Our Town June 28, 2012

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ALSO INSIDE

FOCUS ON URGENT CARE: AN END TO ER WAITS? P.17

BEST BURGERS OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE P.5

YOLANDA SANCHEZ REMEMBERED P.9

Andrew Schwartz

KELLNER SUES TO STOP GARBAGE DUMP P.4 PETITION PUSH FOR NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL P.8

(SEE PAGE 18)

FIELDSTON SENIORS PARTY ON YACHT AFTER POT BUST P.9 NOW ACCEPTING MOST MAJOR INSURANCE PLANS

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Scott Seidman is back in the starting lineup. One of the top 10 orthopaedic programs in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report, NYU Langone Medical Center’s orthopaedic surgeons use innovative techniques, such as the anterior hip replacement, to help patients like Scott get back on their feet, faster. We even offer elective surgery on weekends for our patients’ convenience. To find an NYU Langone orthopaedic surgeon, call 888.769.8633 or visit www.NYULMC.org/findadoc.

Police responded to a report by a taxi driver on East 86th Street on Thursday evening who reported that he had been stiffed by a passenger who refused to pay the fare for his cab ride. The driver told police that the pair argued over where the perpetrator was meant to be dropped off, prompting the passenger to depart the cab without paying the approximately $6 charge.

The perpetrator then reportedly told the 48-year-old taxi driver: “I’m refusing to pay and I’m calling 311 to make a complaint!”

The victim described the passenger, who is accused of theft of services, as a white man with gray hair who wore jeans, a blue shirt and white sneakers.

ROad Rage

Rape cONVicTiON

A nasty case of road rage resulted in damage to a taxi cab and a few minor injuries to its driver in an incident that occurred Friday evening near the corner of East 63rd Street and Madison Avenue. After a dispute occurred

A 61-year-old man was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years post-release supervision for raping a young woman in January 2010. On June 7, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced the sentencing of

STick Up A 60-year-old man working at a fruit stand on the corner of 1st Avenue and East 76th Street fell victim to a band of four young robbers in the early hours on Wednesday morning. The apparent leader of the group of perpetrators brandished a dagger and told the victim to put his hands up, then reached into the man’s pants pocket and removed $50 in cash. The four thieves, all approximately aged between 18 and 20, then fled on foot. The victim sustained no injuries during the robbery. The primary armed perpetrator was described to police as a black male, about 18 years old, 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, dressed in jeans, a white tank top and a do-rag. Police conducted a canvass of the area but did not apprehend any of the perpetrators or recover the victim’s stolen money. between the driver and the perpetrator, the offending driver picked up a crowbar and smashed in the window of the victim’s taxi.

A second victim, a 43-year-old male passenger in the cab, suffered lacerations to his left arm from flying glass. The perpetrator also grabbed the passenger’s cell phone and threw it to the ground, damaging it.

Two eyewitnesses gave statements to the police regarding the incident. Police are looking for an unknown Hispanic male, approximately 45 years old, 6-foot-2 and about 250 pounds. He was wearing blue shorts and a white shirt, driving a yellow

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In a seemingly random and purposeless act of violence, a man was assaulted from behind early Wednesday morning while walking on the sidewalk along East 63rd Street, near the intersection at 3rd Avenue.

The victim told police that an unknown perpetrator, described as a black male approximately 5-foot-11, wearing a baseball cap, approached him from the back and struck him repeatedly with his hands. The 54-year-old victim suffered small lacerations to the back of the right side of his neck, left wrist and the left side of his back.

He walked to the hospital following the assault, where an examining nurse called the police on his behalf. The attacker has not been identified.

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Ford Crown Victoria four-door sedan with the license plate number 3L53B.

Mustapha Ouanes, who was convicted by a jury in February 2012 for sexually assaulting the victim in his room at the Plaza Hotel in Midtown. “The defendant sexually assaulted a young woman who was in a helpless and vulnerable state, and today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of that misconduct,” Vance said. “I thank the victim for her bravery in coming forward.” Ouanes was found guilty of one count each of rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, assault in the second degree and attempted sexual abuse, all of which are felony charges.

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

Tapped iN Compiled by Megan Bungeroth

KellNeR SUeS MayOR & CiTy OveR MTS

NeW eleMeNTaRy SChOOl fOR yORKville Next year, Upper East Side tykes will get a new elementary school at the Our Lady of Good Counsel building on East 91st Street. The Department of Education has signed a 15-year lease with the Roman Catholic archdiocese to lease the school for P.S. 527, which will open this fall with two kindergarten classes and will eventually hold students through the 5th grade.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Assembly Member Dan Quart joined by his young son Sam, a future student of P.S. 527, and

Andrew Schwartz

Opponents of the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station (MTS) have thrown up what could be their best-chance roadblock against the project. Assembly Member Micah Kellner announced that he has filed a lawsuit against Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council in the state Supreme Court on the basis that the original environmental analyses that the city conducted and approved only factored in an 1,800-ton daily capacity, whereas in reality the site could take in up to 4,200 tons of garbage a day.

“In 2006, when the mayor reauthorized the marine transfer station, he did so under a false pretense. They made it seem like they were flipping a switch and reopening a facility,” Kellner said. “When the City Council approved the Solid Waste Management Plan, they only did an environmental impact statement studying what 1,800 tons of trash would bring. They need to amend their plan and do a supplemental environmental impact statement.”

The lawsuit, which also names the Department of Sanitation and the State Department of Environmental Conservation, demands that the city stop all planning for the new MTS and draft a revised impact statement, which would then need

City Council approval. Kellner is the lead plaintiff in the suit; other plaintiffs are the Gracie Point Community Council, Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, Inc. and a handful of individual residents. State Sen. Liz Krueger, Assembly Member Dan Quart and Rep. Carolyn Maloney have all voiced their support of the lawsuit. “[The MTS] will permanently and negatively impact the Asphalt Green athletic fields, which are adjacent to the site and used every day by thousands of New Yorkers,” said Jed Garfield, president of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions. “It will be a terrible environmental and health hazard for all nearby residents, including over 2,200 low-income New Yorkers and seniors residing just a couple of hundred feet away in the Holmes and Stanly Isaacs development.”

OlyMpiC hOpefUlS Asphalt Green Unified Aquatics (AGUA) members (clockwise from top left ) En-Wei Hu-Van Wright, Lia Neal, Griffin Schumacher, Michael Domagala and Isla Hutchinson-Maddox will vy for a chance to join the U.S. Olympic Swim Team at this year’s trial qualifiers.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott visited the building last week to commend the opening of the new school that they say will help alleviate the overcrowding that plagues the neighborhood.

aRT GOOdieS ON Sale The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store is holding a summer clearance beginning June 28. Art fans can pick up eclectic jewelry, home décor items, toys for the sophisticated tot and art books with enough breadth to cover any coffee table on the East Side. Many items are on sale for 25 to 75 percent off the original price. It’s a great place to stock up on cool gifts for the people who have everything. Visit store. metmusuem.org or call 800-662-3397 for information.

Andrew Schwartz

pUbliC SChOOl aGReeMeNT

Assemblymember Dan Quart with his son, Sam, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Rep. Carolyn Maloney announce the signing of 15-year lease between the DOE and the Our Lady of Good Counsel parish ensuring the location of P.S. 523, a new public elementary school in Yorkville. Sam will be a student at the school.

4 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

CaTCh The fiReWORKS

While some may still be roiling over Macy’s giving the East Side and the outer boroughs the shaft by displaying their famous fireworks on the Hudson River this year, it’s still a display worth schlepping for.

If you’re planning on seeing the fireworks, a game plan is mandatory. Macy’s recommends that patriotic attendees head over to 12th Avenue below 59th Street at access points every few blocks along 11th Avenue.

Parking will be severely limited. There will be no access at the Hudson River piers or the Hudson River Park promenade or bike path between 59th and West Houston Street. DeWitt Clinton Park is reserved for people with disabilities.

Plan to arrive at any of the viewing spots by 5 p.m., and don’t try to bring lawn chairs or large objects with you. The 25-minute show of 40,000 synchronized fireworks begins around 9 p.m.

UeS MURdeReR iS SeNTeNCed Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced the sentencing of Alujah Cutts, 30, who was convicted of a cold-blooded robbery and murder that he committed on the Upper East Side in 2009.

Cutts broke into the home of 90-yearold Felix Brinkmann on July 30, hoping to make off with a hefty haul. He demanded that Brinkmann give up the combination to his safe, and when he refused, Cutts brutally attacked him, strangling and killing him. He then phoned a friend, who is also being charged, to come help take a safe out of the apartment.

The district attorney condemned the cruel attack and applauded the sentence of 25 years to life in state prison.

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feaTURe

Best Burgers on the Upper East Side Tracking down The besT burger and fries in The neighborhood

By Paul Bisceglio, Megan Bungeroth, Rebecca Harris, Regan Hofmann, Helen Matsumoto, Amy Smith and Amanda Woods

N

ew Yorkers have been searching for the best burger in the city since the dawn of time. But Our Town wanted to find out where Upper East Siders can get the best burger without having to leave the neighborhood.

We scouted out 10 popular burger joints, from the highbrow to the dive, and rated their signature sandwiches. Check out our reviews, then tell us what you think at nypress.com/best-burger-ues, The winner of our readers’ poll will be featured in our Best of Manhattan issue this fall. In the meantime, we encourage you to embark on a taste test.

Jones Wood Foundry

401 E. 76th St., 212-249-2700, joneswoodfoundry.com Burger: JWF Burger, DeBragga Dry Aged Blend; $18.50 Juiciness: 5 Flavor: 5 Inventiveness: 3 Bun: 3 Value: 3 Preparation: 5 Side: Fries, 2 Presentation: 5 If you get the burger at this crowded gem of a British pub, get it with Stilton (as opposed to Swiss) and get it with bacon. Both

Joy Burger.

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complement the dry-aged patty in a way that, while making the whole meal a touch salty, pushes the flavors into a sharp, savory combination that makes the burger excellent instead of just great. The accompanying fries (or more authentically, chips) aren’t crispy enough and don’t properly absorb the malt vinegar they are served with, but the housemade pickle and roasted plum tomatoes make up for that. The burger itself doesn’t need ketchup, lettuce or anything aside from those roasted tomatoes. Wash it all down with a Boddington’s ale and you’ll quickly forget that you’ve spent nearly $20 on a cheeseburger that’s actually well worth it.

Joy Burger Bar

1567 Lexington Ave., 212-289-6222, joyburgerbar.com Burger: Midi (5 oz.) burger with cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, sautéed onions, spicy mayo; $5.60 Juiciness: 3 Flavor: 4 Inventiveness/Creativity: 4 Bun quality: 3 Value: 5 Preparation: 5 Side: Fries (extra), 5 Presentation: 4 This burger bar kicks customization up a notch by letting you decide what size burger you want—3, 5 or 8 ounces—and charging accordingly. Cheese and some upscale toppings like avocado and olive tapenade cost extra, but the regulars are free and unlimited, as are sauces like garlic mayo and spicy mango chutney. The patty itself, which you can get cooked medium rare to order, unlike Joy Burger’s competitors in the mid-priced upscale burger joint category, is decent, if unremarkable. Their slogan, “The sauces make the difference,” is definitely true. Plus, a midi

Genesis Bar & Restaurant.

burger with cheese, a side of almost perfect crunchy-on-the-outside shoestring fries and a beer will only set you back $13, and the restaurant’s cozy diner feel makes it a great spot for kids or a kitschy but fun cheap date.

Shake Shack

154 E. 86th St., 646-237-5035, shakeshack.com Burger: ShackBurger (Single); $4.55 Juiciness: 5 Flavor: 5 Inventiveness: 3 Bun: 3 Value: 5 Preparation: 4 Side: Crinkle-cut fries, 4 Presentation: 2 This oh-so-popular fast food chain does not pretend to be anything more than what

Shake Shack.

it is: a cheap, guilty-pleasure burger joint with greasy, delicious classics. Don’t be put off by the long lines, because this place is quick. For $5 at Shake Shack, you can get a cheeseburger with a juicy, flavorful patty and the standard fixings, dripping with the restaurant’s mysterious, sinfully scrumptious Shack Sauce (you can forgo additional condiments). The burgers are rather small, but if you add a side of their too-salty-ina-good-way crinkle-cut fries and a creamy, hand-spun milkshake—which you absolutely should—you’ll be full to the gills by the end of the meal. This is not the place to go if you’re looking for the highest quality beef or an exciting blend of toppings, but if a quick, cheap, tasty burger, fries and shake is what you’re after, Shake Shack’s oldschool simplicity will be right up your alley.

