the production and started asking me to direct their projects. In hindsight, getting into directing was kind of inevitable for me, I just was the only one who had no idea until I got there.

What’s the difference between theater in Miami and in New York?

The thing with Miami is, though we have the theater companies and artists who want to do the work and in fact do good work, there isn’t is enough of an audience for it.

We joke about how the theth ater scene in New York is small but the one in M Miami is tiny. I felt like, by the time I graduated graduat from my conservatory, conservato I knew all the theater theat artists working in South Florida. The T playwrights and did rectors had been my m professors in high hi school and the actors acto were friends of mine mi or people I knew fro from the college my school scho was affiliated with. wit While I love Miami Mia and the artists there, the there just isn’t tthe expanse support and expan of art that I felt fel I needed to grow into in the artist that I am a now. I knew that if I stayed and work worked only in Miami then the I would be successful successf only in Miami, and an I didn’t want that.

However, I will say s idolthat the way we id theize NYC for it’s th insanely ater is also insane other detrimental to oth trained cities. Being train

Lauren Kiele DeLeon graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BA in theater theate and performance directing.

Photo: Courtesy The Lark Theater

DeLeon at work during a rehearsal. She tried acting and playwriting before she decided she wanted to be a director. Photo: Courtesy Lauren Kiele DeLeon in theater I think (I don’t want to speak for everyone) I was taught to believe that New York is the definition of success ... that New York was the biggest form of validation and success in the arts, and that’s just not true. If we all actively worked against this idea of Broadway being the ultimate success then we could open up so much potential for so many other cities all over the world. I know, personally, I would love to leave New York but I also know that all my fellow artists and collaborators are here, which makes me want to stay. It’s this weird wormhole we create for ourselves that just reinforces beliefs that aren’t true.

I know I totally ranted about that and peeled off from the question at hand but I wish someone had taught me earlier that New York doesn’t define my success. I have to create that definition for myself. If we start teaching that to our young artists I can only imagine how amazingly diverse and widespread the work will become.

That sounds so amazing, and needed. So, where do you see yourself in ten years?

Oh, man. This is hilarious because I’ve been secondguessing where I see myself just within the next two years.

In an ideal world, in ten years I’ll have my MFA in directing

and be teaching [and also] directing new work in different places. I definitely would love if it were internationally, so I could hop from place to place as an adjunct professor and guest director, because I think that would be an amazing way to see the world as well as experience all sorts of approaches to theater that would really impact me as an artist.

What changes do you see happening in theater today?

Theater is diversifying!

Slowly, but it’s happening. We have more women, POC, queer, trans, international, disabled, etc. artists working in the industry than ever before, and that’s incredible. But! We still don’t have enough! So, while I’m super excited about these positive changes, we have got a long way to go and we can’t let this progress stop us from fighting just as hard for more representation of stories, creators, administrators, and audience members. We have to continue to make theater more accessible financially, culturally, and spatially so everyone can take part and see themselves reflected on stage and in production. I definitely used this question as an other lecture point but it’s oh so important and I know that we’re on our way which makes me so excited for what theater will

become further down the line.

Does that influence the type of theater you like to do now?

I always say that my focus is on political theater and theater for social change, which sometimes confuses people. So, to elaborate on that, as a Jewish/Latina theater artist I like my work to focus on minority representation and the female presenting body on stage. I’m drawn to contemporary, original plays specifically dealing with social issues, with creative teams that are mostly/fully women and women of color.

Finally, what shows are you directing now?

I just finished assistant-directing Chisa Hutchinson’s play “Surely Goodness and Mercy” at Theater Row. Currently, I’m directing a new play called “Stork” by Billy Cosgrove for NYSummerFest at the Hudson Guild Theater, and I’m co-directing a new musical called “Recipe for a Sellout” by Parade Stone and Sequoia Sellinger at The Wild Project.

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to hav e is the sixthin the city. past thre been hit by a person car in the to The ee days alone. least 20New York Tim According cyclists pedestrians es, at have bee and thr accidents ee n kill more tha so far this ed in traffic VOL. 2, yea n ISSUE been inju 900 pedest r, and 08 rians hav It’s demred. e of victim oralizing. If fam s, ilies heighten a devoted mayor and a dent in ed awarenes the proble s can’t ma Amid the ke m, wh at can?

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A CASI group tanders ran to uplaise was MANH NO IN managof them, workin try to help. in hopesed to flip the carg together, A < BUSI ATTAN? of NESS, on res its cuing Unfor sid P.16 She wa tunately, it didDauplaise. e, Bellevues pronounced n’t work.

