Our Town Downtown May 28th, 2015

The local paper for Downtown wn A CLOSER READING OF FIDDLER < 15 MINUTES, P.21

WEEK OF MAY-JUNE

28-3 2015

Our Take

THE SMALLEST AUDIENCE, THE TINIEST STAGE Theater company introduces new oneon-one plays

debuted on May 18 in Brookfield Place’s Winter Garden. Each performance, about five minutes long and presented by one actor, takes place inside a custom mobile theater that measures only about 4 feet long by 8 feet high, with just a few feet separating the actor from the lone audience member.

BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO

Director Christine Jones chats with actor Carmen Zilles inside the custom mobile theater for Theatre for One’s intimate performances. Photo: Darial Sneed.

THE SUMMER BUCKET LIST

For some New York theaters, the bigger the audience, the better. Director Christine Jones just wants to fill one seat.

The latest project for her company Theatre for One, “I’m Not the Stranger You Think I Am,” a series of one-act plays written especially for an audience of one,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

ADVOCATES TRY TO STOP DEMOLITION OF SEAPORT BUILDINGS Community mobilizes after EDC decision to take down portions of Tin and New Market structures

BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS

An environmental lawyer for Save Our Seaport and the City Club of New York recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to the city’s Economic Development Corporation following indications that the agency was preparing to demolish portions of the Tin and New Market buildings on the South Street Seaport.

The letter, dated May 13, was sent the same day Our Town Downtown published a story about the EDC’s plans: the

Memorial Day is behind us, and this year’s was glorious.

New Yorkers, still traumatized by a dreadful winter, turned out en masse last weekened to claim their place on every available patch of grass, park bench and beach towel. There was joy to be found outside, and we were right there in it.

It’s more than just the weather.

The coming summer also gives us all a chance to exhale, after what has been an exhausting, draining few months: The continuing tension with the police, the frustration over a New York economy wishboning in opposite directions, the rise of petty crime and homelessness on the streets.

They are all real issues and won’t fade away in the sunshine; indeed, some of them may get worse.

But these months nevertheless give us all a chance to take a breather, a moment to refresh.

And it is in that spirit that next month kicks off our first annual Summer Bucket List series.

Beginning in June, look for stories about New Yorkers spending their summer in ways they’ve always dreamed about, but never pulled off: napping in Bryant Park, taking up bocce ball, fishing in New York harbor.

The bucket list can be grandiose or simple, pricey or free. The only requirement is it can only happen in summer -- and only in New York.

So what’s on your list? Send us your stories and ideas at news@ strausnews.com, post them on our Facebook page, or tweet us at #summerbucketlist. Now go outside.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Downtowner

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O OTDOWNTOWN.COM @OTDowntown

Newscheck Crime Watch Voices Out & About

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City Arts Top 5 Business 15 Minutes

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WEEK OF APRIL

SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12

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

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE

is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961.

Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice

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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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Newscheck Crime Watch Voices

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

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

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MAKING NEWS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL SPEAKER, MAYOR DISAGREE ABOUT HIRING MORE COPS

Although allies of both say the disagreement is not bad-tempered, the dispute highlights policy differences in the crime justice realm. The speaker and mayor are also in disagreement about Mark-Viveritoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposal to decriminalize some minor crimes, such as fare beating, public consumption of alcohol and being in parks after dark. Both de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton have spoken out against the plan, with Bratton in particular opposed, saying that decriminalization of what are some of the most common criminal offenses would lead people to increasingly ďŹ&#x201A;out laws.

Mark-Viveritoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very public stances on those issues has prompted discussion about her political future. She must leave the Council in 2017 because of term limits.

The Times said she has discussed running for mayor at some point, or perhaps even for governor of her native Puerto Rico.

While de Blasioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s executive budget included no money for additional police, Mark-Viverito has pledged to continue her demand for 1,000 more cops.

Although the two Democrats are political allies, the issue has for the ďŹ rst time split the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership on a potentially contentious issue, The Times reports.

City Council Speaker Melissa MarkViverito and Mayor Bill de Blasio are at odds about the hiring of additional police officers, The New York Times reported.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, seated, and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, to his right, are in disagreement about hiring more police officers. Photo: Office of the Mayor.

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RENT TAX BURDENS BUSINESSES

small-business person in New York is struggling.â&#x20AC;?

Owners of some small businesses in Manhattan, already battling rising rents to stay open, are additionally burdened by a so-called commercial rent tax, the New York Post reported.

The tax, established in the 1960s as the city careened toward insolvency, was later abolished, except for about 6,700 businesses in a swath of Manhattan below 96th Street, the paper reports.

Businesses paying $250,000 a year in rents are billed a commercial rent tax of about 6 percent.

The city collects about $687 million annually through the tax, the Post reports The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and some in the City Council want to cap rent amounts subject to the CRT at $500,000, according to the newspaper, which says that roughly 2,600 businesses would then pay less David Goodside, the owner of the Beach CafĂŠ, at Second Avenue and 70th Street, said the tax is a ďŹ nancial obligation that could become all the more onerous if the minimum wage climbs citywide, as it has in other cities, and rents continue to climb. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Commercial rents are at the highest level I can ever remember,â&#x20AC;? the Post quotes Goodside as saying. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The

TRIBECA RENTS MANHATTANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SECOND MOST EXPENSIVE Median rents for one-bedroom apartments in Tribeca are Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second-most expensive, trailing only those in the Nomad/Flatiron district, according to the real estate listings website Zumper.

Median rents in the district during April reached $$4,450 a month in Tribeca, according to Zumperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s averages. Rents for similar accommodations in Nomad/Flatiron were the most expensive at $4,490. Onebedroom rentals in Chelsea are Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third most expensive.

Rents in East Harlem were the cheapest at $1,950, while those in Central Harlem reached $2,000.

The median rental tag in West Harlem is $2,180.

New York trails only San Francisco as the second most expensive city in which to rent, according to Zumper. Rents for one-bedrooms in the Bay Area city averaged $3,460. Boston, at $2,350, had the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third-highest rents, according to the website.

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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG

THREE ARRESTED IN MANHATTAN MATTRESS DEATH Three people have been arrested in the death of a New Jersey man found dead under a mattress at a Manhattan hotel.

Twenty-eight-year-old Roderick Goodwin of Bridgeton, New Jersey was found dead at the Hilton Garden Inn early Monday.

Police say 31-year-old Christine O’Brien of West New York, New Jersey was arrested Thursday.

Twenty-seven-year-old Gabriel Pena and 28-year-old Jennifer Rodriguez, both of Brooklyn, were arrested Friday.

All face charges of second-degree murder in Goodwin’s death. In addition, Rodriguez faces a first-degree robbery charge.

Police said earlier they believed the killing was linked to prostitution.

It wasn’t clear if the three had attorneys who could comment on the charges.

The hotel is on West 35th Street near Penn Station in a part of Manhattan bustling with tourists and business travelers.

SLACK JACK When a store sells jeans for $1,800 a pair, shoplifters apparently can’t resist. At 2 p.m. on May 13, two persons in their early to mid-20s entered the Patron of the New store at 151 Franklin St. pretending to be shoppers before taking four items valued at $9,095 and then running from the store. The two were last seen fleeing on foot southbound on Hudson Street.

The merchandise stolen included a pair of Balmain leather joggers valued at $2,995, Balmain leather pants tagged at $2,565, Balmain jeans priced at $1,840, and a Moschino shoulder bag valued at $1,695.

WHAT GOES AROUND GOES OUT THE DOOR

Another SoHo store was hit by another pair of shoplifters.

At 2:33 p.m. on May 14, two women entered the What Goes Around Comes Around store at 351 W. Broadway and removed a pink Chanel Caviar bag tagged at $4,500 from a hook. According to surveillance video, one woman handed the bag to her accomplice, who then concealed the item.

Both women then left the store. The store did not notice the missing handbag until they conducted inventory during close of business. Police searched the area but could not locate the pair.

CIGARETTE TAKE One young man discovered that the cost of smoking a cigarette was not

just his health but his wealth. At 7:30 p.m. on May 12, a 34-year-old man left his laptop bag on a stool in Jeremy’s Ale House at 228 Front St. while he went to smoke a cigarette.

When he returned, his bag was gone. There were no witnesses to the theft. The items stolen were a 15-inch MacBook Pro valued at $2,200, a My Passbook 500 GB hard drive priced at $100 and a Samsonite leather laptop bag worth $100, making a total of $2,400 stolen.

ZZZ=$$$ Forty winks cost a subway rider $820. In the early hours of May 16, a 50-year-old man got on a 1 train at the 34th Street and 7th Avenue station and fell asleep. He was awakened by the train’s conductor at South Ferry. The

STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 1st Precinct for May 11 to May 17 Week to Date

Year to Date

2015

2014

% Change

Murder

0

0

n/a

0

0

n/a

Rape

0

0

n/a

2

5

-60

Robbery

2

0

n/a

16

17

-5.9

Felony Assault

1

0

n/a

28

27

3.7

Burglary

2

2

0

49

62

-21

Grand Larceny

18

18

0

348

336

3.6

Grand Larceny Auto

1

0

n/a

5

2

150

man then noticed that his cell phone was missing from his front right pants pocket and his wallet from his back right pants pocket. Both his front left pants pocket and his back right pants pocket had been cut.

The Find My iPhone app traced the cell phone was traced to a last known location at West 207th Street near Sherman Avenue. The items stolen were an iPhone 6+ valued at $700 and $120 in cash.

ALABAMMY WHAMMY A tourist from Fultondale, Alabama, learned the hard way to be more careful with his property in the Big Apple. At 3 p.m. on Friday, May 15, a 61-year-old man was waiting for the ferry at the South Street Seaport Marina pier in front of 19 Fulton St. He got on the ferry before he realized that he had left his backpack on the pier. He took the

2015

2014

% Change

next ferry back to the spot where he had left his pack and found it gone. He checked the lost and found, but the pack was not there either. The items stolen included $160 in cash, a pair of red wireless earphones valued at $30, an iPhone charger tagged at $20, and an Adidas backpack worth $20, plus a wallet, driver’s license, and credit, debit, medical, dental and vision cards.

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Useful Contacts 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

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

TABLE FOR FOUR (PAWS), PLEASE

212-477-7411 212-334-0611

FIRE FDNY Engine 15

25 Pitt St.

311

FDNY Engine 24/Ladder 5

227 6th Ave.

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FDNY Engine 28 Ladder 11

222 E. 2nd St.

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NEWS New York lawmakers could clear the way for dogs at open-air restaurants

BY JENNIFER PELTZ

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

49 Chambers St.

212-442-5050

Community Board 2

3 Washington Square Village

212-979-2272

Community Board 3

59 E. 4th St.

212-533-5300

Community Board 4

330 W. 42nd St.

212-736-4536

Hudson Park

66 Leroy St.

212-243-6876

Ottendorfer

135 2nd Ave.

212-674-0947

Elmer Holmes Bobst

70 Washington Square

212-998-2500

COMMUNITY BOARDS

LIBRARIES

HOSPITALS New York-Presbyterian

170 William St.

Mount Sinai-Beth Israel

10 Union Square East

212-844-8400

212-312-5110

CON EDISON

4 Irving Place

212-460-4600

TIME WARNER

46 East 23rd

813-964-3839

US Post Office

201 Varick St.

212-645-0327

US Post Office

128 East Broadway

212-267-1543

US Post Office

93 4th Ave.

212-254-1390

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Never mind the doggie bag: Spot wants a seat at the outdoor table, or rather under it.

New York is considering whether to join a growing number of states that give pet dogs legal entree, if not actual entrees, at open-air eateries.

Dog lovers and restaurateurs say the proposal would safely accommodate people who want to dine out with man’s best friend in places from Manhattan sidewalk cafes to country ice cream stands. But a statewide health officials’ group is against it, and at least one lawmaker is raising questions, and some restaurant-goers fear an onslaught of begging, barking, biting and other doggie don’ts -- or, worse, doggie dos.