Genesis Bar & Restaurant

1708 2nd Ave., 212-348-5500, genesisbar.com Burger: Gaelic Burger (cheddar cheese, Irish bacon, sautéed onions, lettuce, tomato and ketchup on a toasted sesame seed bun); $12 Juiciness: 3 Flavor: 3 Inventiveness: 5 Bun: 5 Value: 4 Preparation: 4 Side: Fries, 5 Presentation: 4 If you’re looking to enjoy a good burger

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feaTURe with a creative twist, you may want to consider the variety of options on the menu of this classic pub. Monday nights are burger night, with eight special burgers added to the menu! The patty itself did not have a lot of flavor, which was disappointing, but the combination of toppings—try it with sautéed onions—a perfectly toasted bun and a delicious side of crispy bar fries tied the meal together to make this cheeseburger well worth its reasonable price.

Chase it down with a Sierra Nevada pale ale or another of the pub’s many beer options, and Genesis is a great place to enjoy a quality, affordable burger. Plus, one of the pub’s main attraction is its atmosphere (and good music selection); you can watch the big game inside at the bar or dine outdoors with friends on a warm summer’s eve.

Ottomanelli New York Grill

1424 Lexington Ave., 212-426-6886, nycotto.com Burger: VIP Burger (mushrooms, grilled onions and provolone); $9.75 Juiciness: 3 Flavor: 3 Inventiveness: 4 Bun quality: 3 Value: 3 Preparation: 4 Side: Waffle fries, 5 Presentation: 4 At Ottomanelli New York Grill, the rustic Italian atmosphere and the menu’s vast selection of steak burgers unite the best of two worlds. The VIP Burger is a tasty option; the burger’s toppings—mushrooms, grilled onions and provolone—offer a satisfying mix of textures and flavors. The provolone coats the top of the patty, and every mouthful will satisfy a cheese lover’s craving. The mushrooms and onions are hidden below the cheese, not on top, an unexpected but welcome treat. The meat itself, although fresh, was less juicy than expected, and the bun was thin and didn’t contribute much flavor. A bit of ketchup plus a few of the pickles provided on the side gave the burger the kick it needed. The waffle fries on the side, though, were delicious and crunchy— a perfect complement for the burger.

Café D’Alsace

1695 2nd Ave., 212-722-5133, cafedalsace.com Burger: Burger d’Alsace (10 oz. sirloin with sautéed onions and cheese); $17 Juiciness: 3 Inventiveness: 4 Bun Quality: 5 Value: 3 Preparation: 5 Side: Fries or salad, 5 Presentation: 4 The description of the Café D’Alsace burger sounds delicious on the menu—caramelized onion and melted Gruyère cheese with a garlic aioli. But for a whopping $17,

6 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

the burger itself was somewhat average— good, but definitely not worth the price. The flavors of the burger were quite tasty, but the meat was a bit dry and not of great quality.

It came on a nice heated plate with warm, crispy fries, and the mesclun salad with vinaigrette is an excellent lighter alternative.

But the restaurant’s extensive artisanal beer selection and other great Alsatian dishes are more worth checking out than the burger.

Bareburger

1370 1st Ave., 212-510-8559, bareburger.com Burger: California Burger (sharp cheddar, hass avocado, romaine lettuce, tomato, raw red onion and cilantro lime dressing); $11.95 Juiciness: 5 Flavor: 5 Inventiveness: 5 Bun: 5 Value: 3 Preparation: 5 Side: N/A Presentation: 3 Bareburger is a must-try spot. The burger is juicy and fresh, and every bite is bursting with flavor. The cilantro lime dressing is the highlight of the burger—it added some zest

Bareburger.

to the meat and vegetables and blended well with the avocado. The multigrain roll has a distinctive oaty taste as well. This burger isn’t the only unique concoction at Bareburger—the Maui Wowie is topped with smoked mozzarella, pineapple, Canadian bacon, fried onions, roasted red peppers and ranch dressing and the Western Burger is served with pepper jack cheese, blackened maple bacon, fried onions, housemade coleslaw and peppercorn steak sauce.

All of the burgers are made with grass-fed meats, natural cheeses and organic vegetables. The only drawback to Bareburger is the price: our California Burger cost $11.95, and that’s without fries. But if you have the money, this is the place to go for a burger that few can replicate.

Jackson Hole

232 E. 64th St., 212-371-7187, jacksonholeburgers.com Burger: Cheeseburger platter; $10.90

Ottomanelli New York Grill.

Juiciness: 4 Flavor: 4 Inventiveness: 3 Bun: 3 Value: 3 Preparation: 4 Side: Fries, 3 Presentation: 3 Jackson Hole serves a good burger—not a change-your-life burger that would convert you to devout meatatarianism, but a simple, delicious one. With hearty but forgettable fries, a dry bun and a token clump of lettuce alongside a single thin slice of tomato (negative points for that one), the burger was all about the quality patty, which was tender, juicy and large enough for me to feel like,

by Manhattan standards, I got what I paid for. The restaurant itself was cramped, but the servers were friendly and the place gets extra points for having an open kitchen— watching your burger be hand-scooped and steam-grilled under a stainless steel cup definitely makes it all the more savory.

J.G. Melon

1291 3rd Ave., 212-744-0585 Burger: Cheeseburger; $10.25 Juiciness: 5 Flavor: 2 Inventiveness: 1 Bun: 4 Value: 2 Preparation: 5 Side: Cottage fries (extra), 3 Presentation: 1 The people who claim dirty-water dogs with those angry red onions are the best kind of hot dogs or oversized, floppy cheese slices are the best pizza are the ones who list J.G. Melon’s as one of the best burgers in the city. The bar, which was designed in the early ’70s to look like a ’30s saloon, is perennially packed, bar and tables crowded with people ordering burgers (add bacon, cheese or both, for a surprisingly reason-

able additional charge) and cottage fries on the side for an extra charge. The burger is slapped together with the carelessness of experience—it’s cooked perfectly and the American cheese slice is melted evenly, but it would be nice not to have to place it squarely on the bun oneself—and presented with scattered rounds of red onion and wrinkled pickle slices. It’s juicy, alright, but that fat is covering for a lack of meaty flavor.

After a few (reasonably priced) beers it’d be welcome at just about any table—but then, so would a dirty-water dog.

The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges

25 E. 77th St., 212-606-3030, themarkhotel.com/restaurant-bar Burger: THE MARK Cheeseburger (brie, black truffle dressing); $27 Juiciness: 5 Flavor: 5 Inventiveness: 4 Bun: 3 Value: 4 Preparation: 5 Side: Fries: 3 Presentation: 5 There’s nothing quite as saliva-inducing as sitting down for a meal at The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges. The celebrity chef extraordinaire has prepared a menu of home-cooked favorites with a gourmet twist. The sumptuous Mark Cheeseburger is every bit as juicy and succulent as one would expect, while the truffle oil drizzled on the surprisingly un-soggy bun gives the perfect tastebud kick, especially when paired with the smokey, melt-in-yourmouth taste of the grade-A beef patty.

Topped with brie and a little dollop of ketchup (sorry, Jean-Georges), this burger is worth every penny.

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite at nypress.com/best-burger-ues!

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feaTURe

Not So Black-and-White How MicHael ian Black Managed to Blur party lines

By Angela Barbuti

I

n the lobby of WYNC’s offices on Varick Street, Michael Ian Black is chatting with Meghan McCain. It seems as though they are old friends catching up between sips of iced coffee. They’re not.

Actually, they only met in person less than a year ago, but in this short time they have toured the nation together and learned valuable lessons from one another, though they are of very different political thinking.

Black, a Democrat, and McCain, a Republican, prove that friendship and admiration can cross party lines.

Clutching the book they have penned together, America, You Sexy Bitch, I go over to greet them after their interview with Brian Lehrer. Black and I walk to the nearest Starbucks, where we speak about his book, Washington Square Park, and the first trip he took across the United States—dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

In the beginning of your book, you said that Ambien and Twitter were instrumental in getting McCain to sign on to this project. Is that really true?

Yes, I was on Twitter. I had taken Ambien. And the next morning, I woke up and went, “Did I just propose writing a book to Meghan McCain? I think so and I think she said yes. I think that’s what happened last night.” I had only met her once before, via satellite. I had been a fan of hers for years.

I liked the way she spoke about the Republican party, and that that she wasn’t afraid to go against party orthodoxy. She seemed like someone who spoke her mind, which I respond to.

Did she meet your expectations?

She exceeded them in a lot of ways. She’s a lot braver than I would have given her credit for. In politics, it’s very hard to forge your own path, because the way the political system works, you’re either in one camp or the other. Meghan is a Republican, but the Republican establishment that exists rejects her because she does not toe the party line. As a result, she doesn’t have a home politically. It’s a shame, because for that party to succeed, it needs to have more Meghan McCains.

In the book, you explain your worry that your two children will not get to experience the American Dream as you did.

What do you mean by that?

Every parent worries about the opportunities their children are going to have. My fear for them is that they won’t even see the opportunities that my generation and all

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previous generations saw. The American Dream is a promise that one generation gives to the other and right now, it’s hard to give my kids that promise. It’s a scary time.

That being said, my children are in a much better position than 80-90 percent of other kids in this country because I make a good living. They have a lot of advantages that others don’t, and yet I’m still frightened for my socioeconomically blessed children. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for people living from paycheck to paycheck.

You studied acting at NYU. What is your favorite place in the city?

I will always have a very soft spot in my heart for Washington Square Park. It’s where I came when I was a kid on my first trip to New York. We saw street performers there.

NYU is there; I spent innumerable mornings walking across that park and really feeling like a part of the city for the first time.

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How have your political views changed since touring the country with America, You Sexy Bitch?

My own political philosophy hasn’t changed—in a lot of ways, it was reinforced. I think my mind is a little more open than it was before about the conservative philosophy and lifestyle. I’m a liberal—will probably always be a liberal—but I feel like I at least caught a glimpse of what American conservatism is supposed to be about. And that there’s a lot to admire about it.

Are you going to work on this year’s presidential campaign? They’re going to want you to now, since you wrote this political book.

Oh no, I’m not going to do anything for the campaign. I’m not posting yard signs anywhere. I’m not stuffing envelopes.

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NeWs

Petition Push for New Middle School

By Megan Bungeroth

P

arents and politicians are clashing with the Department of Education (DOE) in a war of numbers and need on the Upper East Side. While residents insist that they must have another middle school and soon in the neighborhood, the DOE is holding parents at bay, pointing to data they say indicates that elementary school seats are in far higher demand.

The flashpoint of the debate currently rests in the hallways of the Bayard Taylor School, P.S. 158, on York Avenue between East 77th and 78th streets. That building’s annex most recently held the first classes of the newly opened East Side Elementary, P.S. 267, which will be moving to its permanent home on East 63rd Street this fall. The annex was also home to East Side Middle School several years ago, a fact that parents cite as evidence that another new middle school could easily coexist in the building again.

Assembly Member Micah Kellner has been pounding the pavement outside elementary schools for weeks, gathering signatures—at last count almost 2,000—for his petition to urge the DOE to open a new middle school as soon as possible.

“This chancellor has said middle schools

are the key to people’s success, and my [district’s] parents want better middle school options—they want more middle school options,” said Kellner.

He has accused the DOE of playing games with the data and driving families out of the neighborhood when they feel their children’s middle school options are limited. He said he has heard from parents who, when their child isn’t placed in one of the coveted middle schools in the neighborhood, feel that their only choice is private school or moving to the suburbs.

“I’m not advocating for one middle school option over another—that’s for the DOE and the parents to decide,” Kellner said. “The more the DOE drags their feet, the more they’re harming our kids.”

The discrepancy between what parents and the Community Education Council want and what the DOE is willing to provide lies partly in the geography of the school district. District 2 encompasses the Upper East Side as well as all of Midtown and Downtown. In theory, a student could live in the East 90s and attend a middle school in the Financial District, but most parents would prefer their young kids take a short walk or bus ride to a nearby school, rather than commute by subway for half an hour

each way. What this means for DOE data is that while the numbers show an overall excess of 1,500 middle school seats in the district, those empty seats aren’t broken down by neighborhood, and parents say open seats in other neighborhoods aren’t what they have in mind.

“The DOE says there are plenty of seats for middle school, but that’s if you want to send your kids to Chinatown or the lower West Side. That’s ridiculous if you want a neighborhood school,” said Todd Helmrich, the parent of a daughter entering 1st grade and a son starting kindergarten at P.S. 158 this fall. He said he’s been alarmed by the travails of stressed-out parents of older students trying to get their kids into middle school, which is why he’s stepping in now.

Helmich said the two main options in the neighborhood aren’t viable for everyone—East Side Middle is very difficult to get into and Robert Wagner is quite large for a middle school, which makes some parents look for options elsewhere.

