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30-6 2015
EXPLORING GENDER IN NINTH GRADE Leman Prep School ninthgraders host international peers and organize conference BY MARY NEWMAN
Teenagers often surprise us with their maturity and savoir faire. Ninth graders from Léman Manhattan Preparatory School recently did just that, when 12 students came together to put on a conference about gender, focusing specifically on broadening the definition. And the roster of attendees was inclusive as well. Students at Léman Prep, whose downtown campus is part of the Meritas International Family of Schools, availed themselves of stu-
Our Take THE WHITNEY AND THE MOLTING OF NEW YORK
dents from as far away as Chengdu, China, and Geneva, all of whom attend Léman schools. Once in the city the overseas students spent a few weeks sightseeing and bonding with their city peers. They also brainstormed. All 12 students had to choose a “universal” topic, meaning it had to have global resonance. They eventually settled on gender equality. School advisor Merion Taynton told the students to use “New York City as their classroom.” They did research, and went on field trips: To the
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Students from Léman Manhattan Preparatory School in Manhattan and Léman schools in Chengdu, China, and Geneva recently put together a conference that explored gender issues. Photo: Mary Newman.
Artist Mary Heilmann’s sitespecific outdoor installation “Sunset” on the building’s fifth floor outdoor gallery includes colorful chairs and wall hangings that reference the geometric qualities of the museum. Photo by Gabrielle Alfiero
THE NEW WHITNEY: “NOW THE FUN BEGINS” NEWS After much anticipation, the Whitney unveils its new building in the beating heart of the Meatpacking District BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
The new Whitney Museum of American Art celebrates in earnest on May 1 when it opens to the public. Around 8 p.m. that evening, the top of the Empire State Building will illuminate LED interpretations of work by Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper and other artists in the museum’s collection. “Now the real fun begins,” said museum director Adam D. Weinberg, during a press event at the museum last week. The $422 million dollar building at 99 Gansevoort St. was designed by Renzo Piano, the architect behind the Morgan Library and Museum addition and Harvard University’s
So far, the new Whitney Museum is a roaring success. Critics are swooning. Party planners are climbing over one another to reserve event spaces. Celebrities are tweeting out selfies of themselves. All of this has happened before the public has stepped foot into the place. That happens this weekend, and the new museum, a hulking space on the Hudson, will finally face its most important test. Will tourists jam the West Village? Will the food trucks that have invaded the Met appear out of nowhere? Will out-of-towners overwhelm New Yorkers in the ticket line? It likely will take months, even years, for the museum to settle into its new home. What we love now we may ultimately find annoying, and vice versa. Renzo Piano, the Whitney’s star architect, told us that buildings are like that; it takes awhile for them to settle into themselves. What the new Whitney has made very clear, though, is a shift in the tectonic plates of power and prestige in the city. If you’re looking for where the money in New York is – and, by extension, the cultural cache that tends to follow it – you have to look downtown. This is the way New York grows. Neighborhoods and communities molt and shift, new ones rise as old ones settle down. The arrival of a new museum downtown – actually, the return of an old museum to its downtown roots – is as good as excuse as any to see those changes in action.
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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
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