Owners like Michelle Vargas feel the estimated 500,000 dogs in the nation’s biggest city have a place in al fresco dining and it’s not on the pavement outside a patio railing, where the current law would have them.

“For me, there’s nothing better than being with -- I don’t even call them my dogs.

They’re my boys,” Vargas said while relaxing this past week with her poodle mixes, Luigi and Carmine, and a friend’s wire fox terrier at an outdoor Manhattan park cafe.

American public health officials have long banned pet dogs from eateries, out of concerns including potential biting or transmitting germs to people’s food. A 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Health found such risks haven’t been clearly quantified amid slim research.

Aficionados counter that dogs hang out safely in home kitchens and even make hospital visits. California, Florida, Maryland, New Mexico and some other states and communities around the country have opened restaurant patios to dogs within the last decade; North Carolina even approved cats, too.

After getting a unanimous OK from New York’s Senate, advocates are pressing its Assembly to sign on this spring.

New York City’s 83,000 restaurant inspections per year yield only about 170 tickets for letting pets in. But furry faces often can be seen while inspectors are elsewhere.

Dougie the poodle peeked discreetly from beneath owner Marni Turner’s chair at a Manhattan sidewalk cafe table one recent day. If he could be a legit guest, “it would make my life a lot easier,” Turner said.

State Sen. Kemp Hannon and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal say their proposed law would do that, while protecting people’s safety by barring servers from petting dogs and banning dogs from the furniture, among other provisions.

The lawmakers, who don’t have dogs, stress that restaurants could decide whether and how to host Fido outdoors.

Options could include special sections.

The American Kennel Club cheers the proposal as good for owners and dogs.

Restaurateurs are generally supportive, state restaurant association President Melissa Fleishschut says.

Albany pub manager Tess Collins would welcome having permission for patio dogs, since many patrons already bring them along.

“It’s created a camaraderie” among customers, she says.

But the idea gives some New Yorkers pause.

“Who wants somebody’s dog next to them, begging, when they’re trying to eat?” says Erik Galloway, of Shoreham, on Long Island.

He likes dogs generally but notes diners can’t be sure how healthy another patron’s dog is.

The state Association of County Health Officials voted Friday to oppose the measure, amid concerns including cleanliness, bites and whether local governments

could enforce tougher rules, executive director Linda Wagner said. Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried said this week he was exploring the proposal’s ramifications.

To be sure, there are some cautionary tales.

Moon Under Water was the first St. Petersburg, Florida, restaurant to seek a permit to welcome dogs on its patio after a 2006 state law opened the door. But the pub banned them after three months.

They sometimes yapped at each other and patrons and, in one case, vomited after being fed mashed potatoes, recalls manager Mark Logan, a dog owner.

“It kind of got overwhelming,” said Logan, who also worried about insurance liability if someone got bitten.

Yet canines have been guests of honor for nearly a quarter-century at the Barking Dog Cafe, a Manhattan restaurant that promotes its patio’s dog-friendliness.

“Actually, sometimes a dog is more behaved than we are,” general manager Fokol Kaci says. “You can tell it, `Sit down,’ and it will sit down.”

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

The High Line

Join us for the 5th Season of

The Puzzle: Marble Collegiate Church’s Theatre Festival

An Inspiring Week of Exciting New Theatre

COMING UP ON THE HIGH LINE MEDITATION Every Wednesday, June through September, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

22nd Street Seating Steps, on the High Line at West 22nd Street Join our neighbors from the Integral Yoga Institute, the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, and two surprise guests, for weekly guided meditations. Rise above the city streets and start your day focused, centered, and connected with nature. Beginners welcome!

with the experts about the sights you see.

Stargazing at the High Line takes place every Tuesday, beginning at dusk, between Tuesday, April 7, and Tuesday, October 27.

This High Line Program is free and open to visitors of all ages. No RSVP required.

June 15-21, 2015 For more information, visit us at MarbleChurch.org

TOUR: HIGH LINE AS HABITAT Saturday, June 6, 2015 8:00 am to 9:00 am Location provided via email following RSVP Tour the High Line with horticulturist and resident wildlife expert, Maryanne Stubbs. This tour will focus on how pollinators, migratory birds, and other wildlife use the habitat and forage provided by the High Line’s gardens.

RSVP required.

STARGAZING Every Tuesday, April through October, dusk to 9:00 PM On the High Line at West 14th Street You don’t have to leave New York City to see the stars. Gaze at the stars, planets, and moon through the high-powered telescopes of the Amateur Astronomers Association, and chat

WALK & TALK: City Dreams & “Epic Fails” Wednesday, June 17, 2015 6:00 pm to 7:15 pm Location provided via email following RSVP New York has always been a changing city, but you wouldn’t believe some ideas urban planners have proposed. Join Emily Gallagher, social history educator, and Charles Chawalko, from 596 Acres, for a conversation about the New York landscapes that never happened.

RSVP required.

Text and photos from www.thehighline.or

Dr. Michael B. Brown, Senior Minister 1 West 29th St. NYC, NY 10001 (212) 686-2770

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SEAPORT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 dismantlement of the rear “cooler areas” on both buildings. The agency said these areas, which stored fish when the Seaport was an active market, are supported by deteriorating pilings and in danger of imminent collapse. The EDC said they assessed the site in April and that the demolition, characterized as emergency work, should begin in July or August.

Michael Gerrard, a lawyer with Arnold and Porter LLP, said the letter was sent while there was still some confusion over what exactly the EDC planned to do.

“At the time we wrote this, there was ambiguity,” he said.

Rumors swirled earlier this month after local residents noticed jersey barriers being pushed back and other activity on the Seaport, including the relocation of a bike lane. One resident said parking attendants on South Street had heard that the New Market Building was set to be demolished.

The preservation apparatus at the Seaport, led mainly by Save Our Seaport and other groups fighting a comprehensive redevelopment plan by the Howard Hughes Corporation, kicked into gear.

The developer wants to build a 494-foot luxury residential tower on a swath of land occupied by the New Market Building.

Bringing down the New Market Building would essentially remove a rallying point for those opposed to the tower, which is the most contentious piece of Howard Hughes’ proposal.

The letter claims the demolition would be in violation of city and state environmental review laws that require all components of a proposed project to be looked at collectively during an environmental impact review. Separating them is known as “segmentation” in development parlance, and is not permissible.

In the letter, Gerrard wrote that because Howard Hughes’ development project would require the demolition of the building, “any effort to demolish the New Market Building now constitutes an impermissible segmentation of the [state and city] review process,

and an attempt to segregate the demolition of the New Market Building from the proposal to replace it without undergoing the full environmental review that the entire [Howard Hughes project] requires.”

Save Our Seaport and the City Club of New York will be revaluating their position now that EDC’s plan concerning the cooler areas is known, said Gerrard, who used freedom of information laws to request the engineering report that serves as the basis for demolishing the cooler areas.

“We want to take a look at the engineering reports, and we’re going to withhold judgement until we see them,” he said. “We certainly do not want to stand in the way of anything that is necessary to protect public safety.”

But EDC did not rule out fully demolishing the Tin and New Market buildings after removing the cooler areas this summer.

“The demolition of the cooler area is a first step and will allow EDC and the other agencies to more fully evaluate the remaining portions of the structure and determine if additional measures are needed, which may include full or partial demolition,” said an EDC spokesperson on May 13.

Gerrard said he has not yet received a response from the EDC. An EDC spokesperson said the agency had received the letter and that it is “under review.”

Opponents of Howard Hughes’ plan are uncomfortable with how the EDC has allowed the Tin and New Market buildings to fall so far into disrepair that their dismatlement is necessary. The EDC, as stewards of the South Street Seaport Historic District, is responsible for maintaining historic sites regardless of future development plans, they say.

“It’s primarily that we see demolition as a prerequisite to construction,” said Gerrard. “The City Club and Save Our Seaport are extremely concerned about Howard Hughes’ plan, and want to make sure it undergoes a full environmental land-use review.

We want to make sure nothing happens prematurely without that review.”

The New Market Building falls just outside the city’s historic district but is considered a historic site by state and federal agencies.

The Tin Building is included within the South Street Seaport His-

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015 toric District. Changes to either site, including Howard Hughes’ redevelopment proposal, are subject to state and city environmental review, as well as the city’s public review known as ULURP. Howard Hughes holds a 60-year lease on the Seaport with the EDC and has already received approval to develop Pier 17 into a shopping and dining destination.

Gerrard said emergency work, such as demolition of the cooler areas behind the Tin and New Market buildings, is not subject to public review.

On May 20, Save Our Seaport sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio on behalf of eight community groups criticizing the city’s partnership with Howard Hughes as it relates to preservation of the Seaport. The letter cited “an egregious absence of transparency and public review of the plans for the Seaport.”

“Stewardship is being entrusted to a developer who has not adequately demonstrated capacity, experience or desire to create a sustainable plan linking the interests of preservation to the economic vitality of the area,” the letter reads. “Plans for a skyscraper in the heart of the district will irreparably compromise the integrity of this treasure.”

The letter was sent on behalf of Save Our Seaport, the City Club of New York, Friends of South Street Seaport, Historic Districts Council, Community Board 1, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, The New York Landmarks Conservancy and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, and claimed to represent thousands of New Yorkers concerned about Howard Hughes’ plan.

The organizations urged the de Blasio administration to pause all activity at the Seaport and provide “material insights” into Howard Hughes’ full plans for the Seaport, the current status of all ownership and leases on Seaport buildings and sites, and rationale for continuing the South Street Seaport Museum’s dependency on developer revenue instead of funding from the city.

It concluded by saying, “Past developers have not delivered promised revenues or district-wide revitalization. We fear that the current absence of comprehensive planning allows development to head in the wrong direction again and squanders the potential of this remarkable resource. We demand an opportunity to get this right.”

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Downtowner

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Perspective We Need Better Pay for ALL Low-Wage Workers

TINIEST STAGE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “In a normal setting, the audience member feels that they can sit back, pay attention if they want to, it’s easier for them to have their mind wander,” Jones said on a recent afternoon, sitting at a table next to the mobile theater in the bustling, sunny atrium. “In this setting, the value of their presence and their attention is so clear and apparent that I think they feel more compelled to be the most considerate, attentive audience member that they can be.”

Seven playwrights contributed work commissioned specifically for this production, including Thomas Bradshaw and Craig Lucas, who penned “An American in Paris,” each performed by a different actor.

The performances, all free, run through June 6 at three public spaces in Manhattan, and are a far cry from Jones’ other current production, the extravagant “Queen of the Night,” an immersive dinner theater circus at a nightclub in midtown’s posh Paramount Hotel, with tickets starting at $140 each and topping off at $450 for the most exclusive access.

Theatre for One, as intimate as “Queen of the Night” is lavish, does share some production elements with the overthe-top experience, Jones said.

“Queen of the Night” performers are encouraged to make eye contact and interact with audience members one-onone, crafting individual experiences in the midst of a grand spectacle.

“Both projects seek to achieve that connection between the audience member and the performer,” said Jones, who also works as a set designer and won a Tony Award for her work on Broadway’s “American Idiot.” “We were always experimenting with ways to dissolve the typical boundaries that a proscenium theater necessitates.”

For the audience, this means solo entry into the closetsized theater, custom built by architecture firm LOT-EK to resemble a black travel case for musical instruments, the interior lined with plush, red velvet. Once inside and the door shut by a jumpsuit-clad staffer, the swarm of the office building atrium quiets. A wall no more than a few feet from the audience’s seat pulls away, revealing an actor seated on a stool, almost within arm’s length. The performers’ physical features, from eye color to forearm tattoos and red nail

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Stuart Appelbaum, President Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union

W

e are pleased that a state wage board has been called by Governor Cuomo to examine the impact of low pay in the fast food industry.

The move may result in wage increases for fast food workers in New York.

Over 100,000 people in New York work in fast food; and with 60 percent of them on government assistance, it’s clear that pay in the fast food sector is astonishingly too low. We hope that the board will recommend a higher minimum wage for fast food workers.