“The thought of having to put a 6th

grader on a subway during rush hour to go all the way downtown is terrible to me,” Helmrich said.

At a recent press conference to hail the opening of a new elementary school in the Our Lady of Good Counsel building on East 91st Street, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the DOE will heed their data but will also listen to parents.

“We have to be sensitive to what the data actually says. At the same time, we’re going to be conscious of hearing what the parents have to say, and they’re going to have to be able to justify where they think that need is and why,” Walcott said. He called the process an “ongoing discussion” and said that the DOE has been trying to determine targeted needs for each district and neighborhood.

Kellner insisted that the data the DOE cites is disingenuous.

“They really make up the numbers to meet whatever decisions they’ve already made,” he said. “Elementary school kids turn into middle school kids. It’s literally biology. Unless Dennis Walcott is spending all that money on consultants developing a freeze ray, we’re going to need a new middle school.”

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Punished for Pot, Fieldston Seniors Get to Party on Yacht

By Rebecca Harris

W

hen a group of New York prep school students were banned from attending their senior prom last month after getting high on a class trip, their parents were angry—some at the school administration more than at their kids, students say. Quick to lay down the law, one or several of those parents reportedly rented a yacht and, in an interesting display of discipline, threw the banished seniors an alternative, private prom party.

About 15 seniors at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School admitted to consuming brownies containing marijuana on an overnight class trip April 29-30 to Camp Mason, a YMCA summer camp in New Jersey, according to two classmates who just completed their senior year at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

The accused students were prohibited by administrators from attending May 19 color war festivities as well as the Fieldston senior

prom at Studio 450 on May 29.

Two sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, and several other Fieldston students confirmed that the “anti-prom” was held the same night as the official school party.

“We had this field trip and some kids brought pot brownies to it. They couldn’t prove it, I guess, but everyone knew,” said a female student who graduated with the rest of her class—or “form,” as it is called at Fieldston—June 6.

On the same night as the scheduled prom, the banned seniors, their dates and some friends attended a party on a yacht.

“One of the parents ordered a yacht for them,” said a male student who just graduated. “I don’t think any of them said no—it’s a pretty cool alternative.”

One girl’s parents were angry with her for getting in trouble with the school, but most of her classmates’ parents “didn’t seem to care that much,” according to a source.

Pictures and posts on Facebook and Twitter documented a night of revelry—or “yachtingtons” as dubbed by one photo al-

bum title—for the banned seniors, courtesy of their parents. Comments branded the event “Fieldston anti-prom 2012.”

In one photo posted on Facebook, a group of girls who had been involved in the drug incident posed together. It was captioned ‘j sisters’—“like joint sisters,” the female student said. She added that the picture has since been taken down.

The Fieldston administration has made a concerted effort to prevent students from discussing the incident and school officials denied repeated requests for comment.

Fieldston Upper, whose campus is located in the Riverdale area of the Bronx, includes students in ninth through 12th grade and is a member institution of the Ivy Preparatory School League, often considered the Ivy League of New York City private high schools. Fieldston is included in the League alongside schools such as Horace Mann, Trinity and Dalton.

In 2011, Business Insider reported Fieldston as America’s 11th most expensive private high school. Tuition and fees for the 2011-12 aca-

East Harlem Loses Beloved Community Leader

By Megan Bungeroth

L

ast week, residents of East Harlem gathered at a memorial to honor Yolanda Sanchez, who passed away on June 11. Hundreds of people turned out to mourn the passing of a dedicated community activist who worked her entire life to promote local political involvement and activism.

Over a 50-year career in public service, Sanchez helped found the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs and became its executive director. She also helped create the Taino Towers housing, the Boriken Health Center and Casabe Houses for the elderly.

Friends of Sanchez, 80, remembered her as a tireless advocate not only for the Puerto Rican and Latino communities but for all of East Harlem.

“I met Yolanda back in 1967, when I began the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs. We were friends ever since,” said Arnie Segara. “She was the Rosa Parks of East Harlem. There hasn’t been an issue that has dealt with the Puerto Rican/Latino community in the last half-century that she did not have some kind of an input in.”

NYPre ss.com

ship up there in East Harlem, Jaime Estades, who worked but she encouraged all these with Sanchez as a board memprogram for the residents’ ber of the Latino Leadership older teenage grandchildren Institute, remembers that she to participate with them. She worked to encourage granthad the foresight to see that making institutions to give and it really did work,” said more grants to Latino nonYolanda Sanchez.

Moloney. profit organizations. When She said she and Sanchez were working she was working to open the Taino Towers, on researching how the Irish and Puerto she negotiated with Republicans—includRican communities were historically coning Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, nected, and that they became great friends the Secretary of Housing and Urban Develin a short time. opment at the time, and Sen. Jacob Javits “She was a terrific lady, an example not —during the Nixon administration, using just to the Latino community, but certainly her voice to bring opposing sides together to all women, an example to all immigrants and eventually achieve her goals. and all New Yorkers,” Moloney said. “She “She was an East Harlem community hero—and nationwide—due to her leader- had a huge appetite for improving the quality of life for those that needed it.” ship,” Estades said.

Local State Sen. José Serrano passed a resShe also worked across cultural boundolution honoring Sanchez after her death. aries. Irish-born theater director Aedin “Yolanda was a true pioneer in the Moloney said she struck up an immediate Puerto Rican community, and served as friendship with Sanchez when they were not only an example but as an inspiraworking on a play about the elderly. Motion to everyone with whom she came in loney’s company, Fallen Angels, donates contact,” Serrano said in a statement. “Her portions of its box office proceeds to relatcommitment to service is what led many of ed organizations, and she was impressed our current generation of Latino leaders to

by Sanchez’s work with the elderly. get involved in social and public service.”

“Not only did she run an amazing tight

demic year totaled $37,825 per student.

Fieldston also has two lower schools for prekindergarten to fifth grade: Ethical Culture, on the Upper West Side, and Fieldston Lower, on the Riverdale campus along with Fieldston Upper. Sixth through eighth grades attend Fieldstone Middle, also located on the Riverside campus. The three schools serve about 1,600 students in total, many of whom hail from the Upper East and Upper West sides.

According to both students, Fieldston administrators threatened harsher disciplinary consequences in order to elicit confessions from the students accused of getting high on the Camp Mason overnight. They said the school claimed to have a list of “the kids we know who did it,” and the accused teens were told that if they confessed, they could avoid further disciplinary action—including potentially notifying the universities they will attend in the fall.

“The administration said, ‘If you come and confess, you won’t be allowed to go to prom…but if you don’t confess and we know you did it, we’ll contact your schools and you may not be able to walk at graduation. And you still won’t go to prom,’” the female student said.

The other student criticized Fieldston officials for using “scare tactics” to compensate for what he desribed as a lack of evidence that the students were under the influence of marijuana.

“They all confessed,” he said, “but parents were angry at how [the school] gathered evidence. A lot of people thought they handled it badly.”

The female student disagreed with the criticism of how Fieldston officials handled the incident.

“I think the school was more or less fair about it,” she said. “[They said,] ‘We’re not gonna ruin your future, but there will be consequences if you go against our rules.’”

The students’ accounts are confirmed by an email sent to parents of the class of 2012

by Fieldston Upper Principal John Love on May 11, after most, but not all, of the students involved had confessed. The email does not go into detail about the accusation—students eating marijuana brownies on a school trip—referring to the situation only as “a recent incident.”

“We feel it is absolutely essential to our mission and to the environment we want to create for our students that we take violations of this rule very seriously,” read the email.

“We asked that the students involved come forward and take responsibility for their involvement, telling them that if they did so they would lose the privilege of participating in the color war on Friday, May 18 and of attending the prom at Studio 450 on May 29. We also said that if a student was involved and chose not to come forward, his or her case might be brought to the Discipline Committee, with potentially severe consequences.”

No students other than those who came forward voluntarily were ultimately subjected to disciplinary action at Fieldston.

J une 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 9

Movie Bulletin Téchiné’s unforgeTTably greaT ‘unforgivable’

By Armond White

Edited by Armond White

for tickets in the living room at the Arts Reach conference at New York University last March. Put bluntly: Can you reach the graying and balding with tweeting and social networking?

Exceptions notwithstanding, there’s no mistaking certain demographic trends.

Big-ticket performing arts companies—the symphony orchestras, the chamber music societies, the Broadway belt that needs tourists to shell out $86.28 for the worst seats in the mezzanine—count on a privileged sector of the baby-boom generation and older.

Trends indicate that those might be the last generations who take a daily newspaper. Newspapers’ Internet-edition paywalls are, for most publications that have tried them, useless for converting paid subscrib-

Continued on next page

Continued on next page

New York’s Review of Culture • CityArtsNYC.com

Art Adverts Start a New Wave adverTising sTraTegies gearing up for nexT season Take arT ouT The wilderness.

CityArts surveys The new media TacTicians who bring broadway shows, museums and oTher arT venues To popular aTTenTion. arT and iTs paTrons all benefiT from millennial arT adverTising’s new TacTical sTraTegies.

Part 1 of a two-Part series.

By Gregory Solman

N

ew Yorkers with long memories can’t shake the specter of the TV commercials for the original runs of A Chorus Line and Evita—the same commercial execution, using identical snippets of song for maximum numbing effect, running for what felt like years. The Evita spot became so famously infuriating a fixture it occasioned one of SCTV’s most inspired commercial parodies: Andrea Martin starring in a road show of Indira and—ingeniously intermixing infomercial annoyance—Joe Flaherty as a bandoliered, yodeling Slim Whitman.

Marketing the performing and museum arts today seems like science fiction in comparison. You might be up late watching a WNET symphonic performance when an on-screen icon prompts you to hold up your Shazam-enabled smart phone. The app will sample the sound from the TV, identify the performance and give you the option of downloading the MP3 or ask you a question to win a coupon for a matinee in your neighborhood, having already correlated the cable or satellite box with your ZIP code

1 0 • O UR TOWN • J une 2 8 , 2 012

Raven-Symoné in Sister Act gets a new ad campaign.

and assiduously segmented demographic information on your probable age, gender, income, past buying habits and even whether you prefer cats or dogs. Why? Well, maybe dog lovers like Wagner and cat lovers Stravinsky. Who knows? They’ve got their reasons.

Most importantly, the phone will be connected to the sponsoring organization’s seating chart, allowing you to pick a seat for a performance, charge your preloaded credit card and download an electronic ticket you can present at the concert hall by flashing your smart phone at a scanner.

If that interactive/invasive process seems more like something for you than your remote-control-challenged mother, you’re not far off. In fact, the growing generational divide between patrons of the arts and their media consumption habits was the blue-haired elephant queued up

C

herubina, the nickname given to Judith (Carole Bouquet) in Unforgivable, comes from the love trickster in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. Judith, a former model with a bisexual past, now sells real estate, brokering a villa in Venice to the macho novelist Francis (André Dussollier), and they become lovers. Their emotional tension and physical passion prove the complexity of human character, evoking the aria “Non so piu cosa son” (“I don’t know anymore what I am”).

This mystery, echoed in the tumultuous relations of Judith and Francis’ friends and children, is André Téchiné’s specialty. The turbulent, elegant, multilayered Unforgivable ranks with his greatest films. Few other movies define family relations with such interconnected depth and spiritual exuberance.

Casual moviegoers may be perplexed at Téchiné’s speed (especially if they don’t pick up on the rhythm of his intricate character interactions) as he collapses time and affinities and misunderstandings, all in life’s onward rush. Téchiné knows the mistakes that people make define their lives, and Unforgivable (starting with Judith and Francis’ meet-ugly) zeroes in on the errors that take a lifetime to understand and, possibly, rectify.

Julien Hirsch’s video imagery focuses on people in motion—literally, through the streets of Venice or cruising its waters—to visualize their emotional states. “I need to be unsettled” says Alice (Melanie Thierry), Francis’ beautiful, insecure actress daughter. Her immature confusion parallels what in Judith is now tough but unique, nervy, tense—Téchiné’s usual Deneuve archetype seen freshly. “I no longer desire or inspire.” Judith laments.

The extraordinary balance of these unsettled lives (lovers, parents, children) refreshes a French movie tradition. Unforgivable suggests an invigorated version of Renoir’s Rules of the Game, which was also based on Beaumarchais (the original author of The Marriage of Figaro) but filtered through—delivered from—contemporary cynicism. Among its Venice spectacle is a quizzical shot of the Rendentore church that, after Téchiné’s marvelous AIDS drama The Witnesses, testifies to life’s fertile potential after the plague.