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First, obvious: let’s start wit condition h the city’s hom s inside thi disgrace. eless shelte rs are as A ser one mo ies of terrible (includinre horrible tha crimes, month g the killing n the last of ear lier this daugh a woman has higters in Statenand her two hlighted Island), living con the the ma ditions for shameful cities inrgins of one ofpeople at Blasio, the world. Ma the richest wh yor o has bee Bill de his app from theroach to homn halting in has final beginning elessness proble ly begun to of his term, from thim, but years ofaddress the others, s administra neglect, tion and will take But years to correct. recent none of that exc office grandstanding uses the appareof Gov. Andrew by the Cuomo, he can’tntly sees no iss who In the try to belittl ue on which attempt governor’s late the mayor. officials at a hit job, est sta compla then pro ined te Post, abomptly to the to the city, homele ut a gang New York alleged ss shelter, purape at a city VOL. 77 had tim event before blicizing the , ISSUE pol e 04 As it turto investigate ice even ned out, it. never hap the officials pened, infuriaincident media hitwho called it ting city a ” “po aim the mayor ed at em litical . More cha barrassin counter-c rges and g THfolElow the me harges Dicken antimeA , of cou ed. In Tditrse men, wosian livingR OionF, the con in New men D kidsIM s for Yor andEN Here’s k goe s on. in shelters CITY ARTS, leadershi hoping tha t som P.2any eday our as intere p in Alb 0 as it is in sted in helpinwill become back fro agains scoring pol g them t sit itical poi 17 fee m FDR Drour ive byting mayor. nts t 16 to out of and raise

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PAGE 9

it on the floo as red d plain, e foot uc building e the heigh as well three. from four t of the storie HAPP s to The ref urbishe would SNOWY LITTLE d sit FLAKES pier pil atop newl bu ild ing y food ma ings and restored Reme board co Transpa officia sio’s fi mber Mayo Jean-G rket overseenntain a expre ls, but rst r Bil eorge linger ov rency concer by sse me W ch Th s Vong hat a winter in his l de Blaef mbers e pr ns develop d concern dif fer redeveloper Howard Hu new years the de oposal also erichten. er ’s vis s that the ence Se ma molit ca lls a coup job?

Seaport ment plans ghes’ pieapor t is be ion for th Ho ion for Hit wi kes. le of for the ing e tw use and Lin of the He ceme after th a snow ad o dil k Bu compre al instead relea sed sto tak new ma ing off ice rm shortly of in on adjacen apidated str ild ing, hensive Howa

BY DAN t e in pro uc The new would yor fumble in 2014, th IEL FIT front ofto the Tin Bu tures CB1’s rd Hughes posal. d in a wa ZSIMM e co Jan. 19 ly restored me Pie ild joi ONS Re half of ing r 17. to The joi cen Tin presen South nt La nd mamet with his ter define th y that nt La nd tation Building, as by the tly announ Stree un So rk e m. to Comm fi ut fir s lle envisio ced Ho h ma Ce Po an t Seap st d.

Stree nter d Ce plans poration ward Hu ned unity Bo storm Official wa tholes we t Seap rks and nter gh pla ns on Jan. 19 or t/Civic nt ’s ard 1. in Howard Hu at the for the Tin es Corfor th to unve Residen severity wernings on the a resolucomm ittee or t/Civic ghes a fou e s passe re mu ts in ne re ce iveSouth Stree Building r-s tory Tin Build il the pr tion in did dd igh d n’t led t supp structur ing bo op prov al d preli mi Seaport plaine vote for de rhoods tha . e at thelandm arke , of Howa osal, but req or t of na co d from being that their strBlasio com-t comm ry ap - Hording to the Seaport. Acd pla n for rd Hughes uested plo un ity a was lat wed -- a eets weren - ing wa rd Hu gh presentation - the Seap redevelopmmaster su ’t es ort , wo to mo tion-trucer proven spicion tha ve the is propos uld inc as a whole ent at ou t Tin Bu , wh lude the This k GPS data. t by sanitailding compa ich new detime aroun ny’s CONTINU d, ED ON ch arge Blasio seem an entirely PAGE 5 was for . Before th ed to be Sanitati e storm in ceful, Ins on bu tea , t no he d architect Dept. build closin of jumpin t panicke d. g g storm ure, is press ing, praised waited subways or the gun an ed into for d service its then ac for the storm schools, he during detectedted decisive to develop the , We do a sense of huly. We even n’t wa mor in The bu cre nt it all dit tha to give

BY DEE to life ilding looks him mo . someth n is due, PTI HAJ , all re bu ELA ing can loo angles an like a mode t there about seeme rn d wa thi d nation k bluish or gra edges, with art painting New Yo to bring ou s storm tha s t rkers. t the be in any of the three. yish or wh concrete wa come On Su itish, or settin lls st of functi g, but It would be some that alpine nday, the cit an no on pounds it was cre ne more tha unusual str combiskiers vil lage. Cr y felt like an ate uc of the n rock sal d for --- sto the fairly pro ture snow plied the pa oss-cou nt ry rin t bo sai tha rks g CONTINU c tho t the cit hot ch ots and pa , people y’s De usands of ED ON ololat rkas ord in partm PAGE 29 wi es, th su ered kid ent of of sledd nburned fac s came home es after ding.