While this would be a good first step, there are hundreds of thousands of other workers throughout New York who need a raise as well. Retail workers, home health aides, car wash workers, food service workers, and many in other industries – all of these people are in dire need of higher pay. Even when these workers in the Empire State hold full time jobs, they still don’t earn enough to support themselves and their families.

For these New Yorkers, it is a struggle just to survive.

And low wages in these industries will continue to hurt many fast food workers as well, because most fast food workers are not full time and must work two or even three jobs to get by - often at other low wage jobs in industries not being considered by the wage board.

Government action to raise low wages is a powerful move to help working people. We must support and expand efforts to raise the minimum wage for ALL workers in the state. This would put more money in our economy and reduce the amount of public assistance that low wage workers and their families require to survive.

The discussion about While this would wage rates is an important one, but we shouldn’t be a good first step, lose sight of the fact there are hundreds that the best solution to of thousands of income inequality is still other workers unionization. Workers face throughout New many issues on the job York who need a besides low wage rates – they need control over raise as well. scheduling, better benefits, and representation in the workplace. What we need are government policies that encourage and protect collective bargaining, so that workers have a voice on the job and the ability to address issues beyond just wage rates.

“

polish, seem like set pieces in the mostly bare space.

“The first time we sat down to rehearse it, it was like, ‘this is so foreign,’” Carmen Zilles said during a brief break from her rapid-fire performance of a piece by playwright Emily Schwend. “I’ve never looked an audience member in the face like this. Usually you’re with another actor so they’re in on the game that you’re playing together.”

Zilles, a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama, said

the proximity to the audience can make her worry about food stuck in her teeth, or if her makeup is in place. Sometimes, the audience member is the first person she’s spoken to that day. But it also means every performance is unique, a happy occasion for an actor who’s reciting the same lines several times a day. Zilles imagines different connections between her character, a young woman ruminating on a lost relationship, and the audience. Sometimes she sees the

character’s sister in the chair across from her. Sometimes the audience member cries.

Once, a man came in with his 11-year-old daughter, who sat on his lap. Zilles pictured the girl was her own child, whom she’d never met.

“I was a mess,” Zilles said. “I felt really bad for those poor people because I think they were like, ‘this girl’s crazy.’ But your mind just goes to these places.”

“

Visit us on the web at:

www.rwdsu.org

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

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Voices

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

OP-ED

Sixth Borough

WATER WORLD: ON PEEING OUTSIDE

BY BECCA TUCKER

M

y toddler was horrified and delighted at once. “Mama! You’re going peepee on the stwawbewies! Don’t

do yat!”

She hurried over to attempt to put a stop to the situation, but alas, too late. Pointing to the wet soil in the planter, she screeched and giggled.

Whenever possible, I pee outside. A day you pee outside, I’ve decided, is unlikely to be a bad day. When I’m home, I try to locate a plant or tree that looks like it could use a drink. But I realize that since we’re coming off of winter, my daughter hasn’t seen me do this in a while — plus straddling a planter looks weirder than squatting next to a tree.

I encourage my husband and male visitors who seem like outside-peeing types to pee on the compost, since urine contains the water and nitrogen that are usually the limiting factors in an active compost heap. But really, wherever. Pick a tree any tree. Just don’t use a gallon and a half of drinking water to flush your pee down the toilet. That amount of water — which is what a new toilet uses; old ones use as much as seven gallons — is enough to quench the thirst of one person for three days. To use it to usher your liquid minerals out of sight strikes me as so wasteful that, with what’s going down on the West Coast, it feels little short of criminal.

I do it too. At work, every day. At other people’s houses (anyone other than my former roommates, who share the same philosophy regarding flushing). When guests are coming over to our house, we try to make sure there’s not a lot of piss and toilet paper stagnating in a bowl — which admittedly can get a little stinky at the height of summer. But every pee does not warrant its own flush.

STRAUS MEDIA your neighborhood news source

You’re in the city, though, reader, which is a different story. I know it’s harder to pee outside in tight quarters (especially for girls), not to mention illegal. There are too many people living on top of each other — so many, really, that it’s astounding it all works so well — to go around pissing on any lamppost you feel like. The city is one of the few places in the world where the profligacy of our modern sanitation system actually makes sense.

But there are moments.

Anytime you find yourself out in anything like the country, or in the car on the highway, or even in an out-of-the-way park or alley, instead of booking it to the nearest gas station or Starbucks, think about giving a little of the good stuff back to the earth.

For instance: my ultimate Frisbee team practices on Randall’s Island, an hour and change drive from my house, which time I spend cursing the traffic and hydrating.

Lateness, by the way, earns sprints, and I am getting old for this game — to tack additional sprints onto an already grueling practice leaves me near tears. So when I pop out of the car, wriggling into my cleats, more often than not I duck behind one of the massive pillars that holds up the RFK Bridge and squat.

By the smell, I’m not the only one.

The weeds there, coming up through dusty gravel, seem to appreciate the frequent watering. There are a couple Port-o-Potties at these fields, but they are already overfilled and disgusting and usually there’s a line.

Those chemical-filled cesspools should be reserved for the copious amounts of number two generated by us and the soccer and touch football and baseball players and their families who come to make a day of it. We should all be peeing in the desolate strip under the bridge while the subway rumbles by overhead, and maybe we’ll be rewarded with a moment to marvel at a pair of mating dragonflies hovering, weightless.

When I hear about water cuts in California, and all the outrage they’re causing, I find myself wondering how many people are still flushing their pee. It’s such low-hanging fruit, for them, for us, for anyone with any common sense. Just let it mellow, or if the scene is right, step outside and irrigate.

Becca Tucker is a former Manhattanite now living on a farm upstate and writing about the rural life.

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

Associate Publishers, Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Sr. Account Executive, Tania Cade

WHY DO RENT-STABILIZED OWNERS DESERVE A BREAK?

BY EDWARD MALONEY

I

n his recent op-ed, “Memo to de Blasio: Give a Break to Rent-Stabilized Owners” (April 30), the underlying theme of Mr. Strasburg’s argument for the real estate industry that he lobbies for is simply industry greed over human need. Even he seems to admit that rent-stabilized apartments are the single greatest, if not the only, main preserver of affordable housing for New York’s middle and working classes and number approximately a million rental units.

From there Mr. Strasburg’s logic and claims get distinctly one-sided and profit- driven.

He ignores the rampant vacancy deregulation by owners who will conjure any investment costs for vacancies to raise monthly rents beyond the $2,500 threshold to deregulate them. He omits the fact that thousands of apartments have been arrogantly removed or simply unlisted by owners from regulation (stabilization), while new tenants risk their tenancies if they inquire why or complain that a building with over five units is NOT regulated. Mr. Strasburg also spins the old disingenuous and discredited “trickle down” economics to promise jobs and “improved” housing stock, if only owners are given more perks, writeoffs, incentives and tax breaks at the public’s expense.

He wants corporate welfare and government largesse on the scale of another rich, profitable and powerful industry, the petroleum industry!

He ignores that landlords regularly use the MCI route (Major Capital Improvements)

to increase rents far beyond annual guidelines. Owners having real financial trouble can get hardship relief, but they want to avoid the bureaucratic application headache that tenants must regularly endure, and by letting maintenance lag so that problems add up and can be called an MCI project, landlords get rents raised ever more towards the deregulation threshold.

MCIs are regularly and routinely rubber-stamped by the compliant and complacent rent regulatory office, the DHCR or HCR, which has become a “captured” agency, that is, a regulatory office that is infiltrated, influenced and corrupted by the very industry interests that it is meant to regulate, trumping public interest and regulatory responsibilities.

The DHCR employs an industry-supported de minimis list for tenant complaints that they consider beneath its concern or interest —so that landlords can get away with further reduced or eliminated services. In converted buildings landlords avoid their regulatory responsibilities by allowing newly installed condo boards of sold units to abuse and restrict remaining tenants, doing landlord bidding against tenants’ rights and services.

Industry-wide surveys have shown the average landlord makes $600 profit per month on every regulated unit. My landlord, who owns some 70 buildings, 11 or 12 of which have been converted, averages $800 profit per month on our regulated units.

For decades the annual rent increases have been far in

President & Publisher, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com Account Executive Editor In Chief, Kyle Pope Fred Almonte, Susan Wynn editor.ot@strausnews.com Director of Partnership Development Deputy Editor, Richard Khavkine Barry Lewis editor.dt@strausnews.com

Staff Reporters, Gabrielle Alfiero, Daniel Fitzsimmons

excess of owner’s costs, yet industry greed only grows and landlord demands multiply.

The most ridiculous doublespeak Mr. Strasburg makes on behalf of his industry is that “owners of rent-stabilized apartments contribute greatly to preserving and protecting existing affordable housing,” when in fact, they do everything in their power to eliminate, destroy and deregulate “affordable housing.”

Meanwhile, democratically speaking, tenants are locally disenfranchised, the City Council is made impotent, and Mayor de Blasio has his hands tied concerning fair rental regulatory issues all because the Urstadt Law keeps authority in dysfunctional Albany, which is conveniently influenced by big-contributing landlords, developers and real estate industry interests (which Governor Cuomo doesn’t seem to mind at all). We should only be so very lucky as to have the city’s housing stock “back to the bad old days of the late 1970s and 1980s,” when Mr. Strasburg’s Stabilization Association and its Conciliation and Appeals Board were actually held accountable for regulatory practices and were not able to buy off Albany politicians and influence DHCR regulators to promote rapacious practices and parasitical greed against the public necessity and human need for housing in our city.

Edward Maloney, a resident of the Upper East Side, has been active in tenant issues in Washington, D.C. and New York for more than 40 years.

He is the co-chair of his tenant association.

Block Mayors, Ann Morris, Upper West Side Jennifer Peterson, Upper East Side Gail Dubov, Upper West Side Edith Marks, Upper West Side

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

OP-ED

Scrapbook JEFFERSON MARKET LIBRARY WINS $10,000 PRIZE

An Errant Pitch, Then Nothing

BY TAD CRAWFORD

B

The Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village made the list of top 10 finalists in the NYC Neighborhood Library Awards, which celebrates local libraries’ service to their community. The Charles H. Revson and Stavros Niarchos Foundations announced the winners and awarded the Jefferson Market Library $10,000, while awarding the top five libraries $20,000 each in a ceremony Wednesday May 20. The winners emerged from more than 13,000 nominations.

Councilmember Corey Johnson presented the award and announced that the library had also

recently been awarded $500,000 to build an ADA compliant bathroom as part of the City Council participatory budgeting process.

(Johnson is pictured, along with Frank Collerius of the Jefferson Market Library.) The demand for library services has increased in the digital age. A recent report by the Center for an Urban Future – titled Branches of Opportunity and funded by the Charles H. Revson Foundation – revealed that over the past decade circulation at New York City libraries has increased by 59 percent, program attendance by 40 percent, and program sessions by 27 percent.

NEW WASTE BASKETS ANNOUNCED BY JOHNSON Councilmember Corey Johnson announced an expansion of the Cleanup NYC Initiative in partnership with the Department of Sanitation of New York.

NYC Cleanup Initiative is an effort to keep neighborhoods free of litter. Johnson allocated nearly $70,000 in funding.

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Additional pick up service includes 7th Avenue to 10th Avenue from 14th to 23rd

Streets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Share your news and what’s going on in your life.

Go to chelseanewsNY.com and click on submit a press release or announcement.

y the middle of the afternoon, the rain turned to heavy downpours and I doubted the 4 p.m. high school baseball game could even be played. If I knew what was about to happen, I would have been happy for a postponement. As an assistant coach for the School of the Future team, I never imagined that death might visit the field of dreams.

The umpires, seeing light gleaming in the corners of the cloud-covered sky, started the contest between Future and the Institute for Collaborative Education right on time. Surprisingly, by 4:30 the clouds had vanished and a golden sunlight poured over the North Meadow in Central Park. All of the other fields were empty, the games postponed, so we had the vast expanse of green to ourselves.