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ClassiCal CiTYaRTs

Wieldy Ax a wonderful mozarT piano concerTo aT The philharmonic

By Jay Nordlinger

i

once heard Emanuel Ax, the pianist, give a great performance. Google has recalled the specifics: It was in August 2005 at the Mostly Mozart Festival. Ax played Mozart’s Concerto No. 22 in E flat, K. 482. I have now heard Ax give another great performance. It was of the same concerto.

This second performance was on a Wednesday night in the same hall: Avery Fisher. The conductor and orchestra were different, however. They were Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. Ax’s phrasing was exemplary. He breathed along with the composer. He was both smooth and articulate. He was sensitive without being mousy. What rubato he used was intelligent. He fudged a trill or two, particularly at their resolution, but this was of little importance.

Crucially, he was not afraid to play simply. “‘Tis the gift to be simple.” And you may

Continued from previous page ers and generating revenue. Yet, printing is prohibitively expensive and readership is sliding in favor of eyeballs online, where banner ads aren’t making enough money, despite the audience.

Facebook boasts hundreds of millions of users, obsessively checking in several times a day—that’s reach and frequency. But the company’s IPO revealed that although half of Facebookies use mobile devices to access the site, they are devices for which there is no Facebook advertising model… yet.

More than 44 percent of Americans have smart phones, but they skew young. The elderly have gone from the poorest group in America to the wealthiest, with the disposable (literally, some critics would argue) income to pay $262 to watch a play. But arts companies need to refresh their audience with Gens X and Y and millennials to survive as something more than museums of tourism.

“While the traditional media audience has moved on, the rates have increased,” objects Doug Mobray, president of Mogo Arts Marketing in Corte Madera, Calif., pointing to a counterintuitive direction of newspaper ad rates and readers. “The cost per impression has increased substantially.”

The decline of print readership, exaggerated by the generational split between baby boomers and older and nearly newspaperNYPre ss .com

remember a Rubinstein quip: “Mozart is too easy for children and too hard for adults.”

For the second movement, Andante, Ax chose a perfect tempo.

Tempos in these “slow” movements of Mozart’s are hard to get right. He sang this movement with an inevitable and natural feeling. The Rondo was jaunty and stylish. It was humorous in spots without being hammy. The cadenza that Ax has composed for this movement is fitting and clever; I thought I heard horn calls.

Above all, Ax played the Rondo, and all of the concerto, Emanuel Ax. with pleasure. It is a privilege to play Mozart. I believe Ax knows punching feeling. But, on the whole, the this. As the audience applauded, the man orchestra was alert, correct and compact. behind me said to his wife—loudly and The beginning of the Andante was positively twice—“Good ol’ Manny Ax.” He was more beautiful. than “good ol’ Manny Ax” on this occasion: The main work on this program was He was a great Mozartean. one of the main works of Mozart’s life, Gilbert and the orchestra did their roles and of music at large: the “Great” Mass in ably. There was a botched entrance in the horns near the opening, which was unfortu- C minor. The orchestra was again alert, correct and compact (and so were the New nate. Some of the exposition had a clock-

free youth, is the “first and most obvious change,” says Tom Greenwald, executive creative director at SpotCo, one of New York’s specialized arts marketing agencies.

“It used to be a foregone conclusion that the lion’s share of a media budget would go to The New York Times,” he says. “Now you might advertise there just to please the stars and agents, but the campaign is going to be mostly online banner ads and social networking.”

Greenwald says a lot of live entertainment still targets the 55-year-old woman; though she might not be constantly on Facebook, she’s probably online somewhere, and sites such as broadway.com can gear their initiatives toward that demographic. She may not be tweeting or playing Facebook games, but she will find some online point of purchase.

Greenwald says more than half of Broadway ticket sales happen in online transactions rather than phone sales. “It’s gotten to the point where they don’t even put phone numbers in the ads,” he points out.

Now Greenwald oversees Facebook campaigns that celebrate the 20,000 fans of Chicago with ticket giveaways. Samuel L. Jackson tweets to Twitter followers about The Mountaintop. A “nun” from Sister Act performs a video blog. Most shows, Greenwald says, use a combination of “social networking presence and refreshing websites.

The great thing about the Internet is that it is an extension of the show. In the tradition of those Evita TV ads, you can run video

content with sound.”

He “roadblocks” (commands all of the display ad space) select sites. Banner ads can be programmed with Flash and HTML to sport animation and sound. Live clips can be constructed from B-roll of the shows themselves, but they can be cinematic and even conceptual. Advertising on TV is now supplemented by so-called earned media—working the morning news shows least likely to be DVRed. “It’s expensive to buy TV,” Greenwald says, “but everyone works it.”

Soliciting the South Park generation for The Book of Mormon means a website with a working doorbell and online campaigns imploring fans to “Like us on Facebook” and “Follow us on Twitter.”

It’s not as if Spotco abjures traditional outdoor advertising or print, but “spending $110,000 on The New York Times won’t pay off,” Greenwald declares.

Clint White, president of New York’s WiT Media and lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, acknowledges the arts audience is “growing older, absolutely. But the good news is that those patrons are converted and believe in chamber music—or theatre or causes or art—and all have made it clear that they’re interested. All we have to do is tell them what’s going on and they’ll sign up.

It’s the other [younger] audience that has to be introduced.”

Next week: Broadway comes alive through new media.

York Choral Artists). Gilbert was never less than competent. He was completely assured and thoroughly prepared. In my judgment, however, this performance was barren of spirituality. It was also, I’m afraid, a bore.

But I must say it was nice to hear the Mass performed with some richness, beauty and blood. In recent years, I have heard nothing but “period” performances, particularly at the Salzburg Festival.

They are thin gruel, with some straw sticking out. They also feature mindlessly fast tempos. At the Philharmonic, it was a relief to hear “Laudamus te” at a sane, musical pace.

The evening’s soprano was Jennifer Zetlan, who was starry when she was a student at Juilliard. In the Mass, she began a little uncertainly and had no low notes. But she soon gained her stride and was wonderful. The other singers were adequate, with the tenor, Paul Appleby, sounding like a Polenzani in the making. The bass in Mozart’s Mass has even less work to do than the mezzo-soprano in Beethoven’s Ninth.

A famous mezzo once told me she had a piece of advice for other mezzos engaged for the Ninth: “Wear a pretty dress.”

Continued from previous page

Carole Bouquet as Judith.

Unforgivable embarrasses the childish solipsism that currently passes for adult storytelling in recent American movies. It takes cues from life and Téchiné’s cinephile past, using Adriana Asti as Judith’s former lover to make a subtextual homage to Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution, because Téchiné insists our artistic and moral heritage still matters. Téchiné also evokes Last Tango in Paris in the film’s blood-rich sensuality, which includes a shocking act of vengeance so politically astute that our film culture would benefit by discussing it for the rest of the decade.

June 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 1 1

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people bought to hang in their homes. Most are “door guardians” from the late 19th century, round-cheeked generals and kitchen gods with open, cartoonish faces. There are a few moving, expressionistic woodcuts from the revolutionary period, too.

And the show does include some exciting works from the 1980s and beyond, notably Chen Haiyan’s “Dream,” an evocative swirl of animals on a black cloud, and Wu Jide’s “Fleeting Years.”

But these pieces beg the question: why

he Metropolitan Museum sees itself as a teaching museum, which may be why its curators are trying to cram the entire history of Chinese printmaking into one exhibit: The Printed Image in China: 8th-21st Centuries. Ninth-century Buddhas, 16th-century peonies and 20th-century peasants are all lined up in the back rooms of The Met’s Asian wing for your edification. The trouble is that printing is a repetitive medium; a show of this many prints can be a hard slog, even with some beautiful pieces to liven it up.

The Chinese invented woodblock printing. And in China, printing very quickly took on religious implications—Buddhism teaches that reproducing sacred texts is a way to receive blessings, so printing became a way to receive blessings while spreading the state religion.

The exhibit starts with a room of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-century prints of the Buddha with short texts. There are a few standouts, like the luxuriously painted “Banner with Bodhisattva.” But after a while, most of the prints start to take on the sameness of dollar bills—they’re spiritual currency.

The show moves on to the Ming period (1368-1644), where prints of leaves and flowers are executed with military precision. The period saw a big growth in literacy and wealth; at the same time, color printing took off. The exhibit Door Guardian, 19th century China. includes many examples from the Ten Bamboo Shoots Collection of Calligraphy and Painting, a manual isn’t The Met giving these artists an exhibit for artists full of lichen-covered stones and of their own? We would never see contemvines. porary French or Italian artists wedged into Color printing flourished into the Qing a show of this historic scope. Contemporary dynasty (1644-1912), whose Manchu rulers Chinese artists deserve the same respect we gave away prints to their guests to show off give their Western counterparts. their power. The Qing period verges on the garish; loud pinks and greens, overflowing The Printed Image in China: fruit plates and flower baskets all scream 8th-21st Centuries money.

Through July 29, The Metropolitan The warmest pieces in this show are the Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., so-called popular prints, which ordinary 212-923-3700, www.metmuseum.org.

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Saint Albans School is pleased to announce that it has a limited number of scholarships for children in Kindergarten and Grade 1 for Fall 2012. These  scholarships are made possible by the Teddy Forstmann Scholarship   Program, of the Childrens’ Scholarship Fund. Saint Albans welcomes  students in PreK through Grade 8. We are located at 317 East 50th Street   in mid-town Manhattan, near the United Nations. For information on the  Forstmann Scholarships and admissions, please visit our website at www.saintalbansnyc.com.

Photo courtesy of Flash Rosenberg

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75 9TH Ave btwn W.15TH & 16TH ST • New York, NY THURS JUN 28 • 12PM - 6PM

We have a million of everything.’ I sent out emails to everyone I knew—‘I want to do an evening of monologues, would you join me?

But they have to be original—yours or someone else’s—we don’t need to do Death of a Salesman again. That’s the deal,’” she says.

McCall remembers that some friends advised: “‘Make them two to four minutes; otherwise, you’ll die!’ I thought people could use them for auditions. Instead of [playing] Blanche Dubois and eyes rolling back in heads, they could do something that makes a person sit up and say, ‘Hey, who wrote that?’”

The Monologue Slam also started at Cornelia Street, but, McCall worried, “it had guest judges and an award at the end of the

Tulis McCall.

formed brief pieces written by the monologists themselves.

This June’s standouts included Carl Kissin’s camp counselor addressing aspirants to false murder confessions—a tour-de-force fusion of derangement and sense—Trish Alexandro’s generous-hearted Latina supermarket cashier, Flash Rosenberg’s astute riff on “future nostalgia” and offerings from too many other gifted regulars to describe here.

Asked how she started Monologues and Madness, McCall discussed the method in her evening’s sublime madness. “I kept showing up at the Café’s Thursday artist’s salon, and Robin Hirsch, a partner, invited me to have a night of my own. I did a few, which were tremendous failures, but he kept inviting me back. I love to do monologues, so I wondered if anyone else would.

“As Ed Koch said, ‘This is New York City.

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evening. I didn’t want that. I wanted people to go, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work.

Let’s see.’ Also, I wanted these monologues read, not performed, without the pressure of memorizing because you’re still playing around with the text. It’s really a place for people to try things out and be creative at whatever age. There’s a lot of ageism out there, but not at this place. I expect people to keep creating until they keel over.”

Monologues and Madness Cornelia Street Café, 31 Cornelia St., www. monologuesandmadness.com; first Monday of the month, 6-8 p.m., $10.

Tulis McCall’s theater reviews can be read at www.ushersnob.com and www. newyorktheatreguide.com For wedding ceremony inquiries, call 917-318-8943.

“NO ONE STACKS UP TO US” ~Wide Variety of Bookends~

Also the Largest Collection of Serving Trays in NYC 247 East 57th Street (Between 2nd & 3rd Avenues) Across from Whole Foods 212-223-9151 Extraordinaryny.com June 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 1 3

NEW YORK FAMILY

A New Day at Coney Between the new rides and the classic attractions, coney island is, once again, a hit with city families

By Eric Messinger

S

lowly and reliably, Coney Island has revived to the point where it offers local families one of the most fun, special days anywhere in the city. Here are a few tips from someone who grew up nearby and still goes back with his kids.

The AquArium I often recommend starting a day in Coney with the New York Aquarium, taking in the crowd-pleasing sea lions, plus all sorts of exotic and marine life. (Note: The Aquarium has the most ample parking lot in the area.) nyaquarium.com The CyClone If you like roller coasters, the historic wooden Cyclone is one of those experiences that just has to be had, usually more than once. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether to tell the uninitiated about the first drop. lunA PArk In the last few years, large swaths of Coney Island have been reconceived and rebuilt under the umbrella name Luna Park, which was one of the great anchors of Coney Island in the past. The remake has brought a lot of varied and wonderful rides and games, so toddlers can have their thrills—but so can tweens and teens.