There a day tent. Qu were pock ets the plo eens reside of disco nand elew trucks by nts felt th at the sch cted offici passed them, als closed ools should there sa id for ha But ov another da ve stayed %TGCVKX just en erall, consid y.

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FOR PARK REDESIGN

Bu On Sa 13 10 15 siness

BY EM ILY TOW parishioturday mo Minutes 16 NER rn and low ners, comm ing, archit 19 ered in er Manhatt unity me ects, mb vision St. Paul’s Ch an residents ers for Tr ap gat el hto discu inity Ch building ss urch’s The ex . new pa the rish Place acr isting bu ild been cle oss from Tr ing, on Tr inity inity Ch ared for 1923, urc de it the chu no longer sermolition. Buh, has tower rch and the ves the ne ilt in wi com ed The we ll be built in munity. A s of new in a ser ekend me its place. eti — collabies of commu ng was the needs orative for nity “charr fifth an um ett the low d wants of s to addre es” a whole er Manhatt the church ss the and an com .

“In ou munit of r y initial as about charr buildinghow we wa ettes we talked for the to be a homented th is pa hood,” homeless an for the spi rish rit fer, Tr said the Re d for the neigh ual, v. Dr. Wi ini bor“We tal ty Wall Street lliam Lu ked ’s prector What ab . they wo out minis try act look,” uld be ivi Lu marke pfer said. , how they ties. wo t underst study in ord“We condu uld cte desires and neighbo er to objec d a dream as well as rhood needtively s.” parish s and He sai hopes and sion em d the churc tality braces a ph h communit The can tha ilo ride in coming t is “open sophy for y’s viCe carouseldidate’s owne ho , flexibl .”

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“We wa e and spifamilia puts New Yo rship of the wela white wall next to nt it street r bind rkers in , access to be visiblP.9 > that rea placard wi the entrance a Gemm ible to e from the com and Re ds, “Trum th red letter is well, a Whitema the CONTINU p Ca munit gulat ing who we n and ind It’s y,

BY DAN Engla ED ON Joel Ha re on lat icatio ions” -- rousel Ru PAGE 6 weekd e afternoon IEL FITZSIMM presid ns that Do one of the les day, nd and rode vacation uxONS ay, an on only sai the en fro nald a mi tial d lining opera bearing d they notic carousel Mo m up to pakids and tou ld winter tes the candidate, J. Trump, ed the Trum ntially ow car ris y Tr $3 for “It p’s ns an placar New Yo a qu ts are see um p’s po ousel. d ma was in my name.

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BY DAN trend 14’s 67 shu 0 percent s to the New Yorworst and the IEL FIT ey on Mak has been ap toffs. increa ZSIMM takeo An So far pears to be Monday k were both best of ONS ut tha spending mid-d in 2016 increa d the upwa se on displa mo mo issert n acc mid a the sin re rd docto ording y town. rning on 36th mong eve re ha ation is worki Street in ng at lea , and her ne rate stude “Since to the DO ve been 157 n more: Ca rol “A lot nt B. Da shu w rice st as uplaise, toffs, noticing the spring owner cooker to eat of it is just ou hard. the a no gas, a lot of pe of last year crossingof a jewelry com 77-year-o cook at lot more,” t of pocket, op we sta going rted water either cookin le coming Street Madison Av pany, was ld steam home it’s jus said Mak. “W ,” out in ing an said Donna g gas or he that had when a during the mo enue at 36th cally.” things with t a rice cooker hen we at livery-cab rning rus it, or ma Ameri d commun Chiu, direct and hot cor . You can ner h dri ity or can La st Se and hit ke rice, her. ver turned the Chiu cal s For Equa ser vices forof housptemb The basihundred er Asian said AA led the inc lity. arresteddriver of the car no natur s of others her bu ild ing ing an FE is worki rease “freak pedest for failing to was joi ned an ins al gas, cut across the d pe off town almost a dong with Ma ish,” and been citrian, and cop yield to a Building ction blitz by Con Ed city with an ser vic d the Lowe zen others k’s buildtraffic vioed for at leasts say he had a month s that bega by the city’sison after es.

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