A tense game unfolded, a pitching duel with neither our right hander nor the Institute’s left hander giving any ground. After four innings, the teams were locked in a scoreless tie. In the top of the fifth inning, our pitcher gave up a single to the first batter.

Then an errant pitch hit the next batter in the chest, which should have put runners on first and second with no outs.

But the Institute’s batter never reached first base.

Instead, he took four or five steps and collapsed. For a few moments no one understood what had happened. Then the head coaches, Chris McCloud for Future and Mark Mazzone for the Institute, ran to the boy’s side and turned him face up. He had no pulse. He was in

cardiac arrest.

Calling for the AED (automatic external defibrillator), the two coaches immediately began to try and save the player’s life. I called 911, begging the police operator to rush an ambulance to the scene.

Within two minutes of his collapse, a life-saving shock from the AED brought back his pulse. Chest compression and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation were used as the coaches and players pleaded with the boy to stay with them.

After another minute or two, he regained consciousness. He couldn’t see. He asked where he was. He sat up and wanted to rise. His sight returned, but he was still unaware of what had just happened.

I believe the ambulance arrived within six minutes, but it might have been ten. By that time the boy had returned to himself and to the rest of us. Strapped to a stretcher, he was taken by ambulance to the closest hospital—Mount Sinai.

When the ambulance had gone, the coaches gathered the two teams on the field to offer words of comfort. Coach McCloud spoke of the delicacy of life, how “one moment we’re playing a baseball game and in the very next moment we’re saving a life.” He also told the teams to consider getting CPR/AED certified as adults as there aren’t many adults who are and they had all just witnessed the benefits of having that training. “You never know when a moment like this may call upon you. Be ready.”

Together, we bowed our heads in a silent prayer.

Two days later Coach McCloud, our pitcher, and another teammate visited the player at Mount Sinai. Numerous tests had been done. He was well and likely to have no long-term damage from the cardiac arrest. But the long life ahead of him was made possible by several factors. Public School Athletic League rules require that both teams have an AED on the field before any game is allowed to begin. Both coaches must be trained in CPR, including use of the AED. These safety rules, along with the coaches’ ability to use their training immediately after the player fell, saved his life.

A week later, the teams from Future and the Institute happened to play on adjacent fields. After the games ended, the teams came together. The player who had been hit by the baseball was in uniform, although he hadn’t played in the game. He was greeted like an old friend. He assured us that he was fine.

Not long after that, the teams met to finish their suspended game. On the pitcher’s mound was the young man whose pitch had nearly taken a life.

On first base, ready to run, was the player who survived the stopping of his heart. On this field of dreams, the resumed game echoed and celebrated the miraculous resumption of the life of the youth extending his lead off first base.

Tad Crawford, the publisher for Allworth Press in New York City, is the author of many books, including A Floating Life: A Novel and The Secret Life of Money.

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Out & About More Events. Add Your Own: Go to otdowntown.com

Fri 29

Erectile Dysfunction:

Travel the Road to Treatment What do men do when Erectile Dysfunction pills aren’t effective? Don’t like the idea of expensive penile injections, suppositories, and vacuum pumps? Get the facts on an inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP): a permanent solution—covered by many insurance plans—which allows an erection as often as you like, for as long as you wish.

Attend a FREE seminar sponsored by Coloplast Corp. to educate men and their partners about an advanced, DRUG FREE treatment for E.D. FREE REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED Featuring: Dr. J. Francois Eid A board certified urologist who specializes in the treatment of E.D.

The New York Marriott East Side Morgan B Room 525 Lexington Ave. at 49th St. New York, NY 10017

Also featuring: A patient who has found a long-term solution to his E.D. Wednesday, June 3, 2015 Refreshments available at 6 p.m.

Presentation begins at 6:15 p.m.

Sat 30

FLATIRON SAFETY AND FILM SCREENING: SECURITY REPRESENTING OUR SHADES OF ART ► 950 Broadway, at 23rd Street.

8:30 a.m.-10 a.m.

Capt. Brendan Timoney, the commanding officer of the 13th Precinct, will discuss safety and security in the Flatiron District as part of the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership’s Speaker Series.

RSVP: 212-741-2323 or flatirondistrict safetyspeakerseries.eventbrite. com

The New School, 63 Fifth Ave., at 13th Street 1 p.m.-4:30 p.m., Free but RSVP required Check out film projects created by high school seniors that covers the success stories of artists and designers from under-represented backgrounds.

212-229-5108. www.events. newschool.edu/event film_ screening_representing_our_

To reserve your space or for more information about this FREE seminar, please call: (866) 233-9368.

Sun 31

PARTNERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND An educational series, sponsored by Coloplast Corp., designed to inform and empower. www.ColoplastMensHealth.com

▲ SPRING ADOPTAPALOOZA Union Square Park, North Plaza, Broadway and East 17th Street 12 p.m.-5 p.m.

More than 300 lovable dogs, cats and bunnies will be available for adoption to new families, come out and check out these animals.

212-252-2350. www. animalalliancenyc.org/events/ featured/adoptapalooza/ index2015A.htm

Now Get Real Time Bus, Subway & Alternate Side Parking Information Here

GEORGE CABLES TRIO

▲ ONE WORLD OBSERVATORY OPENING

otdowntown.com Your Neighborhood News The local paper for Downtown

One World Trade Center, 1 World Trade Center 9 a.m-midnight, adults/$32, seniors/$30, children/$26 Perched on the three highest floors of the western hemisphere’s tallest building is the new observatory for people to see NYC on a whole other level.

884-696-1776. www. oneworldobservatory.com

shades_of_art#.VV9KL1bjPwI

JEFFERSON MARKET GARDENS CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS 14 Greenwich Ave., at Ninth Street 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Free.

Children can enjoy three hours of free crafts treats and stories for preschool and elementary school children. Rain date on May 31st.

212-727-7038. www. jeffersonmarketgarden.org/ childrensactivities.html

Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave. South, at 11th Street 8:30 p.m., $30 plus one drink minimum George Cables leads a combo with bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis.

Come enjoy an evening of entertainment.

212-255-4037. www. villagevanguard.com

Mon 1 THE DUCHAMP SYNDROME Flea Theatre, 41 White St., between Broadway and Church Street

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

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Tired of Hunting for Our Town Downtown?

Subscribe today to Downtowner 7 p.m., $35- $45 The Play Company and the Mexico City’s Por Piedad Teatro collaborate to present a play about a Mexican immigrant who chases his dreams to be a comedian in NYC. 212-266-2407. www.theflea. org

212-431-2115. http://www. nyls.edu/center-for-new-yorkcity-law/center-for-new-yorkcity-law-events/

▼ THE EMERGING POETS FELLOWSHIP READING Poets House, 10 River Terrace

7 p.m.-8 p.m., Free ▲ HUDSON RIVERKIDS Get a glimpse into the new — ROLLIE POLLIE poetry in New York City. Hosted by GUACAMOLE 2015 Emerging Poets Fellowship Hudson River Park, 225 West St 6:30 p.m., Free Children can jam to music of Rollie Pollie Guacamole at this free evening event.

212-766-1104. www. hudsonriverpark.org/events/ series/hudson-riverkids

Tue 2

workshop leader Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

212-431-7920. www. poetshouse.org/calendar/ day/2015-06-02

Wed 3 TEEN AUTHOR READING NIGHT

Jefferson Market Library, 425 Ave. of the Americas between Ninth and 10th Streets 6 p.m., Free 212-243-4334. www.nypl.org/events/ calendar?location=39 Young adult author David New York Law School, 185 Levithan (Nick & Nora’s Infinite West Broadway.

Playlist) hosts this month’s 8-9:30 a.m.Free. teen reading series, welcoming CityLaw’s Breakfast series various teen authors. Join continues with Mark G. Peters, your favorite authors in a Q&A Commissioner of NYC’s Department of Investigation rsvp session.

Required.

A CITYLAW BREAKFAST WITH COMMISSIONER MARK G. PETERS

EUNUCH TAPESTRY 5 Wooster St. Window Gallery, 26 Wooster St., at Grand Street.

12 p.m. - 6 p.m.

Catch the last day of Zachari Logan’s exhibit showcasing large- scale drawings, ceramics, that intersects themes of masculinity, identity and memory.

212-431-2609. www.leslielohman.org/ exhibitions/2012/windowgallery/number-1-must-have. html

Thu

4

ALEX KATZ Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, 620 Greenwich St., at Leroy Street 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Artist Alex Katz showcases bright portraiture, landscapes and still life pieces in this exhibit that is sure to catch the eye.

212-627-5258. www. gavinbrown.biz

INSIDE/OUTSIDE TONYC’S 2015 LEGISLATIVE THEATER The New School, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street and Union Square 6 p.m., Free but must RSVP. Check out this legislative theater festival that confronts mass incarceration and the collateral consequences of conviction.

212-229-5108. www. events.newschool.edu/event/ insideoutside_tonycs_2015_ legislative_theatre_festival#.

VV9eWVbjPwI

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Dining Information, plus crime news, real estate prices - all about your part of town

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

Now get your personal copy delivered by US Mail for just

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To Subscribe : Call 212-868-0190 or go online to otdowntown.com and click on subscribe

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

VISIONS OF THE EAST A stunning costume exhibition at the Met fuses Chinese costumes and art with Western couture

BY MARY GREGORY

“China: Through the Looking Glass,” a dazzling exhibition at The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents not so much a vision of China, the curators state, but a reflection of a collective fantasy of it. And fantastical, it is. The exhibition is beautiful, fanciful, simultaneously decorative and thought-provoking, and absolutely stunning. The show carries from the Anna Wintour Costume Center’s galleries, up through the first floor and into the second floor galleries of Chinese art in an incredibly imaginative, brilliant installation.

Costume shows get to bend the rules and push the boundaries that sometimes apply to serious museum exhibitions.

How exciting can they get?

Under the artistic direction of acclaimed Chinese film director Wong Kar Wai, “China: Through the Looking Glass” is astounding. The mannequins have been staged like actors in complex, theatrical sets, bringing the both the designs themselves and the adjacent works of art to a whole new level.

Lighting, backgrounds, music and films complete the magic.

The Anna Wintour Costume Center on the museum’s ground floor presents garments of historical and artistic importance from the imperial courts. Most were actually worn by emperors, and several are on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Mixing with them are couture creations by some of the world’s best fashion designers. Mirrored moon gates, both evocative and reflective, hold the real thing; mannequins stand in front, modeling modern designers’ responses. A Coco Chanel embroidered blue jacket reconfigures a cut-up historical garment, while John Galliano’s gowns use the colors and de-

signs as a jumping-off point.

The gallery is dramatically lit by huge screens playing clips from Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 film, “The Last Emperor,” and a tunnel of monitors leads directly to a display holding a child’s semiformal robe from China made in 1909-11 just like the one the young emperor, Puyi, wore in the movie. It’s dramatic, but also brings to a vivid reality how special these rare garments are.

Inspired, wildly creative head treatments designed by the renowned British milliner, Stephen Jones, bring a crowning touch to the mannequins throughout. Jones carefully and cleverly responded to each setting. In the section dedicated to Chinese fashion in Western movies, headdresses are composed of film strips, and in the galleries where court robes are presented, each figure is topped by an image signifying imperial rank — from dragons and rabbits to celestial bodies and flames.

The exhibition’s subtitle, “Through the Looking Glass,” was chosen to give a sense of how the vision most Western designers hold of China is a blend of fantasy and romanticism, an imaginary universe, often bearing no resemblance to reality. The phrase also translates into Chinese as “moon in the water,” suggesting something that cannot be grasped. And yet, the exhibition manages to catch and present just that in the Astor Court gallery. The floor has been transformed to a reflective, dark surface. The ceiling has become the sky, with an image of a full, golden moon projected onto it, and then mirrored on the floor below. It’s magnificent. The dresses, bathed in a nocturnal light, casting mystifying shadows, are by Galliano for Christian Dior, and Maison Martin Margiela, inspired by Beijing opera.