Hot Tip of the Week

Survivor—the Robinson Crusoe Edition Who better to pick up essential life skills from than Robinson Crusoe, everyone’s favorite shipwreck survivor?

This coming Saturday, TheatrePlayground is bringing Daniel Defoe’s classic desert island story to life in an interactive family show in Central Park.

As the story unfolds, kids will identify edible plants, make a shelter and trap, build a boat and more alongside longtime outdoorsman Jason Vance, who plays the protagonist. For more information, visit theatreplayground. com. And for even more family fun, visit newyorkfamily.com.

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One of the new sections, the Scream Zone, incorporates several new roller coasters, including the Steeplechase (another history-minded tribute). lunaparknyc.com

Deno’s WonDer Wheel AmusemenT PArk There’s no better way to immerse yourself in Coney Island than by enjoying the gentle swaying and big vistas of the iconic Wonder Wheel. A proud second-generation operation, Deno’s also features a kiddie park with 17 rides and Beach & Boardwalk PoiNters The Atlantic Ocean doesn’t hit Coney Island head-on; it’s more like a very big inlet, so the waves are almost always kid-friendly.

Looking west along the boardwalk, you’ll see the really long Coney Island fishing pier. For a taciturn tribe, fishermen typically love introducing their passion to kids.

At the end of the day, you can also walk east on the boardwalk, savoring the breezes and the human parade, and end up in Brighton Beach for dinner at a Russian restaurant. If you see a kid looking out the window of his apartment building, that was once me.

a few other classics for adults, including Spook-A-Rama and bumper cars. wonderwheel.com

nAThAn’s FAmous I don’t know why it’s true, but it is—Nathan’s hot dogs taste even better when purchased at the original home in Coney Island. Same goes for those thick wedge fries. nathansfamous.com ToTonno’s As long as we’re on the topic of food, it’s worth noting that the original Totonno’s, widely recognized by pizza foodies as one of the city’s great brick-oven joints, is also in Coney Island.

The Brooklyn CyClones A lower division off-shoot of the Mets, the Cyclones offer fans the full Minor League treatment, with lots of special promotions and events that are perfect for families. My favorite: Stay after the game on Friday night and watch the fireworks. brooklyncyclones.com For more info on Coney Island, visit coneyislandfunguide.com. And for more great ideas for summer fun around the city, visit newyorkfamily.com.

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DINING

The Seven Pretentious Words to Avoid When Describing Wine

Y

“

ou’re a writer, huh? What kind of stuff do you write?”

“Oh, a little of this,” I said, staring at my shoes, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed, “A little of that.”

“Like what? What’s one of the things you get paid to write about?”

“Wine.”

My single-word answer was followed by an unconscious frown from the gentleman I had just met. Indeed, he now knew all he needed to know about me, and he excused himself to grab another drink.

“It’s going to be a beer,” he sneered as he walked off. “Hope you don’t think less of me for that!”

I don’t blame the guy. I hate wine writers, too. We’re smug and arrogant and we assume that we know more than regular guys.

The only thing my so-called wine knowledge has really got me is a handful of trivia answers about vinification and European geography.

I have always said, and I maintain, that

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the most important idea behind wine appreciation is “know what you like.” The more you drink, the more you know, and the more you know, the more you know what it is exactly that you like. All of the fancyshmancy wine talk in the world can’t convince anyone that a crappy wine is anything other than a crappy wine.

So today I would like to feature the seven stupidest descriptors that wine writers use when describing the fermented juice. If I can encourage just one oenophile to refrain from using even one of these words, I feel this column will have served the greater good.

Barnyardy. Mmm, nothing like the smell of horse manure, rotting hay and moldy barn wood to whet the appetite for a tasty red from the south of France. Believe it or not, this is meant to be a compliment for a fuller-bodied, rustic wine, like those that come from the area of Cahors. But, honestly,

the idea of it kind of makes one want to throw up in one’s mouth.

Foursquare. In case you were wondering, no, your bottle of wine has not decided to check in at the local Irish Pub on its smart phone. This meaning of foursquare is the one that Webster’s

By Josh Perilo College Dictionary defines as “marked by boldness and conviction.” Oh, you mean “bold”? This snotty adjective was popularized by the king of snotty wine adjectives, Robert Parker Jr. Pencil Shavings. While we’re bashing Mr. Parker, let’s address the No. 1 confounding “positive” descriptor that he uses when talking about older Bordeaux. Perhaps he had some kind of unnatural graphite fetish when he was in middle school, but for the majority of us, a good bottle does not remind one of sucking on a No. 2.

Biscuity. I know that there are droves of sommeliers who will disagree with me,

but I have never sniffed a sparkling wine that I thought smelled like a biscuit. Yeasty, perhaps. Doughy or bready, sure, but KFC or Popeyes have never crossed my mind. And if we’re talking about biscuits as in cookies, then just say cookies. We’re not in bloody England.

Playful. Wines are not playful. I’ve never had the occasion to toss a ball back and forth with a pinot noir, nor have I engaged in a game of disc golf with a sauternes. This adjective is a cop-out for a wine writer with a crappy palate. It means “this wine is light and people tell me it’s good, but I don’t really get it.”

Quince. Now I will concede that this adjective is incredibly accurate for describing some wines. There are a handful of whites from specific areas that definitely have the taste of quince, but let me pose this question: When was the last time you ate quince?

Using it to describe a wine is like telling a normal person (anyone who hasn’t had quince in the last five years) that the wine is too sophisticated for their palate.

Pipi du Chat. ‘Nuff said.

I will admit that I am guilty of using these descriptors from time to time. But hopefully now that we’ve admitted that the emperor has no clothes, we can all sip with a little less apprehension.

Follow Josh on Twitter: @joshperilo.

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J une 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 1 5

L I F E HAPPENS UNEXPECTED INJURIES AND ILLNESS HAPPEN TOO. That’s why we’re right here in the heart of the Upper West Side, ready to serve you.

At Mount Sinai’s new Urgent Care Center you’ll receive exceptional treatment from physicians board-certified in emergency medicine from one of the country’s top medical centers.

For exceptional and compassionate care where and when you need it most.

URGENT CARE

UPPER WEST SIDE & MULTISPECIALTY PHYSICIANS

Daily – Evenings – Weekends On site X-ray and labs. Most insurances accepted.

No appointment is necessary for urgent care–just walk in.

THE MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER OPENS NEW URGENT CARE FACILITY ON MANHATTAN’S UPPER WEST SIDE Emergency Medicine Physicians Will See Walk-in Patients Seven Days a Week A new state-of-the-art urgent care facility staffed by The Mount Sinai Medical Center physicians and staff has opened at 638 Columbus Avenue at West 91st Street, ground floor. Mount Sinai Urgent Care Upper West Side is a walk-in medical facility that will be open seven days a week, with no appointments necessary.

“We know that life happens,” said Kevin Baumlin, MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “We all know someone who has had an unexpected injury or illness that requires treatment. Yet, we can’t always wait for an appointment with a physician, and the condition might not be serious enough to require a visit to an emergency room. Urgent care facilities offer a more convenient option.”

According to Dr. Baumlin, an urgent care center is a great alternative for high-quality, immediate, and reliable treatment – especially since it is an integrated part of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, an internationally acclaimed academic medical center. There are plenty of advantages including no long waits at an emergency room for a non-emergency, and lower costs than a hospital visit. If a patient is found to need more extensive care, the center will facilitate immediate transfer to a hospital emergency department and will contact the patient’s primary physician.

Both children and adults will be seen. All physicians are board-certified in emergency medicine. The center contains an on-site x-ray and lab, and will be fully integrated with Mount Sinai’s Electronic Medical Records (Epic) and patients will be able to access their own personal electronic records (MyChart).

Among the conditions that will be treated are allergies and asthma, broken fingers and toes, bronchitis, earaches and eye infections, fevers and flu, headaches, minor cuts that require stitches, moderate back problems, sinus infections, skin rashes and infections, sore throats and coughs, sprains and strains, stomach ailments; urinary tract infections, vomiting, and diarrhea or dehydration.

Mount Sinai Urgent Care will be open Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No appointments are necessary and most insurance plans are accepted.

For information about the new center call (212) 828-3250 or

www.mountsinai.org/urgentcare.

638 Columbus Avenue at 91st Street 212-828-3250 www.mountsinai.org/urgentcare

1 6 • O UR TOWN • J une 2 8 , 2 012

The Mount Sinai Medical Center has been named by U.S. News & World Report to its 2011-2012 Honor Roll of elite hospitals. Every physician at Mount Sinai Urgent Care is board-certified in emergency medicine and a faculty member of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

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Urgent Care

special health supplement

Urgent Help Faster Than an Emergency Room NYC is finally seeing urgent care centers for times when your life’s not in danger

By Traver HuTcHins It’s long been known that the East Coast represents the epicenter of medical academia. What’s lesser known, however, is that innovation in health care almost always travels from the West Coast to the East.

The recent crush of urgent care organizations hitting the greater New York area are arriving a full 10 years after they first gained popularity out West.

“Urgent Care” is defined as all care other than emergent. In other words, a patient can be seen in an urgent care facility for almost any condition other than the truly life-threatening ones. Recent entrants into the greater New York City area include City MD and Med Excel, to name a few.

The rise of urgent care has paralleled both the rise of the utilization of health care and the concurrent drop in the number of doctors to meet the growing demand. As a result, when you suddenly have a health issue and try to see your doctor immediately, you will often find that they can’t see you in a timely fashion.

Before, your main alternative was to go to the emergency room.

The East Coast sees more visits to the ER per capita than anywhere else in the country. As a population, we have grown accustomed to the four-hour waits, the uncomfortable environment and the pricy service that sums up the ER experience. Not surprisingly, there are fewer urgent care facilities on the East Coast per capita, as well.

Only a small percentage of the cases that are presented at the ER are life-threatening, which is what it is geared toward. That poor service is a result of all the non-emergency cases who didn’t realize they had an alternative.

That’s about to change.

Today, there are over 9,000 urgent care facilities, and they are growing by over 5 percent per year. Compare that to in-pharmacy clinics, which handle minor health issues such as flu shots, etc, of which there are only 1,000 locations and virtually no growth over the past decade. There are now 15 urgent care chains backed

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by institutional funds rolling out their brands in their region of influence but there is as of yet no national player, nor is there a significant player in the Northeast.

How will the change happen?

While the rest of the country knows what urgent care is, Easterners generally do not. There is a new educational campaign underway by the Urgent Care Association of America designed to raise awareness and make people comfortable with the idea that you can see a medical practitioner right away at a reasonable cost and with a quality outcome. Once experienced, that trifecta of benefit will rapidly migrate the patient flow from the ER to the urgent care clinic, as it has in the rest of the country.

From a cost perspective, any time a health issue can be handled by a lower-cost provider with the same level of outcome, the service should be done by that lower-cost provider. While this is disruptive to the

general hospital model still so prevalent in the Northeast, this change is unstoppable and ultimately benefits both our health care system and the individual.

The average cost for an ER visit is $600, and the patient’s average co-pay is $100. Compare that to $130 for an urgent care visit with a $30 co-pay on average for the very same case. Not surprisingly, insurers are now heavily educating their Eastern insureds on this new class of care option that has long been in fashion out West.

So the next time a health issue arises and your doctor isn’t available, do yourself (and your wallet) a favor: go to an urgent care facility. You will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Traver Hutchins is the chairman and founder of Remedy Health Media. He is also the CEO and founder of ASAP Urgent Care, which is focused on bringing urgent care to New England.

J une 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 1 7

+

No Appointment Needed

+

Emergency Room Doctor On-Site

+

Serving Children & Adults

+

Most Insurance Accepted

+

Open 365 Days A Year

Weekdays 8am-10pm Weekends 9am-9pm

OPENING FALL 2012

+

Upper East Side

+

336E 86th St 212-772-3627

Upper West Side 2465 Broadway 212-721-2111

+

Columbus Circle 315W 57th St 212-315-2330

+

Flatiron District 37W 23rd St 646-596-9267

+

East 67th Street 1150 3rd Ave

www.CityMD.net 1 8 • O UR TOWN • J une 2 8 , 2 012

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CityMD New York’s Urgent Care Providing immediate care for anything that you feel needs the attention of a doctor now.

www.CityMD.net

What is CityMD? CityMD is the place you can rely on for anything you feel deserves the attention of a doctor NOW. It is a modern convenient alternative to the typical emergency room experience or when your physician’s office can’t accommodate an unscheduled same day visit. CityMD offers accessible and convenient urgent medical care, on a walk-in basis, 365 days a year with extended hours of operation. CityMD is open from 8am to 10pm on the weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends accepts most major insurance plans and sees children and adults.