There are some 140 examples of haute couture and avant-garde fashion, from early 20th century masters such as Paul Poiret to

classic creations by Yves Saint Laurent, to today’s most cuttingedge designers. Dresses, gowns, jackets, hats, shawls and shoes are shown side-by-side with masterpieces of Chinese painting, calligraphy and sculpture dating from thefifthcenturyBCtothepresent.

To enhance the experience, three of the five senses are engaged. No touching or tasting, naturally, but film clips and music can be heard in many of the galleries, and in a room devoted to the influence of Chinese perfumes, a delicate scent fills the air. Of course, the eyes have the greatest treats, and those are truly extraordinary.

It’s not possible for each piece to be a show stopper, but when you’re sure you’ve seen the most spectacular installation possible, the next one, almost invariably, tops it.

Priceless, ancient blue and white ceramics line a shelf across from gowns inspired by them. In a gallery filled with religious sculptures, a full golden gown by Guo Pei that mimics the shape of a lotus is worn by a mannequin topped by a headdress of a lotus of enlightenment. The effect is breathtaking. Representations of enlightened individuals are mirrored as they reflect in timeless space. In the next installation, an entire bamboo forest has been simulated with arching, elegant poles of bottom-lit acrylic. Through them, glimpses of stark black suits and an ethereal white wedding ensemble by Jean Paul Gaultier can be seen.

“China: Through the Looking Glass” is an engaging, involving and thoroughly enchanting exhibition — providing a feast for the senses and food for thought. If you go looking for a history lesson or political realities, you may be disappointed. If you’re looking for gorgeous fashion inspired by China, displayed amid rare and incomparable works of art, prepare to be dazzled. It’s truly spectacular in every sense of the word — a remarkable, glorious exhibition.

Evening Gown by Guo Pei. Photo: Adel Gorgy

IF YOU GO WHAT: “China: Through the Looking Glass” WHERE: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

1000 Fifth Ave., at 82nd Street WHEN: Now through August 16.

5 TOP

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

FOR THE WEEK

BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO

THEATER

OUR ARTS EDITOR

to his suicide. The performance includes music by Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, and other composers.

“THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER” Ensemble for the Romantic Century turns Goethe’s 18thcentury novella “Sorrows of Young Werther,” into a musical production. The semiautobiographical tale follows a young romantic, played by Bobby Steggert, whose obsessive infatuation with a woman leads

“The Sorrows of Young Werther” June 3-4 Symphony Space 2537 Broadway at 95th Street 8 p.m.

Tickets $49 To purchase tickets, visit symphonyspace.org or call 212864-5400

GALLERIES

MUSIC

NY GALLERY TOURS-CHELSEA “BEST EXHIBITS” TOUR

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF “FIDDLER ON THE ROOF”

With more than 300 galleries, Chelsea remains the city’s leading gallery district and global art destination. Tour seven of the neighborhood’s top current exhibitions with Rafael Risemberg, who’s been leading gallery tours since 2002. Rain or shine.

Sheldon Harnick, who, along with composer Jerry Bock, wrote “Fiddler on the Roof,” joins artistic director Rob Fisher to discuss the origins of the iconic musical. Vocalists, led by Fisher, perform some of the lesser known musical numbers from the show, as well as songs cut from the final version.

NY Gallery Tours- Chelsea “Best Exhibits” Tour Saturday, May 30 Tour begins at 526 W. 26th St., between 10th and 11th Avenues 1 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.

Tickets $25 For more information and to purchase tickets, visit nygallerytours.com or call 212-946-1548

Celebrating 50 Years of “Fiddler on the Roof” May 30-June 1 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Ave., at 92nd Street Assorted show times Tickets $55-$75 To purchase tickets, visit 92y.org or call 212415-5500

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: THE EXHIBITION

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III: “SURVIVING TWIN”

An immersive exhibition in celebration of Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary brings guests on a tour of the weekly behind-the-scenes activities at 30 Rock’s studio 8H. The exhibit takes guests into a replica of the theater’s lobby and through the history of the show with some of SNL’s iconic props, costumes, set pieces, and original scripts.

Folk musician and actor Loudon Wainwright III pays tribute to his late father, LIFE Magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright, Jr. The younger Wainwright, whose own children have followed in his creative footsteps, merges some of his songs with his father’s magazine columns from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

If you like Our Town Downtown, you’re gonna love getting a personal copy of Downtowner!

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And best of all you won’t have to remember to grab a copy from the box or the mailroom every week.

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Loudon Wainwright III: “Surviving Twin” June 3, 10th, 17th and 24th Subculture 45 Bleecker St., near Lafayette Street 7:30 p.m.

Tickets $35 To purchase tickets, visit subculturenewyork. com or call 212-533-5470 To be included in the Top 5 go to otdowntown.com and click on submit a press release or announcement.

Yes! Start my subscription to Downtowner right away!

1-Year Subscription @ $49

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Saturday Night Live: The Exhibition Opens May 30 Premier Exhibitions 5th Avenue 417 Fifth Ave., between W. 37th and W. 38th Streets Open daily, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Tickets $29 To purchase tickets, visit snltheexhibition.com or call 212-707-8181 for more information

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS MAY 17 - 22, 2015

Papaya Dog

239 1 Avenue

Grade Pending (20) Evidence of rats or live rats present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. 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.

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.

Spirit Of New Jersey

Pier 62 West 23 Street - Chelsea Pier

A

Eva’s Restaurant

11 West 8 Street

A

Agavi Organic Juice Bar

72 E 7Th St

A

The Crooked Knife

232 West 14 Street

A

Mi Garba

129 4Th Ave

A

Clay

25 West 14 Street

Grade Pending (16) 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.

Proto Pizza

50 2Nd Ave

Royal Siam Thai

240 8 Avenue

Grade Pending (22) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/ sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies.

Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Not Yet Graded (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. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.

Il Cantinori Restauraunt

32 East 10 Street

A

Rohm Thai

27 East 20 Street

Grade Pending (24) 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. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.

City Chow Cafe

897 Broadway

A

Kambi Ramen

351 East 14 Street

A

Headless Horseman

119 East 15 Street

A

Juice Press

70 E. 1St Street

A

Mcsorley’s Old Ale House

15 East 7 Street

A

Tocqueville Restaurant

3 East 15 Street

A

Vegtown Juice

328 East 14 Street

Closed by Health Department (76) 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. Insufficient or no refrigerated or hot holding equipment to keep potentially hazardous foods at required temperatures.

Pota Topia

378 6Th Avenue

A

Pizza 23

268 W 23Rd St

A

Crave It

545 6 Avenue

A

Mary Ann’s

116 8 Avenue

Grade Pending (41) Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Food 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. 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.

Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.

The Rail Line Diner

400 West 23 Street

A

Think Coffee

123 4 Avenue

A

Blue Hill Restaurant

75 Washington Place

A

Mom’s Cooking

33 East 8 Street

A

Aldea Restaurant

31 West 17 Street

Grade Pending (18) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.

Subway

120 4 Avenue

Grade Pending. Establishment authorized to reopen after inspection conducted on 05/20/2015.

William Barnacle

80 St Marks Place

A

El Quijote

226 W 23Rd St

A

Sahara Citi Restaurant

137 East 13 Street

A

Spirit Of New York

Pier 62 West 23 Street - Chelsea Pier

A

Glaze Teriyaki Grill

139 4 Avenue

A

Subway

41 3 Avenue

A

Joe’s Pizza

211 8 Avenue

A

Kung Fu Tea

28 Saint Marks Pl

A

Underline Coffee

511 W. 20Th Street

A

Be Juice

121 University Place

A

La Panineria

1 W 8Th St

Grade Pending. Establishment authorized to reopen after inspection conducted on 05/21/2015.

Bowery Eletric

327 Bowery

A

St. Marks Ale House

2 St Marks Place

A

Rosa Mexicano

9 East 18 Street

A

Piccola Strada Restaurant

77 East 4 Street

A

Grand Cafe

230 Park Avenue

A

The Organic Grill

123 1 Avenue

A

Semsom

740 Broadway

A

Wine Bar

65 2 Avenue

Grade Pending (27) Toxic chemical improperly labeled, stored or used such that food contamination may occur.

2) 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.

3) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? Email us at NEWS@STRAUSNEWS.COM

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

CUBA OPENS UP, AND BEISBOL MAKES A WEST SIDE LINK West Side Little League’s Cuba connection

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE

José Aguilera and Steve Malley, friends from their respective affiliations with the West Side Little League, are playing it forward.

Earlier this year, Malley, whose son played in the league until the family moved to Bronxville three years, was looking “for something to do, and to give back.” With Bronxville generally without need, he was unsure of what to take up.

But when President Obama announced in December that the United States would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, “a light went off,” said Malley, 62, a former editor with ESPN. The connections were as evident as an Orlando Hernández leg kick. Malley would collect baseball gear and, through the proper channels, get it to residents of the Caribbean island nation, whose passion for baseball is matched only by that in this country. There would be a need, and certainly a want. With that Beisbol Across Cuba had legs.

Malley reached out to Aguilera — the West Side Little League’s vice president and de facto equipment manager — asking if he could spare some gear.

Sure, Aguilera responded, he had a few helmets and bats. A few days later, Aguilera and Malley met at the league’s equipment locker uptown.

“It took me two truckloads to move it all,” Malley said.

“There were maybe 15 team bags in that locker.”

Aguilera, 53, said the gear — gloves, bats, catchers’ kits, bases and uniforms — was outdated. “It was nice to part with the old and make way for new,” he said.

But there was another, more elusive reason for his generosity. Aguilera, who owns and runs a food shop on West 72nd Street, near West End Avenue, has lived his entire life on the

15

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

José Aguilera inside the storage locker that holds the West Side Little League’s gear. Much of what’s pictured is headed to Cuba and that country’s baseball fields. Photo: Steve Malley.

Upper West Side. But, as he tells it, he was “manufactured there” — meaning Cuba.

“My father escaped from Cuba around July of ’61,” said Aguilera, who was born in February 1962.

His dad worked in management for Caterpillar and company executives arranged for him to leave for the United States for a kidney operation, which was as much pretext as a necessity. He and they knew he would likely not return to now-communist Cuba. Aguilera’s mother, a professor of art, and his sister, then 13, and brother, 9, flew out in December of that year.

“As an adult I did the math,” said Aguilera, who along with his wife raised three sons on the Upper West Side. “I had to have been a passion baby.”

The Aguileras had lived comfortably in Cuba. But Castro’s revolution stripped them of nearly everything, including land, and the family initially had a difficult time in this country.

With help from The Church of the Blessed Sacrament on West 71st, the Aguileras settled first with a neighborhood family and then found an apartment at the Sherman Square Hotel nearby. But the Upper West Side of the early 1960s barely resembled what it looks like today. Aguilera said that among his earliest memories were the “constant” fires.

The Aguileras eventually secured their footing, his mother becoming a public school teacher uptown and his father working in human resources.

But Cuba and the family’s personal legacy remained, and remains, a hard topic to parse. Aguilera’s older sister

has sworn never to set foot in her native country so long as the Castros are in power. Aguilera is more conciliatory, and curious. “ What happened, happened,” said Aguilera, who has never visited Cuba. “It was terrible what happened to our family, but that was five decades ago. ... I want to see my heritage and I want to share that with my children.”

And baseball, he said, is one antidote to the antipathy, antagonism and even hostility.

For Aguilera, the game is also a means to a precious end.

“I was hoping to get to Cuba through West Side Little League,” he said.

He might yet do so.

Malley said he, his wife and his 14-year-old son, will travel to Cuba this summer as part of a delegation from Christ Church in Bronxville, which, as a religious institution, is exempt from most of the still extant blockade’s restrictions. They’ll bring as much of 15 equipment bags of West Side baseball gear as they can carry. Malley characterizes the trip as “a fact-finding mission.”

“We want to continue this going forward,” he said. Eventually, he said, he hopes to establish a lasting relationship with the baseball community in the country.

“We have a completely open book,” he said. “As barriers come down, perhaps we can take a team down or have a team come up.”

Malley won’t have to look far for a collaborator.