CityMD is staffed by Board Certified emergency medical physicians and you will be seen in brand new, state of the art offices. They are equipped with on site X-ray capabilities.

Access to care when you are not feeling well is part of what has been missing when it comes to patient care. CityMD provides patients with a significantly reduced waiting period when compared to a typical emergency room visit. At CityMD, often you are seen with little to no wait time. CityMD puts the care back into healthcare. They respect your time and as New Yorkers understand the limited time you have to seek treatment.

When an unexpected medical need arises such as a cold, cut, burn, sprain or fracture CityMD Urgent Care is equipped with state of the art exam rooms including onsite x-ray technicians, phlebotomists as well as laboratory services and is staffed with a licensed provider at all times to perform minor procedures such as casting and suturing.

CityMD has convenient locations across the City. Their board-certified physicians provide prompt, professional medical care to both adults and pediatric patients without the need for an appointment or referral. CityMD was established in 2010 and provides walk-in urgent medical care during its expanded hours of 8am to 10pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends. For more information visit www.citymd.net.

Upper East Side 336E 86th St. 212-772-3627 NYPre ss .com

Upper West Side 2465 Broadway 212-721-2111

Columbus Circle 315W 57th St. 212-315-2330

Flatiron District 37W 23rd St. 646-596-9267

OPENING FALL 2012

EAST 67th St. 1150 3rd Ave

June 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 1 9

Urgent Care

Dr. Judah Fierstein

Mount Sinai Goes Crosstown with New Center

By AmAndA Woods Mount Sinai Hospital recently opened an urgent care center on the Upper West Side, a step that administrators consider important for the hospital, for the neighborhood and for urban medical care.

“The hospital is trying to expand its presence on the West Side, bringing in new patients who don’t want to go across the park,” said Dr. Judah Fierstein, one of two doctors at the center, which opened May 30. “The biggest thing is that the hospital 20 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

is just recognizing that the urgent care model is really attractive to patients and that it’s hopefully a way also to unburden the emergency room, to care better for the people who really have to be in emergency rooms and not overwhelm the many other people who could be cared for in a more appropriate setting.”

The Upper West Side, with its high foot traffic and high-rise apartments, is a key location for Mount Sinai to extend its services, said Bill Foresman, the administrative manager at Mount Sinai Urgent Care.

But urgent care is growing in demand not only on the Upper West Side, but citywide and nationwide, he added.

“Americans are trying to find more alternatives on a basic care level,” Foresman said. “If you look across most urban places like New York City and you want a primary doctor to take care of your needs, good luck finding one.”

Urgent care centers like his offer an al-

ternative for hard-to-reach primary care doctors—and overcrowded emergency rooms. Mount Sinai’s center handles nonemergency health problems such as allergies, colds, fevers, gastrointestinal problems and heart palpitations. It also offers basic physical examinations, Xrays, on-site lab services, HIV testing and vaccinations. Patients don’t have to make an appointment and can simply walk in. Most patients are seen within five to seven minutes.

On the second floor of the new center, Mount Sinai has a different kind of medical office—a multispecialty physician practice. If urgent care patients need to see cardiologists, dermatologists, orthopedists or other specialists, they can simply go upstairs, instead of traveling elsewhere, Fierstein said.

The center also offers an online service called MyMountSinaiChart, which allows for easy communication between doctors

and patients. Patients can review their medications, immunizations, allergies and medical history online and can use the service to retrieve test results within 72 hours after they have been released.

The new center helps Mount Sinai get ahead and respond to a growing health care need, Dr. Fierstein said.

“There are a lot of private people who are getting into this business who see that it’s a very attractive model, and the hospital doesn’t want to fall too far behind,” he said. “The integration into a larger medical center will really have an appeal.”

Mount Sinai Urgent Care will be open Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No appointments are necessary and most insurance plans are accepted. For information about the new center, call 212-828-3250 or visit www. mountsinai.org/urgentcare.

NY Press.co m

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June 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 21

HO S P ITA L

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JOINT

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Urgent Care

The Authority in Immediate Orthopaedic Care

iCare at HJD  301 East 17th Street at 2nd Avenue  New York, NY  212.598.7600 The Samuels Orthopaedic Immediate Care Center (iCare) is New York City’s only walk-in clinic for adults and children with urgent muscle, bone and joint injuries and conditions. Located in NYU Langone’s Hospital for Joint Diseases (HJD), iCare offers: • Shorter wait times than hospital emergency rooms • Expert care by HJD’s world-class physicians and nurses • State-of-the-art diagnostic equipment for quick evaluation and treatment • Access to further orthopaedic care or admission at HJD, for more significant injuries • A modern, comfortable environment • Seven-day-a-week-care, from 8am - 10:30pm Conditions treated include suspected hip, arm, or leg fractures; suspected dislocation or joint injury; injuries to hands or feet; acute back/spine injuries; sprains or strains of any joint; suspected bone or joint infection.

For more information, call 212.598.7600.

Hospital for Joint Diseases Offers Immediate Orthopaedic Care, Seven Days A Week Emergency rooms can be congested, with long waiting times for non lifethreatening conditions such as some bone and joint injuries. But since 1992, NYU Langone Medical Center’s Hospital for Joint Diseases (HJD) has been offering world-class care for muscle, bone, and joint conditions and injuries at the Samuels Orthopaedic Immediate Care Center (iCare). iCare is New York City’s only walk-in orthopaedic clinic, open seven days a week. The modern, newly renovated facility sees over 7,000 patients a year and is designed to speed admissions, diagnosis and treatment of bone and joint injuries in adults and children. More than 70% of iCare patients leave the hospital in less than two hours.

Exam rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment to allow for efficient and accurate evaluation and treatment. Most rooms have LCD televisions to create a less stressful environment.

Beyond the convenience of shorter wait times and the comfort of the facility, the most important benefit of iCare is being treated by some of the best bone and joint specialists in the country – the experts at HJD, ranked among the top ten orthopaedic centers in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

And, with the facility located in HJD, operating rooms and more extensive care are only minutes away for patients with more significant injuries.

iCare is located in the Hospital for Joint Diseases, 301 East 17th Street at Second Avenue. Contact iCare at 212-598-7600.

22 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

Urgent care centers fill some of the gap for former St. Vincent’s patients

By DaviD GiBBons For many observers, the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital—one of the oldest community hospitals in the nation and a New York City icon throughout the 20th century—was a disaster, a disgrace, a moral failure, an avoidable tragedy.

After its demise at the end of April 2010, professionals in other downtown medical centers noted a surge in ER visits and ambulance runs. Now, just over two years later, the question is: Have the others been able to fill the gap?

The two major area players are Beth Israel Medical Center, part of Continuum Health Partners (CHP), and the North Shore-LIJ Health System. Beth Israel had already doubled the size of its emergency room after the closing of Cabrini Medical Center in 2008, so

it was well prepared for the St. Vincent’s surge; other local hospitals also expanded and adapted to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, both CHP and North Shore-LIJ, as well as several independent partnerships of doctors, have begun to offer more options for urgent care.

In March, 2011, North Shore-LIJ partnered with VillageCare to open an urgent care center at 121A W. 20th St. Around the same time, North Shore-LIJ announced its trump card; plan to convert the O’Toole Building—the white wedding cake-like landmark on 7th Avenue between 12th and 13th streets that was part of the St. Vincent’s complex—into “the first stand-alone emergency and ambulatory facility in the New York City metropolitan area.”

“We developed what we felt was a reNY Press.co m

alistic proposal to restore comprehensive health care to the West Side,” said Terry Lynam, a North Shore-LIJ spokesperson. “We’re investing $110 million to build a true community resource that will go a long way toward giving people access to health care that has been lacking since the closing of St. Vincent’s.” It is scheduled to open as The Lenox Hill Hospital Center for Comprehensive Care in early 2014.

“North Shore is doing a commendable job trying to rebuild some services,” said Dr. Fred Hyde, clinical professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and an expert on management and policy. “Still, the closing of a hospital is irrelevant to the utility of urgent care centers, since hospitals were never much good at outpatient care in the first place. Urgent care is a substitute for available primary care physicians, of which we may have too few—local, state and national.”

Hyde estimates that an individual physician, depending on how “muscular” a schedule he or she is willing to tackle, can serve a primary care base of 2,000 to 2,500 patients. These figures, together with a projection from the Urgent Care Association of America of one clinic per every 40- to 50,000 people, suggest that roughly 50 hardworking doctors staffing urgent care clinics in an area the size of southern Manhattan could have a significant impact.

“If St. Vincent’s was like a lot of hospitals, it had an ER half-full of nonemergency patients who could have been treated in an urgent care clinic,” said Lou Ellen Horwitz, the Urgent Care Association’s executive director.

“So while urgent care can’t replace hospital beds, it can create access for a lot of patients who would have gone to an ER.” CHP’s strategy is to build neighborhood primary and specialty care practices that accept walk-ins, one of the many ways it strives to meet the needs of the community, according to spokesman Jim Mandler. Marked by their familiar awnings with the blue Beth Israel logo, they are currently located in the West Village (222 W. 14th St.), Chelsea (202 W. 23rd St.) and lower Midtown (55 E. 34th St.).

The Chelsea practice is expanding and will relocate to the northwest corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue on Sept. 1 with 12,000 square feet of space on two floors.

Tom Poole, vice president of Continuum Medical Groups, who oversees development and operation of CHP’s community medical centers around Manhattan, calls it “our newly renovated state-of-the art facility for walk-in primary and specialty care, one-stop shopping sorely needed to serve NYPre ss.com

Chelsea and Penn South,” a neighborhood development with a large elderly population.

In November, Continuum will open another new Beth Israel facility on 8th Street in the West Village, able to handle 36,000 patient visits per year at full capacity.

“Our model for the future is easy, open access,” said Poole. “We’ve found this is what patients increasingly expect; they don’t want to wait six weeks to see their doctor. We aim to treat patients who need immediate or urgent care and create an environment that provides a satisfactory experience for everybody. To put it simply: We want happy patients, happy physicians and happy staff.”

“We’re able to see this with our practice on 14th Street, and we hope it will continue with the new locations on 23rd and 8th streets,” Mandler added.

Poole says he feels a year from now will be a good time to re-evaluate the success of this new model; he also expects the increasing demand for urgent care to grow hand in hand with new housing development along the West Side.

(For more information on Beth Israel’s practices, visit www.bethisraelmedicalgroup.com or www.wehealny. org.)

At CityMD (www.citymd.net), they are equally bullish: “From our perspective, we see a major need for quality urgent care throughout the city and particularly in the downtown area,” said COO Dr. Nedal Shami, adding that business is good. The company opened its new Flatiron branch at 37 W. 23rd St. on May 8 of this year, has another scheduled to open on 67th Street in the fall and is actively seeking a location in Tribeca or the Financial District for the near future.

Other private partnership practices along the lines of Beth Israel’s primary care walk-ins are opening up, among them the One Medical Group (www. onemedical.com), which has five locations, including in the West Village, at 408 W. 14th St., and the Wall Street area, at 30 Broad St. Additional urgent care options in Manhattan’s Lower West Side include New York Doctors Urgent Care, 65 W. 13th St.; Emergency Medical Care, 200 Chambers St. (www.emcny.com), and Medhattan Immediate Medical Care, 106 Liberty St. (www.medhattan.com).

According to rules of thumb and guesstimates from several experts, it appears that southern Manhattan’s urgent care needs are being addressed, and that the closing of St. Vincent’s, in the cold light of history, may one day be considered more of a transition than a debacle.

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Your Urgent Care Center in New York City If you have a condition or treatment that needs immediate attention, MedRite Urgent Care Center is here to serve you. Now there’s an alternative to the impersonal and often expensive visits to the Hospital Emergency Room and the long waits to see your doctor. You don’t need an appointment, and we accept most medical plans.

Our staff of experienced doctors and medical professionals treats a wide range of injuries and medical conditions. We’re here for small injuries like cuts and bruises or more severe problems like fractures and lacerations. If you are sick and need immediate treatment, we are here for you.MedRite is open when you need us. We are open early every morning and we stay open late. Our trained professional staff is ready to treat a wide range of ilnesses and injuries on your schedule. When you can’t wait for a doctor’s appointment or need to schedule around your work and other commitments we’re ready to give you the treatment you need. Walk–ins are always welcomed.

Check in is easy and comfortable. We have several exam rooms, an X-Ray department, and an on-site lab so you will receive high quality medical care that’s both fast and convenient.

Contact us to find out more about MedRite Urgent Care services and its location.

MedRite Urgent Care 919 2nd Ave.(Bet 48th & 49th St.) P:( 212) 935-3333 www.medriteurgentcare.com

J une 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 23

Urgent Care

A Look at Some of Manhattan’s Urgent Care Centers

By AmAndA Woods “In the past, the emergency room was your only option for receiving care for any minor or not-so-minor injury,” said Mark Melrose, D.O., co-founder of Urgent Care Manhattan on the Upper West Side. “The ER was the only game in town.”

Today, about 40 percent of visits to hospital emergency departments are for nonurgent or semi-urgent problems, resulting in unnecessarily overcrowded emergency rooms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For many conditions, urgent care is a more suitable option.

Urgent care centers offer treatment for a variety of ailments, ranging from strep throat to broken bones and fractures. In some centers, physical exams for schools, summer camps and employment are also provided.

Urgent care is not a new concept—it has existed for about 25 years, according to Bill Foresman, the administrative manager of Mount Sinai Urgent Care—but it has recently taken off both nation- and citywide, Melrose said.

Urgent care centers are open to walk-ins, and patients are usually seen within minutes of their arrival.

Citywide urgent care is a necessity that fits into the rhythm of Manhattan life, said

ical center that provides pediatric and adult care for common illnesses, minor emergencies, wound repair and X-rays. Patients can also receive travel vaccinations, diabetes and cholesterol screenings and blood tests and lab analysis. Students are welcome at the center for school and summer camp physical screenings. Alcohol and drug testing, along with HIV screenings, are also available at the facility.

Samuel Fisch, the CEO of MedRite Urgent Care in Midtown East.

“An urgent care center is definitely a model that belongs to New York City,” Fisch said. “People [have] busy schedules and it’s so hard to get in to see a doctor. We felt it’s a service that’s needed in the city more than any place else.”

Many issues play into the surge of urgent care in the city.

“You hear of the financial strife of hospitals closing, and they’re having trouble providing efficient care to all patients,” said Anthony Ruvo, M.D., a co-owner of New York Doctors Urgent Care. “Patients still need to be seen in a timely manner.”

Previously, it was too expensive for

212.721.4200

urgent care centers to open a Manhattan office. The financial crisis has actually helped that situation, Melrose said, and many urgent care centers can now afford to open up.

Many of the urgent care centers that have cropped up in Manhattan are staffed by board certified emergency physicians—a huge plus in a city filled with large medical institutions, said Douglas Kaiden, M.D., a doctor at MedRite.

Below is a list of some of the urgent care centers on the Upper East and Upper West sides and in surrounding neighborhoods.

Urgent Care Manhattan Upper West Side—199 Amsterdam Ave., 212721-4200, www.urgentcaremanhattan.com Urgent Care Manhattan is a walk-in med-

CityMD Upper East Side—336 E. 86th St., 212-7723627; Upper West Side—2465 Broadway, 212-721-2111; Columbus Circle—315 W. 57th St. Another Upper East Side location (1150 3rd Ave. at East 67th Street) is set to open in the fall. citymd.net CityMD physicians treat injuries, common illnesses and pediatric needs. They also provide X-rays and conduct health screenings for employment, STD testing and flu and mononucleosis screenings. The facilities also offer travel vaccinations. Besides the four locations mentioned above, CityMD also has an office on West 23rd Street in the Flatiron District.

MedRite Urgent Care Midtown East—919 2nd Ave., 212-935-

URGENT CARE MANHATTAN When you need a doctor NOW - experience a new model of medicine that puts patients first, in an exceptional environment on the Upper West Side.

When you need a doctor – NOW – come and experience a new model of medicine that puts patients first in an exceptional environment on the Upper West Side.

Urgent Care Manhattan provides expert evaluation and treatment for a wide range of minor emergencies – and we do it without the long wait or high cost of a visit to a hospital emergency room

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24 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

www.UrgentCareManhattan.com

At Urgent Care Manhattan, access to walk-in medical care has never been easier in NYC! Board certified emergency physicians provide expert evaluation and treatment for a wide range of minor emergencies - and do it without the long wait or high cost of a visit to a hospital emergency room. With ER’s overflowing, and patients finding it ever more challenging to find a doctor when they need one, Urgent Care Manhattan was opened to provide exceptional care and personal attention at your convenience.

Unlike most urgent care centers and walk-in clinics, at Urgent Care Manhattan, you will always be treated by a board-certified emergency physician. We are committed to a new model of medicine that puts patients first. No Appointment is necessary. Adults and Children are treated with the highest standards of care.

INSURANCE: Medicare, AETNA, BLUE CROSS, CIGNA, HIP, GHI, EMBLEM, OXFORD and UNITED are accepted for payment, as well as cash and credit cards for co-pays, or if you are paying yourself.

HOURS: Monday-Friday 8am-8pm, Saturday-Sunday: 10am-6pm, Open Holidays: Please call for hours.

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Urgent Care 3333, www.medriteurgentcare.com MedRite treats non-life-threatening illnesses including upper respiratory infections, the flu and migraines and injuries such as sprained ankles. X-rays are also available on-site. The doctors on staff are board-certified emergency physicians, said Douglas Kaiden, a doctor at MedRite. The office is open seven days a week, and patients can come in for school, sports, occupational and other physical exams. Patients have the option to fill out a check-in form online before they arrive at the office.

New York Hotel Urgent Medical Services Upper East Side—952 5th Ave., Ste. 1D, 212737-1212, travelmd.com/site1/home/newyork-hotel-urgent-medical-services This center handles minor medical emergencies for city tourists, and its doctors follow up with patients’ primary care physicians back home, providing detailed reports. New York Hotel Urgent Medical Services also offers 24-hour in-room medical care—doctors usually arrive at the hotel room either within the hour or at the patient’s requested time. The doctors carry portable medical equipment, and most medications are immediately available.

EMERGeCARE Upper East Side—210 E. 86th St., Ste. 203, 212-510-8092, www.emergecare.com

This center treats various medical needs, ranging from the common cold to bites and stings to dehydration. Most major insurances are accepted here, but those who aren’t insured pay an all-inclusive $125 fee.

Manhattan Physician Group Upper East Side—215 E. 95th St., 212-9968000; Upper West Side—154 W. 71st St., 212-496-4600. www.mpgcares.com Here, patients can receive treatment for common illnesses. General and vascular surgeries, as well as social services, are also available at the Upper East Side location.

Internal medicine services are offered at both locations.

DR Walk-in Upper West Side—775 Columbus Ave., 212932-8060, www.drwalkin.com This urgent care center is located inside a Duane Reade pharmacy. Here, patients can receive general checkups, treatments for back and joint pain, physical exams for work and school and blood sugar testing, to name a few.

The Urgent Care Center of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Upper East Side—1275 York Ave., 212-6397081, www.mskcc.org/doctor/department/ department-medicine/urgent-care-service Memorial Sloan-Kettering patients are treated for problems related to cancer, medi-

NEW YORK DOCTORS URGENT CARE Across the United States, the demand for primary care physician practices has grown. Getting an immediate appointment with your practitioner can take time, and many people do not even have access to a health care provider. The urgent care environment that New York Doctors Urgent Care provides is designed to support the community physicians and offer immediate and accessible health care to community residents and employees. By utilizing this center, needless long waits in the emergency department are avoided, and all patients are referred back to their personal practitioners.

No appointment is necessary and wait times are minimal. The approach to service excellence delivers affordable, efficient, quality health care for all of its patients. You will find that out brand new center at 205 Lexington, has a clean, state-of-the-art, relaxing atmosphere. The team of medical professionals at New York Doctors understands the need for immediate health care. They realize the necessity for alternatives to emergency departments for people affected by common, non-life threatening illnesses or injuries.

By choosing an urgent care center over the emergency department, you could save hundreds of dollars. In fact, the cost of an urgent care visit is between 1/6th and 1/8th of an emergency department visit. The facility is staffed by Board-Certified Emergency Medicine and Family Practice Physicians. Equipped with X-Ray and lab equipment, New York Doctors is prepared to provide a timely diagnosis and treatment for non-life threatening illnesses and injuries. Other services include physicals, occupational medicine, and vaccines. Come visit us at our new location at 205 Lexington Avenue, on the corner of 32nd and Lexington.

Visit us on the web to get more information at www.nydoctorsurgentcare.com or call 212-684-4700 NYPre ss.com

cal and surgical illnesses and side effects of cancer treatments. Staff at the center evaluate patients’ hospital records, take a brief medical history, do a physical exam and conduct tests based on the physical symptoms. Then, the staff will determine whether the patient should go home or be admitted into the hospital.

Mount Sinai Urgent Care Upper West Side—638 Columbus Ave., 888-407-1848, mountsinaifpa.reachlocal. net/about-us/locations/upper-west-side/ urgent-care This is a brand-new urgent care facility.

Many of the urgent care doctors here also treat in the hospital’s emergency department, but at the urgent care center, they are able to treat patients more quickly and with greater privacy. This center has a unique perk—access to Mount Sinai’s clinical pathology and diagnostic services.

One Medical Group Columbus Circle—1790 Broadway, Ste. 182, 212-530-0624, www.onemedical.com/nyc/ doctors One Medical Group offers same-day appointments for patients in need of immediate attention. On the center’s website, there is a link to the member services portal, My One, which allows patients to sign up for an appointment whenever they like. Using MyOne, patients can enter their medical

history online and, after their appointments, follow up with doctors and schedule their next visit.

New York Doctors Urgent Care Greenwich Village—65 W. 13th St., 212414-2800; new office at 205 Lexington Ave. (Murray Hill) to open July 16. www.nydoctorsurgentcare.com At this office, the two doctors, Anthony Ruvo and Alvaro Alban, treat immediate health needs such as acute lacerations, minor fractures and occupational-related injuries. The doctors—both with experience in emergency medicine—also handle common illnesses such as allergic reactions, bronchitis and upset stomachs. Patients usually wait only 10 minutes in the casual, café-style waiting room to be seen by a doctor, Ruvo said, and they usually spend no more than an hour total in the office.

Emergency Dentist NYC 212-486-9458 www.EmergencyDentistNYC.com Located near Union Square, Emergency Dentist NYC specializes in treating all dental emergencies, traumas and pain relief.

Seven days a week including weekends and holidays.

Need to see a doctor now ?

New Location Opening in July 205 Lexington Ave. (Corner of 32nd & Lex.)

212-684-4700

We are here for you on weekends, too!

Monday - Friday 8am - 8pm SATURDAY & SUNDAY 9AM-6PM Also visit us at 65 West 13th St. (Between 5th and 6th Ave)

212-414-2800 www.NYDoctorsUrgentCare.com J une 28 , 2012 • O UR TOW N • 25

seNiORs

Giving Confidence to Seniors with Dementia Need a doctor today?

Come see us.

By Roy Herndon Smith

If you need non-emergency medical care, Beth Israel Medical Group has multiple locations offering same-day and weekend appointments for treatment of minor illnesses and injuries. Walk-ins also accepted.

Call, walk in, or book an appointment online at www.BethIsraelMedicalGroup.com 55 East 34th St. (between Park and Madison) 212.252.6000 Open 7 days a week from 8 am to 8 pm

202 West 23rd St. (at 7th Ave.) 212.352.2600

Open 7 days a week from 8 am to 8 pm

222 West 14th St. (between 7th and 8th Aves.)

212.604.1800 Monday to Thursday: 8 am to 8 pm Friday: 8 am to 5 pm Saturday: 9 am to 2 pm

26 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

not remember how to tell the time from a digital clock. She did not know how to retrieve messages from her answering any older people live alone and do not have a close family machine. She was overwhelmed, uncertain and close to despair. member or friend living nearSince that first meeting, I have met with by who can help them if they her in her home for two hours a week. As become ill and unable to do all the tasks I help her go through her mail, pay bills, necessary to maintain their lives at home. check her email and do other tasks, I repeatThey or a family member will sometimes edly confirm what she can do. She is a witty employ a geriatric care manager. conversationalist. She has become active in A geriatric care manager can perform the senior center and is going to be teaching a range of needed tasks, such as helping a writing class there. She maintains close with paying bills; planning for medifriendships. cal care and ensuring that a client goes By the second or third meeting, she had to doctor’s appointments; working with become more confident. She has stopped doctors, nurses and social workers at getting lost or panicked on the subway. hospitals and rehabilitation centers to She continues to ensure that a client have difficulties receives the best Case managers with other tasks, possible medical help seniors but, as I help her care; arranging for with them, her lack and supervising handle diffiCult of ability rarely home care aides; tasks and give overwhelms her. She and working with a is enjoying her time client to maintain them the at the senior center his or her quality of ConfidenCe to and conversations life. stay aCtive. with friends.