“My dream is to take a team out there and play,” Aguilera said. “I’m all for going. I’m all for going.”

SERVING UP FUN AND COMPETITION Working Out With an Olympian at the Wang Chen Table Tennis Club

BY MICKEY KRAMER

Here’s a New York City landlord-tenant relationship we don’t often hear about. The Wang Chen Table Tennis Club has been operating on West 100th Street since 2004, with building owner and pingpong aficionado Jerry Wartski offering Wang a discount on the rent. “Business wouldn’t survive without Jerry,” Wang said.

Wang came to the United States from Beijing in 2000, and began coaching Wartski two years later. Wang said that Wartski, now in his 80s, generously sponsors table tennis players, herself included, when she trained for — and made — the 2008 US Olympic team.

Wang began playing table tennis at 7 years old and became junior national singles champion by age 14. After just missing representing China in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, she moved to the United States. She’s been living on the Upper West Side since 2001.

After becoming a citizen in 2006, Wang began two years of extensive training, with financial and personal support from Wartski. At the advanced age (for competitive table tennis) of 34, she qualified for the 2008 Games — held in her hometown of Beijing.

“Of course, that was most special representing the U.S. in my old hometown in front of so many friends and family,” she said.

Wang became the first U.S. table tennis player to reach the quarter-finals, and, with that, retired from competitive table tennis. “I wanted a family

and the preparation is so very hard,” she said. “I didn’t want to play competitively if my level dropped.”

She now has a 4-year-old son, Ryan.

On a recent Saturday morning, the sport’s unmistakable clicks, pops and squeaks are audible as soon as you walk in to the club, which is between Broadway and West End Avenue.

The club features regulars of all ages. Players that Saturday morning included pairs of fathers and sons, and Wanying Lu, 25 and her boyfriend, Chang Peng. Chang, celebrating his 26th birthday, has been taking lessons for a few months and considers Wang’s vast international experience a huge advantage. Wanying, with shirt drenched in perspiration, said she has “improved a lot these few months.”

“If I get a big enough apartment, I’d love to get a table for my living room,” she said.

Steve Magid, 65, ventured over from the Upper East Side.

He, too, was soaked in sweat after his weekly lesson. Magid has been playing for 18 years and calls table tennis a “cross between chess and race car driving.”

He’s “still getting better,” he said.

The small waiting area features a changing closet, small couch and pictures of Wang with Olympic teammates Kobe Bryant and LeBron James among photos with Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. A signed paddle hangs on a wall. “Wang, thanks for kicking my ..., John McEnroe,” it reads.

There are three tables on the main floor, four in the basement. The club has ex-

Photo: Wang Chen Table Tennis Club

perienced great growth the few past years, attributable in part to the club’s lowering the monthly membership rate from $75 to $20. People can also play for an hourly rate of $8 or day rate of $15.

Wang said one of her main goals is to “raise the level of interest in the junior level.”

She does so with after school programs, weeklong camp sessions and all-day sessions during the summer. Wang offers free table time to any of the children in her son’s pre-K class.

“Some of the kids, ages 3 and 4, come and hit, and Ryan plays a little bit, too,” she said.

George Paltakis, 43, often treks up and across town from his post at the United Nations on 42nd Street for after-work Monday evening lessons with Wang before heading home to Brooklyn Heights.

“I was invited to play a few months ago and it awakened all these memories from when I was young,” he said. “She’s the best there is, and when you find the best, you stick with it.”

Mark Engelmann, 60, “wandered by” the club about a year ago and now takes lessons up to twice a week. He thinks he’s getting “semi-good,” which means he’s getting a workout.

Wang notes that for seniors, table tennis is a great for “hand-eye coordination, the brain,” but that they don’t “have to move as much” as, for instance, they might playing tennis or other sports. But, she added, it’s a sport for people of all ages.

“It’s just such a fun game and you can make many new friends. You’ll never be lonely here,” she said. “It’s like a family.”

16

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Business

< HEPATITIS BILL NOW LAW Mayor Bill de Blasio recently signed into law legislation that requires the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to issue a comprehensive annual report on hepatitis B and C.

The annual report will focus on efforts by DOHMH to identify and prevent the spread of hepatitis B and C during the preceding calendar year.

Council Members Margaret Chin, Corey Johnson and

In Brief KOCH GIFTS $150 MILLION TO NEW MSK CENTER Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center recently announced that it has received the largest gift in its history, a commitment of $150 million from long-time MSK board member David H. Koch.

The high-profile cancer hospital said the contribution will transform cancer care with a state-of-the-art outpatient medical facility to be known as The David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care. The 23-story building is currently in development between East 73rd and 74th Streets overlooking the FDR Drive.

According to MSK, the gift is the largest single donation ever made by David Koch.

“At MSK, where he has served as a member of the Boards of Overseers and Managers since 1990, he has now made $225 million in gifts and pledges, including funds to establish the David H. Koch Center for the Immunologic Control of Cancer, endow two David H. Koch Chairs, and provide ongoing support for prostate cancer research,” said the hospital in a statement.

“We are deeply grateful to David for his visionary generosity, which will help ensure that Memorial Sloan Kettering continues to set the pace for advances in patient care,” said Douglas A. Warner III, Chairman

of the Boards of Overseers and Managers.

“The David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care will accommodate the most sophisticated therapies and constantly evolving technologies in a setting that enhances the experience of our patients and their families.”

Koch said it’s his “ardent hope” that the center will transform cancer treatment worldwide.

“The novel clinical trials that will take place within its walls, and the other vital services including interventional radiology, outpatient bone marrow transplants and programs for patients with lung, head and neck, and hematologic cancers, promise to be medically revolutionary and I am honored to support this important work,” said Koch.

MSK said the World Health Organization believes cancer cases are expected to surge by 57 percent over the next 20 years, and call it “an imminent human disaster.”

“Today, one in two men and one in three women in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. New York in particular faces a dramatic increase in cancer, as the number of residents over the age of 65 is expected to increase by 45 percent to 1.35 million by 2030,” said MSK.

BREWER: DON’T TAKE RENT LAWS HOSTAGE Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer recently responded to a Daily News report indicating some upstate Republican legislators favor holding New York City’s rent laws hostage to win changes to the NYSAFE Act. “I was shocked and disturbed to read in today’s Daily News that some upstate Republican legislators are so obsessed with watering down our state’s gun laws, they are willing to hold a gun to New York City tenants’ heads by holding our rent laws hostage,” said Brewer in a statement.

According to her office, there are roughly 285,000 rent-regulated apartments in Manhattan alone, and more than a million citywide.

“It is preposterous to threaten to throw these New Yorkers out on the street because elements of one party’s political base feel

inconvenienced by a new law,” said Brewer.

“On behalf of Manhattan’s 1.6 million residents, I call on Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan to reject this kind of hostagetaking and negotiate the renewal of our rent laws in good faith.”

Brewer recently issued a policy paper outlining her office’s priorities for changes in the rent laws currently under negotiation in Albany, which includes eliminating vacancy deregulation, eliminating “bonus” vacancy rent increases, and fixing the “often-abused and wasteful” 421-a affordable housing tax abatement program, among other measures.

“We should be having a rational conversation about what we can fix and improve in our rent laws, but Albany’s grownups need to get this conversation back on track,” said Brewer.

Peter Koo introduced the legislation in February 2014 in an effort to increase public awareness around hepatitis B and C, and to help the city focus funding and resources to more effectively combat these diseases, according to a joint press release.

According to Chin, Johnson

and Koo, it’s estimated that at least 250,000 people in New York City live with hepatitis B and C and are at risk for developing complications related to the disease.

Many individuals who are infected are unaware of their status, they say, and viral hepatitis remains a leading

cause of liver cancer and related complications, which presents a major public health challenge.

According to the CDC, 1 in 12 Asian-Americans have hepatitis B, and as many as two-thirds do not know they are infected.

RENT OVERHAUL SEEMS HEADED FOR A TRUCE NEWS Albany may have too much on its place to tackle the issue for now

BY DAVID KLEPPER

With Albany still reeling from corruption scandals and time running out on the legislative session, it’s looking less likely state lawmakers will overhaul New York City’s longstanding rent regulations or a tax break for real estate developers.

Changes have been proposed for both laws, which expire next month, but many lawmakers say the most practical option may be to simply renew the laws essentially as-is, with only minor tweaks.

“We’re probably just going to have an extension,” Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, RLong Island, said this past week during debate on rent control.

That reflects an emerging consensus among lawmakers interviewed by The Associated Press and comments made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said “at a minimum” both laws must be extended.

“Albany has a lot going on right now,” the Democratic governor said late last month. “To have these finer negotiations on these delicate points is going to be problematic this year.”

Rent control and the tax break have huge impacts on the New York City housing market, and they’re touchy for lawmakers in any year because the real estate

industry is one of the biggest political donors in Albany. On the other side, tenant advocates and liberal groups have organized big rallies in New York and Albany to denounce the tax break and urge lawmakers to strengthen rent control.

The tax break was created decades ago during a much different real estate climate in New York City as a way to spur redevelopment. In exchange for the incentive, developers building in certain areas must incorporate affordable units.

Critics say the tax break, which cost New York City more than $1 billion last year, is no longer needed. The real estate industry argues the tax break is essential to efforts to keep New York affordable.

The rent rules regulate the rents paid by more than 2 million New York City residents.

Landlords chafe under the rules, but supporters say they ensure that low- and middle-income residents can afford to live in the city.

Keeping both measures essentially the same started to become an appealing option following the arrest of former Senate Leader Dean Skelos this month. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, is fighting charges that he extorted payments for his son from an environmental technology company and a major real estate firm in New York City.

In January, former Assembly

Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, was arrested on charges that he accepted nearly $4 million in bribes. Both men say they’re innocent, but the charges forced them to step down from leadership at a critical time.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for stronger rent control laws and the extension of the tax break -- though he wants to require that any developer receiving the incentive set aside 25 percent to 30 percent of a project for affordable units -- compared with the current requirement of 20 percent, which only applies in certain areas.

“No more tax breaks without building affordable housing in return -- period,” de Blasio said.

The mayor’s proposal has the support of some top lawmakers and, notably, the Real Estate Board of New York.

“There is an enormous opportunity in the next month for state lawmakers to put a plan into action that will create more affordable housing ... in every borough,” REBNY President Steven Spinola said.

Critics who want the tax break abolished said the mayor’s changes don’t go far enough.

“It’s a tax break that benefits billionaire real estate developers who don’t need the help,” said Karen Scharff, executive director of Citizen Action of New York.

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

17

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Real Estate Sales Neighborhd

Address

Price

Beekman

1 BEEKMAN PLACE

$528,010

Beekman

400 E 52 St.

$335,000

Bed Bath Agent

0

1

Sutton Place

400 E 56 St.

$710,000

1

1

Columbus NY Real Estate

Turtle Bay

310 E 46 St.

$1,125,000

2

2

Highline Residential

Douglas Elliman

Turtle Bay

865 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA

$1,043,706

1

1

Halstead Property

236 E 47 St.

$1,450,000

2

2

Douglas Elliman

Carnegie Hill

166 E 96 St.

$980,000

2

2

Stribling

Turtle Bay

Carnegie Hill

181 E 90 St.

$2,499,000

2

2

Corcoran

Turtle Bay

310 E 46 St.

$800,000

0

1

Bond New York

Carnegie Hill

140 E 95 St.

$625,000

Turtle Bay

250 E 53 St.

$1,725,000

1

2

Peter*Ashe

Carnegie Hill

1075 PARK Ave.

$3,100,000

2

3

Douglas Elliman

Turtle Bay

303 E 43 St.

$1,485,000

2

2

Noble Realty

Carnegie Hill

14 E 96 St.

$1,700,000

2

2

Brown Harris Stevens

Turtle Bay

333 E 46 St.

$2,777,343

Carnegie Hill

181 E 90 St.

$2,750,000

2

2

Corcoran

Turtle Bay

225 E 47 St.

$773,993

Carnegie Hill

1199 PARK Ave.

$899,000

1

1

Corcoran

Turtle Bay

303 E 49 St.

$1,500,000

2

2

Douglas Elliman

Carnegie Hill

1065 PARK Ave.

$620,000

1

1

Corcoran

Upper E Side

308 E 73 St.

$355,000

0

1

Douglas Elliman

Carnegie Hill

50 E 89 St.

$1,500,000

2

2

Sotheby’s International Realty

Upper E Side

207 E 74 St.

$650,000

1

1

Corcoran

Carnegie Hill

170 E 94 St.

$450,000

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Upper E Side

182 E 75 St.

$9,280,000

0

Brown Harris Stevens

1

1

Bobbie Stein

1

1

Corcoran

Carnegie Hill

153 E 87 St.

$588,000

0

1

Citywise Real Estate

Upper E Side

404 E 76 St.

$831,000

Carnegie Hill

1326 MADISON Ave.

$620,000

1

1

Sotheby’s International Realty

Upper E Side

16 E 80 St.

$625,000

Carnegie Hill

11 E 86 St.

$1,365,000

1

2

Warburg

Upper E Side

23 E 81 St.

$625,000

Lenox Hill

181 E 65 St.

$3,475,000

2

2

Corcoran

Upper E Side

305 E 72 St.

$605,000

Lenox Hill

11 E 68 St.

$15,273,750

Upper E Side

176 E 77 St.

$377,500

Lenox Hill

131 E 66 St.

$7,500,000

3

3

Brown Harris Stevens

Upper E Side

885 PARK Ave.

$7,550,000

4

4

Sotheby’s International Realty

Lenox Hill

30 E 65 St.

$2,665,000

Upper E Side

421 E 78 St.

$370,000

1

1

Bold New York

Lenox Hill

530 PARK Ave.

$9,250,000

Upper E Side

3 E 80 St.

$19,750,000

4

0

Brown Harris Stevens

Lenox Hill

44 E 67 St.

$4,500,000

Upper E Side

221 E 78 St.

$470,000

1

1

Miki Fiegel Real Estate

Lenox Hill

425 E 63 St.

$639,999

Upper E Side

45 E 80 St.

$1,750,000

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Lenox Hill

160 E 65 St.

$1,731,025

Upper E Side

1355 1 Ave.

$5,978,146

Lenox Hill

333 E 68 St.

$1,525,000

2

2

Stribling

Upper E Side

340 E 74 St.

$725,000

1

1

Halstead Property

Lenox Hill

300 E 71 St.

$725,000

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Upper E Side

165 E 72 St.

$750,000

Lenox Hill

315 E 68 St.

$410,000

Yorkville

200 E 90 St.

$1,150,000

2

2

Basil Ashmore

Midtown E

325 LEXINGTON Ave.

$931,698

Yorkville

239 E 79 St.

$865,000

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Midtown E

325 LEXINGTON Ave.

$2,489,621

2

2

Corcoran

Yorkville

301 E 79 St.

$1,290,000

2

2

Sotheby’s International Realty

Midtown E

325 LEXINGTON Ave.

$1,226,991

1

1

Corcoran

Yorkville

10 E END Ave.

$480,000

1

1

Corcoran

Midtown E

325 LEXINGTON Ave.

$753,505

0

1

Corcoran

Yorkville

509 E 88 St.

$300,000

1

1

CORE

Midtown E

250 E 54 St.

$920,000

1

1

Halstead Property

Yorkville

505 E 79 St.

$757,500

2

1

Harrison Properties

Midtown E

227 E 57 St.

$680,000

1

1

Nestseekers

Yorkville

525 E 82 St.

$977,520

2

2

Charles Rutenberg

Midtown South

244 MADISON Ave.

$450,000

0

1

Barkoff Residential

Yorkville

201 E 80 St.

$2,501,863

2

2

Douglas Elliman

Murray Hill

320 E 42 St.

$275,000

0

1

Halstead Property

Yorkville

400 E 90 St.

$1,200,000

2

2

Citi Habitats

2

0

2

1

Stribling

Corcoran

Murray Hill

245 E 35 St.

$485,000

1

1

Douglas Elliman

Yorkville

305 E 80 St.

$910,000

Murray Hill

200 E 36 St.

$335,000

0

1

Level Group

Yorkville

60 E END Ave.

$3,210,000

3

3

Corcoran

Murray Hill

235 E 40 St.

$465,000

Yorkville

515 E 79 St.

$990,000

2

2

Halstead Property

Murray Hill

35 E 38 St.

$725,000

0

1

Keller Williams NYC

Yorkville

300 E 85 St.

$820,000

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Murray Hill

2 TUDOR CITY PLACE

$390,000

0

1

Owner

Yorkville

52 E END Ave.

$1,600,000

2

2

Kian Realty

Murray Hill

235 E 40 St.

$520,000

0

1

Douglas Elliman

Yorkville

300 E 93 St.

$1,895,000

Murray Hill

222 E 35 St.

$353,000

0

1

Douglas Elliman

Yorkville

201 E 80 St.

$2,400,000

2

2

Sotheby’s International Realty

Murray Hill

77 PARK Ave.

$2,150,000

2

2

Douglas Elliman

Yorkville

500 E 83 St.

$575,000

1

1

Halstead Property

Sutton Place

420 E 55 St.

$1,850,000

3

2

Sotheby’s International Realty

Yorkville

237 E 88 St.

$527,500

1

1

Halstead Property

Sutton Place

313 E 56 St.

$292,500

0

1

Century 21 Metropolitan

Yorkville

444 E 86 St.

$567,500

Sutton Place

303 E 57 St.

$545,000

1

1

Halstead Property

Sutton Place

303 E 57 St.

$425,000

1

1

Corcoran

Sutton Place

50 SUTTON PLACE SOUTH

$1,285,000

2

2

Halstead Property

Sutton Place

20 SUTTON PLACE SOUTH

$1,850,000

StreetEasy.com is New York’s most accurate and comprehensive real estate website, providing consumers detailed sales and rental information and the tools to manage that information to make educated decisions.

The site has become the reference site for consumers, real estate professionals and the media and has been widely credited with bringing transparency to one of the world’s most important real estate markets.

18

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

The History of Chelsea

A SEMINARY, A HOTEL, AND SANTA CLAUS The Episcopal Seminary on 21st Street, now a hotel, has a storied literary past

BY RAANAN GEBERER

It’s been two years since the High Line Hotel on 10th Avenue opened, and Chelsea residents have been getting used to it ever since. The boutique hotel, with its 19th century red-brick charm, its front garden with tables and chairs and its unusual outdoor coffee truck bearing the word “Intelligentsia,” have become familiar fixtures in the neighborhood.

But do visitors staying in the hotel know that they have something in common with the poem “The Night Before Christmas?”

Until recently, the hotel building (originally a dormitory) was part of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, which still occupies most of the block between West 21st and 22nd streets, between Ninth and Tenth avenues. In the early 1820s, Clement Clarke Moore, wealthy Episcopal layman, donated the land for the seminary.

Moore, who taught Biblical languages at the seminary through 1850, was almost certainly the author of the familiar poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” –better known as “The Night Before Christmas.” The poem, which is largely responsible for our current-day image of Santa Claus, was published anonymously in 1823, and Moore basically acknowledged his authorship when he included it in a book of his own poems in 1844.

According to an article on the seminary by J. Robert Wright in “The Encyclopedia of New York,” the institution grew slowly. The first building on the site, the East Building, was constructed in 1827, followed by the West Building between 1832 and 1836. During the 1840s, the seminary was a center of the “Oxford Movement,” which sought to restore “High Church” traditions to the Episcopal Church.

The imposing Chapel of the Good Shepherd was built in 1888. In 1881, the seminary began issuing doctorates. In 1971, it first admitted women as full-time students, and the fol-

lowing year it issued a statement supporting the ordination of women clergy. Its library contains many rare Bibles, prayer books and theological texts as well as the archives of past Episcopal bishops.

Like many religious institutions, the seminary accumulated substantial debt over the years. In September 2012, according to the an article posted at the time in the seminary’s “GTS News,” it closed on the sale of the building that is now the High Line Hotel to the Brodsky Organization, a developer, and MCR Development, a hotel ownership company.

The sale was part of the seminary’s “Plan to Choose Life” financial initiative. Since 2005, the building had housed guest rooms for the Desmond Tutu Conference Center, most of which is still owned and operated by the seminary. Tutu, the retired South African Anglican bishop known for his fight against apartheid, was once a visiting professor at the seminary.

The High Line Hotel isn’t the only example of change in the seminary’s footprint. In 2005, the institution an-

nounced plans to demolish Sherrill Hall, a circa-1960 building that faced Ninth Avenue, and build, in partnership with the Brodsky organization, a 17-story tower. Many in the community objected to the planned building’s height, and a fight ensued.

A compromise was reached, and the Chelsea Enclave, the condo building that replaced Sherrill Hall, is only seven stories high. In the old days, visitors to the seminary could enter on Ninth Avenue; now, they must go around the corner to

21st Street. (This writer still recalls Sherrill Hall’s “Cokesbury Bookstore,” with its logo depicting a 19th century preacher reading a Bible on horseback.)

Nowadays, people staying at the High Line Hotel, as well as Chelsea residents in general, can view the seminary’s scenic inner courtyard, known as the Close, during visiting hours. And, perhaps, when December rolls around, they might feel the urge to recite “The Night Before Christmas.”

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

The local paper for Chelsea

Art

D

AN

the

Future of CHELSEA

a community forum

Few neighborhoods have changed as quickly, or as dramatically, as Chelsea.

This community forum will bring together artists, gallery owners, elected officials and industry leaders to dissect what has happened to Chelsea and outline the very delicate balance it now needs to strike: Can it continue to grow as a leadingedge art center while retaining the feel of a neighborhood? What can be done to keep the artists who helped put it on the map? How will the arrival of the Whitney Museum and, soon, the Hudson Yards project transform the neighborhood?

— Save the Date — It’s FREE. Come join us and the discussion When: Monday, June 8 6-8pm Where: The Rubin Museum | 150 West 17th St. RSVP: rsvp@strausnews.com or call 212-868-0190 - Seating is first come first served

STRAUSMEDIA

your neighborhood news source

7th Avenue and 28th Street, NYC | www.strausnews.com | Tel: 212-868-0190

19

20

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

DRAWING A LINE AT SUTTON PLACE NEWS Community rallies unusually speedy fight against a proposed megatower in the neighborhood

BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS

A proposed development by the Bauhouse Group to build a 900-foot tall residential tower in the historic Sutton Place neighborhood shocked many when it was revealed by Our Town in April. Since then, according to Community Board 6 and Councilmember Ben Kallos, residents who live in the area have joined forces in a plan to stop, or at least limit, the scope of the project.

Bauhouse began years ago to build an assemblage allowing for a 268,000-square-foot tower that would be the one of the tallest in the city and the second-tallest on the Upper East Side, behind the inprogress 1,400-foot 432 Park Avenue. The development includes 58,000 square feet of inclusionary housing rights, and consists of four building lots totaling 80 feet of frontage on East 58th Street between 1st Avenue and Sutton Place.

According to sources with knowledge of the development, Bauhouse is actually looking to unload the parcel to another developer. In response to the proposal, CB6 passed a resolution that could serve to limit how high a buyer can build on Sutton Place.

“The community expressed strong opinions that the proposed construction will ruin the scale and character of their neighborhood,” said CB6 in its resolution, referring to a meeting this month at which more than 100 people voiced their concerns about the project. The board said it invited Bauhouse to the meeting and were told that company was not yet prepared to make a presentation.

The resolution, citing Our Town’s story in April, supports rezoning mid-block areas in CB6’s territory to a lower density than the current R10 zoning allows for, which is the highest residential zon-

ing designation in the city.

It also proposes government action such as a Department of Buildings delay upon receiving an application for approval of plans. Other government action could include a moratorium on super-high towers, according to the resolution.

The board’s position is that the long-term impact of megatowers on surrounding neighborhoods, which they call a “recent innovation,” cannot be fairly and completely assessed since the technology that made them possible was not around in 1961 when the city’s zoning districts were created. These impacts include those on infrastructure, traffic, parking, waste removal, and fire and ambulance services, according to the board.

“Thus further investigation and study is needed, especially since this development… appears to be as of right,” said the board in its resolution.

When asked to comment on the board’s resolution, a spokesperson for the Bauhouse Group said the company “is aware of the community’s concerns, as laid out by Community Board 6’s resolution. We respect and are open to hearing the viewpoints of community members and we look forward to a productive dialogue.”

Councilmember Kallos said of the three options put forth by the community board, he believes down-zoning midblock areas is the most viable.

“I do support the community call for a moratorium, but that would be completely up to the mayor,” said Kallos.

“The ultimate thing we need to look at is contextual zoning for a height cap.”

Kallos said he was struck by the speed at which the community moved to block the Sutton Place development.

“In less than 45 days, from the first publication [about the Sutton Place development], the issue went to the community board land use committee, was heard, voted on, went to the full board for

a vote, passed, and has been sent to City Planning,” said Kallos.

The resolution was sent to City Planning on May 15. Kallos said his office and CB6 will be starting an environmental assessment study, which would be included in their forthcoming City Planning application to down zone midblock areas in the district.

“We’re working with the Sutton area community and we’ve already begun starting work on the EAS,” said Kallos, who has been raising awareness about the development and collecting funds from area residents to pay for the study. “Interest in this issue has been tremendous.”

Kallos said just because a development is as of right does not mean the community cannot push back against a project they’re opposed to. A zoning change by City Planning would trump a developer’s right to build as large as they want in an R10 area.

“We are redefining their rights and trying to change the law,” said Kallos.

The plan, said Kallos, is to get the zoning change through the ULURP process before a developer, whoever it may be, breaks ground on the lot.

Whoever buys the development from Bauhouse would still need to file designs with DOB. Once approved, a developer can begin excavating the base, but that can only be done in warmer months. In total, the process could take six months to a year to complete before any ground can be broken.

“We’re moving full steam ahead in a way that hasn’t happened with any of the other mega-towers we’re seeing crop up across the city,” said Kallos. “We have to draw the line when it comes to residential areas. “They’re just going to keep creeping up throughout the city.”

CATHOLIC NUNS FIND A COMMUNITY AT A JEWISH NURSING HOME SENIOR LIVING The older sisters move into Jewish Home Lifecare

BY JIM FITZGERALD

For 98-year-old Sister Angela Rooney, it was one of the most jarring moves of her life.

She always thought she would live out her days as she had for decades, in a convent under the time-honored Roman Catholic tradition of younger nuns dutifully caring for their older sisters.

But with few young women choosing religious life, her church superiors were forced to look elsewhere for care, and in the past year have sent Rooney and dozens of other nuns to Jewish Home Lifecare, a geriatric-care complex in the Bronx founded as a nursing home for elderly Jews.

“I wanted my convent, my great big chapel, my Stations of the Cross,” Rooney said.

“The very name `Jewish Home’ turned me off. ... I don’t think anyone came here with a heavier heart than me.”

Rooney and 57 other sisters, ages 73 to 98, have since adjusted nicely to their new accommodations and neighbors, becoming an active part of classes and continuing their ministry with good deeds like holding the hands of dying patients on the hospice floor.

“This is home now,” said 83-year-old Sister Grace Henke.

“When we first came, we were fish out of water.”

It’s an unusual situation that reflects a reality of the nation’s Catholic nuns in the 21st century: Fewer young women are devoting their lives to religious orders, and those who are already nuns are aging and facing escalating health care needs.

There are now more sisters over age 90 than under age 60, said Mary Gautier, a researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. The center’s 2009 study found that 80 percent of the nuns in the

country were over 60.

“Their model of caring for their older sisters is no longer sustainable,” said Robin Eggert, president of the Realm consulting group, which has worked with several nuns’ orders to find solutions.

Eggert said a number of women’s religious orders have partnered with outside organizations offering skilled nursing, assisted living and other levels of care, but “We’ve never done Jewish before.”

The Sisters of Charity of New York has seen its numbers decline from a 1960s peak of 1,350 to 270 today, and no new sisters had joined in the U.S. in 20 years. It was the first order to put out a request for proposals that was answered by the nonprofit Jewish Home Lifecare. Two other orders based in Manhattan, the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary and the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, followed.

Several of the nuns now living at Jewish Home, including retired teachers, social workers and nurses, said they were very happy after some original hesitation.

“We’ve almost all, 95 percent, accepted and acclimated.

Those who were resistant have kind of calmed down,” said 92-year-old Sister Rosemarie Bittermann.

“It certainly fit our needs,” said Sister Loretta Theresa Richards, 86. “We can stay together, we have our own little chapel. They went out of their way to find a space for us to have Mass. I have to say it was so nice I was a little reluctant, because I took a vow of poverty.”

Some things are different, however. While Jewish Home Lifecare is now nondenominational -- most residents are Christian -- its Jewish heritage remains apparent, with a resident rabbi and kosher-style meals in the independent living residences.

“I miss the bacon,” Richards said. Added Sister Maria Goretti Mannix, 83: “I notice that we never get ham or pork chops.

The food is good, though.”

The nuns’ care is funded through a combination of Medicaid, Medicare, the New York archdiocesan health plan, payments from the order itself and the individual sisters’ scant assets.

While the nuns were allowed to room near one another -most are on the same floor as several colleagues -- they were also encouraged to join the home’s open-to-all activities.

“I saw a sign for `Play Reading,’” said Sister Connie Brennan, 78. “The first week I just listened. The second week I had a part. I think I might be a murderer.”

Regina Melly, a senior vice president at Jewish Home Lifecare, said the sisters have greatly benefited the Bronx campus.

“This has succeeded more that we could have imagined,” she said. “From the beginning, they talked about continuing their ministry here, and they’ve touched the other residents and staff from the day they arrived. You’ll see, in the dining room, they don’t sit all together, they sit with the other residents. The people here love them.”

Nuns have been learning Spanish, teaching English and packing medical packages for overseas. Eggert said the sisters, “since they feel they are one big family,” have been especially attentive to residents who don’t get regular visits from relatives. As the oldest nun to make the move, the once-skeptical Rooney said she has, in a sense, been “converted” by the kind welcome the nuns received.

“Now I go to the Jewish services as well as the Mass.”

MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

21

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

YOUR 15 MINUTES

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

Fiddler on the Roof has proved to be one of the stage’s most beloved musicals, produced the world over including, above, at the Thwaites Empire Theatre in Blackburn, Lancashire, United Kingdom.

FIDDLER TURNS 50, STILL IN TUNE Sheldon Harnick revisits one of the stage’s most storied musicals

BY LEIDA SNOW

You’ll typically find Sheldon Harnick behind the scenes. But the lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof will step center stage later this month to discuss the creation and legacy of one of the stage’s most enduring musicals in the golden anniversary year of its original Broadway production.

Harnick, 91, who is also celebrating the 50th year of his marriage, penned the program’s script and will host five performances at the 92nd Street Y starting May 30.

Like tens of thousands of others, this journalist identified with the show’s

family and thought it was because of her Russian Jewish roots. But Fiddler won nine Tony Awards and played in two dozen countries within a decade of its Broadway debut. Its characters have endeared themselves to audiences the world over, including in Japan, where the musical has played to devoted audiences since 1967.

The show’s most precious lyrics, from “If I Were a Rich Man,” have been recorded in several languages, including French (“Ah, si j’étais riche”) and Finnish (“Rikas mies jobs oison”).

Harnick suggests that Fiddler has endured because its protagonist, Tevye, “is everyman.”

“Tevye suffers. He loves his children, but they are breaking away,” Harnick

said over lunch at an Upper West Side restaurant, where he and his wife, Margery, have lived for decades. “He has to change. There are few Jews in Japan but they understand the family elements, the universality of the stories.”

To mention the song titles is to summon up the lyrics — and composer Jerry Bock’s melodies: “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “To Life,” and “Sunrise, Sunset,” which remains a wedding staple and for which Harnick modified the words in 2011 to accommodate same-sex unions.

Harnick didn’t start out intending to be a lyricist. Brought up in Chicago, he considered becoming a rabbi because he loved the man who prepared him for his bar mitzvah. He studied violin but had to stop playing when he was drafted during World War II. But he picked it up again when he returned, practicing up to six hours a day. “I was a pretty good violinist,” he said, “but knew I’d never be first-rank. I would have been a happy second-rate fiddler in some middle-rung orchestra.”

An unexpected gift changed his life.

In 1947, he was given a record album of the then-new Broadway musical, Finian’s Rainbow. Mixing romance, leprechauns and political satire, E. Y. (Yip) Harburg’s lyrics meshed seamlessly with Burton Lane’s music.

“I was dazzled by what Yip was doing,” Harnick said, “saying important and controversial things so playfully that you have to listen with delight. I

knew then what I wanted to do.”

In his spacious living room, anchored by a piano, Harnick said a great lyric is more than leaving final vowels open and not having hard consonants bump up against each other. “You have to have something to say,” he explained. “When Tevye asks Golda if she loves him — in a world in which people didn’t marry for love. I wrote this conversation between them and was delighted that Jerry Bock found a way to make it musical, and yet it’s still a little scene. The third time I saw it in the show, I sobbed. I realized it was about my feelings about my parents. Oddly, the more personal one is, the more universal it may be.”

Harnick chooses his words carefully.

“I prefer lyrics that sound like conversation,” he said, “but using words that have some inherent poetic quality.”

At the Y, Harnick will also talk about lyrics that didn’t make it into the original show.

“Certain songs, even ones we all liked, had to go. Either they weren’t right for a scene or the range didn’t fit the singer.” One mazurka became the haunting “Sunrise Sunset.” Another song found new lyrics and became “Anatevka,” the poignant anthem of the Jews forced to leave their homes.

Harnick, whose Jewish background is Austro-Hungarian, spent long hours researching the Russian Jews that would become Fiddler’s mainstays.

“Most important were the Sholem Aleichem stories,” he said, “but also this wonderful book, Life Is With People.”

Another resource was Wonder of Wonders, by Alicia Solomon. “And once Jerry Robbins was involved as director and choreographer, he was totally obsessed” about bringing back the Eastern European world destroyed during World War II. Other Harnick partnerships with Bock include Fiorello!, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and She Loves Me. Fiddler has seen four Broadway revivals and a major film. It has given Harnick the freedom to choose his projects based on what he wants to do, like feeding his love for classical music by working on translations for the Bach Society.

Fiddler returns to Broadway this winter. A revival of She Loves Me is set for Spring 2016. Harnick is involved with every revival of his works, even going to open calls, when hopefuls not represented by agents can audition.

“Every once in a while,” he said, “you find a gem.”

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CLASSIFIEDS

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CAMPS/SCHOOLS Alexander Robertson School Independent School for Pre-K through Grade 5, 212-663-2844, 3 West 95th St. www.AlexanderRobertson.com Loyola School 646-346-8132 www.loyolanyc.org admissions@loyolanyc.org River Park Nursery School 212-663-1205, www.river parknurseryschool.com York Preparatory School 212-362-0400 ext 133 www.yorkprep.org admissions@yorkprep.org ENTERTAINMENT

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Telephone: 212-868-0190 Fax: 212-868-0198 Email: classified2@strausnews.com

POLICY NOTICE: We make every effort to avoid mistakes in your classified ads. Check your ad the first week it runs. The publication will only accept responsibility for the first incorrect insertion. The publication assumes no financial responsibility for errors or omissions. We reserve the right to edit, reject, or re-classify any ad. Contact your sales rep directly for any copy changes. All classified ads are pre-paid.

HEALTH SERVICES

HELP WANTED

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High Colonic By Rachel Relieve constipation & bloating 24 yrs exp. 212-317-0467

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Directory of Business & Services To advertise in this directory Call Susan (212)-868-0190 ext.417 Classified2@strausnews.com

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MAY 28-JUNE 3,2015

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PAGE 4

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