For example, a proThis case illustrates fessional colleague a principle in workreferred me to Ms. D, ing with someone suffering with dementia: who lives alone. She had been a professor Help with the specific tasks with which until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she is having difficulty, but repeatedly and disease. consistently confirm her remaining abilities The first time I met her, she told me that and help her find others who will appreciate she had been having increasing trouble what she knows and can do. remembering how to pay her bills. Sometimes she got disoriented on the subway, Roy Herndon Smith, Ph.D., is with Comeven when going to a familiar place, and munity Geriatric Care (communitygeripanicked when she realized she did not atriccare@gmail.com), a subsidiary of know where she was. She needed help Foremost Home Care. logging on to check her email. She did

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Go the Way of the Horse and Buggy MaNhaTTaN Media President/CeO Tom Allon tallon@manhattanmedia.com grOuP PuBLisHer Alex Schweitzer aschweitzer@manhattanmedia.com CFO/COO Joanne Harras jharras@manhattanmedia.com

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exeCutive editOr Allen Houston ahouston@manhattanmedia.com sPeCiaL seCtiOns editOr Josh Rogers jrogers@manhattanmedia.com Cityarts editOr Armond White awhite@manhattanmedia.com staFF rePOrter Megan Bungeroth mbungeroth@manhattanmedia.com PHOtO editOr/editOriaL assistant Andrew Schwartz aschwartz@manhattanmedia.com Featured COntriButOrs Alan S. Chartock, Bette Dewing, Jeanne Martinet, Malachy McCourt, Josh Perilo, Christopher Moore, Regan Hofmann

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Newspapers and magazines have to deal with increasing costs for newsprint, delivery and distribution, along with reduced advertising revenues and declining readership due to competition from the Internet and other new information sources.

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for limited available my life, as have my children print space. As a result, and now their children. I daily newspapers miss have seen the neighborsignificant news and hood change—sometimes political stories from for the better, but lately for various neighborhoods worse. The building of the in Midtown and the Upmarine transfer station in per West Side of Manhata family-friendly neighbortan. Weekly newspapers hood is beyond the pale!

THE SWEET 16 such as Our Town fill the This area is already void for coverage of local crammed with too many SATURDAY JULY 14 , 2012 community news. large buildings and subway In the marketplace excavations, as well as of ideas, let us hope ongoing, never-ending there continues to be room for everyone, constructions. My grandsons play at including our own Our Town and its sister Asphalt Green. I think it is an abhorrent publications, Our Town Downtown, West move by the political pundits, not one of Side Spirit, nypress.com and City & State. whom live here or have family here. They —Larry Penner should be made to become part of the community and experience raising their children and grandchildren in an already Garbage dump for pols congested space before condoning this monstrous idea!

To the Editor: —Evelyn Jefferies I have lived in the Yorkville area all of CH EA

30 • O UR TOWN • June 2 8 , 2 012

leTTeRS

Elizabeth Forel is president of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages.

12 20

To subscribe for 1 year, please send $75 to OUR TOWN, 79 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10016 Recognized for excellence by the New York Press Association

N

ew York is one of the most congested cities in the world. It is no place for slow-moving horses pulling flimsy carriages mixed in with taxis, fire trucks, police cars and buses.

In January 2006, a horrific accident occurred on 9th Avenue and 50th Street that involved a young carriage horse named Spotty, who was returning to his stable.

Reacting to unknown stimuli, he bolted frantically into traffic, smashing into a station wagon and wrapping himself over the vehicle, the carriage still attached. He was later euthanized and his driver hospitalized in a coma. Unfortunately, this is typical horse behavior.

This was the beginning of our campaign to shut down the inherently inhumane and unsafe horse-drawn carriage trade in New York City, an industry that has no more than 160 active members but remains politically entrenched. It is an industry that a majority of New Yorkers want banned.

At that time, we needed to re-educate politicians, media and even activists. Today, the issue has caught on and has received much publicity. Several other organizations are also involved. It is an issue whose time has come.

More and more people around the globe are becoming sensitized to animal suffering and want it to stop. From cities legislating a ban on bull fighting or animal circuses to

Every poll that has been taken since 2006—including those by CBS, The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News and Extra—shows 75-80 percent of respondents favor a ban of the industry. Currently, we have over 122,000 signatures on an online petition in support of the Avella/Rosenthal state bill to ban the New York City carriage industry.

While the people want a ban, politicians are a different matter. In 2009, the Teamsters began to represent the carriage drivers. It is not a real union shop; there is no collective bargaining or benefits, and owners and drivers are in one local.

Only about half of the owners and drivers are members. But, as a strong union, the Teamsters wield much influence with City Council members who could otherwise make a difference.

The city has enabled this tiny business for years, granting such things as undermarket rent for a city-owned stable, killing a Council bill that would have mandated sprinklers and quashing a bill that would have prevented the horses from going to slaughter auctions, the latter thanks to Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Currently, drivers are not accountable for horses sold outside New York City, so it is not known where the majority of them go—a huge turnover of 60-70 horses each year.

Our goal is to see the industry shut down and the horses retired to a sanctuary or a good home. It is time to move New York City into the 21st century with compassion for all beings.

RT FO

OUR TOWN is a division of Manhattan Media, LLC, publisher of West Side Spirit, Our Town Downtown Chelsea Clinton News, The Westsider, City & State, The Blackboard Awards, New York Family, and Avenue magazine.

By Elizabeth Forel

campaigns to ban inhumane horse-drawn carriages in Rome, Vienna, Chicago, Cozumel and Atlanta, to name a few, the time has come for animals to be given their due. To an enlightened populace, ethics, morality and compassion trump selfishness and greed every time.

The New York City law allows these dispirited carriage horses to work for nine hours straight, seven days a week between the shafts of their carriage, either pulling or parked waiting for a customer—bored, captive, not even able to scratch an itch.

As herd animals, horses need turnout to pasture to mingle with other horses, graze on grass and mutually groom each other, a great stress reliever. This does not exist in the New York City stables. The five-week so-called furloughs will never substitute for daily turnout.

The horses live in four multistory stables on the far west side of Manhattan, where the stalls, legislated at 60 square feet minimum, are less than half the size experts recommend—stall guidelines for voluntary certification by the New York state Horse Health Assurance Program are 144 square feet for mid-sized horses and 196 square feet for larger drafts. These stalls are mostly on the upper levels, accessed by a steep ramp.

Since July 2011, there have been 11 carriage horse incidents, including one horse death, that of Charlie, who dropped dead on Oct. 23, 2011, while pulling a carriage.

Several others were due to the horse spooking, but on Nov. 4 and again on Dec. 4, a horse collapsed on the street while pulling a carriage. There is no reporting requirement in the law, so it is probable that many more accidents occur and go undocumented.

RD OA S KB RD AC A BL AW

OUR TOWN is published weekly Copyright © 2012 Manhattan Media, LLC 79 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor New York, N.Y. 10016 Editorial (212) 284-9734 Fax (212) 268-2935 Advertising (212) 284-9715 General (212) 268-8600 E-mail: otdowntown@manhattanmedia.com Website: NYPress.com

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MOORe ThOUghTs

Small Business is Best, Except When it’s Not Save mom-and-pop StoreS, but they Should Save uS from bad Service

By Christopher Moore

i

don’t love that cute independent pharmacy in my neighborhood.

This is a secret—or it was until about a sentence ago. I cannot count the number of stories I’ve edited over the years about this pharmacy. I even wrote one. The pieces have chronicled the personal relationships between the pharmacist and local residents; how he’s provided medicine without charging for it during an emergency; and the time activists and even a state legislator rallied against the landlord’s possible eviction of the drugstore.

When I went there, though, my prescriptions were not ready—even after I’d been assured by phone beforehand that they would be filled. I will never get back the hours I spent standing around waiting for the men in white coats to get their work done.

Sometimes, small places screw up. My spouse and I go through dry cleaners the way the Octomom goes through Pampers.

Some of our clothes recently played a dramatic game of lost and found. We go back and forth between the expensive cleaner who keeps calling to say he forgot to charge for one of the shirts or the woman with Currently, I get my prescriptions filled by the ecofascist lecture promoting a special Frank at Duane Reade. clothing case—one we would have to pay If bigger is not necessarily better, well, for—so as not to use up plasneither is smaller. This tic dry-cleaning bags. In a is something I’ve been city with so many dry cleanthinking about as the ers, why are all the annoying Bloomberg adminisones in my neighborhood? tration and West Side I’m not alone in my mixed Council Member Gale feelings about the occasional A. Brewer are working small business. “I was overwith many others to save charged,” a harried-looking small businesses. Prowoman told a merchant in posed regulations would front of a little city market limit the scope of some on Broadway in April. “At storefronts, to encourage fewer banks and more chRisTOPheR MOORe this point, I’m not coming back.” independent shops. Just “Why are you not comlast week, Bloomberg ing back?” the fellow said, evidently went further and unveiled plans for a having missed the part about her being new office to help businesses, especially overcharged. smaller ones, “navigate city bureaucracy,” “Because I don’t like this,” the woman as the Wall Street Journal put it. said.

I’m backing both proposals. But I stopped I don’t like it either. Yesterday when the believing that every mom-and-pop store three men at the diner counter in lower deserves to succeed around the time I Manhattan chatted with each other and noticed that mom and pop were treating me ignored me, I didn’t like it. I walked out. like crap.

Whenever someone takes a phone call instead of dealing with me, when I took the time to show up in person, I don’t like it. The young waiter at the unsurprisingly now-defunct Italian eatery who was texting instead of taking orders? The gentlemen at the pricey restaurant uptown who take away plates before we’re finished eating them? I don’t like any of it.

When I was growing up, my parents owned an independent bookstore. The place had nearly a three-decade run. When it was over, I zipped into Barnes & Noble and bought a membership card. I was exhausted from all the years of fighting the good fight, being on the side of the little guy. Now it turns out that Barnes & Noble, after killing bookstores across the nation, is the little guy in the battle against Amazon. Talk about what goes around, comes around.

Let’s do what we can to create a fair playing field for small businesses. Then, within those establishments, let’s set up rules on how to treat customers better. Surely, fine service must be central to what smaller businesses offer their communities.

What I want in a store or restaurant, big or small, is to be noticed, appreciated and treated well.

Christopher Moore is a writer living in Manhattan. He’s available by email at ccmnj@aol.com and on Twitter @cmoorenyc.

ciTiqUeTTe

The Third Rail the hazard of converSational triangulation

By Jeanne Martinet

L

ike most single people, I socialize a lot with couples. Most of my friends are in couples. Sometimes we go to the theater or a movie, but often it’s just good conversation over dinner. What I have learned is that the potential problem inherent in single-to-couple socializing is not the uneven number of people, nor is it being the only single person there; it’s being the single person in a threesome. Almost every single person you talk to will tell you that being a fifth wheel (or better yet, a seventh or ninth wheel) is infinitely better than being a third wheel.

Three is a tricky number.

The terms “fifth wheel” and “third wheel” come from the fact that four-wheeled carriages used to carry an extra wheel (or that two-wheeled carts might carry a third).

Obviously the spare wheel was not necessary to make the conveyance go. Ergo, it connotes something that serves no useful

NYPre ss.com

purpose.

However, the truth is that being a third wheel is not as much about being unnecessary or unwanted as it is about causing instability. A shopping cart with only three wheels can be wonky or lopsided, just as threesomes in social life are potentially unwieldy. Three friends together is always more complicated than two or four. With three people, the psychological balance is always shifting—however slightly—between one pair and another.

Unfortunately, the older I get, the more I seem to be going out with only one couple at a time. These can make for lovely, intimate evenings, except when something like this happens: Let’s say I am in the middle of dinner with Jennifer and Rick. We are talking about modern technology and its effect on the human brain. Everything is going along quite nicely, until Jennifer suddenly says, “Hey, listen. You can help Rick and me solve a dispute we are having.” (Right here is where, if there were alarms hooked up to our social lives, the flashing lights and bells would go off.)

Jennifer continues: “I feel our daughter should not have a cell phone until she is 14, but many of her friends have them now, at

up sore subjects or show markedly more interest in one person’s anecdotes than the other’s.

But one thing is certain: When you are age 11, and Rick thinks she needs one, espe- asked point blank to side with one person cially being in New York City. What do you against the other, no good can come of it. think? Will you please tell Rick he’s out of At the first sign of this kind of triangulation, his mind?” Uh-oh. Trouble. you should proceed with Trouble in the shape of a extreme caution. Change big, fat triangle. the subject or, if you can, Triangulation is the proleave the table to go to the cess whereby a person who restroom, feed the meter or has an issue with someone make a call. else uses a third person to If you are not able to sidevalidate her feelings. This is step the landmine, pretend more commonly known as to mediate. Listen carefully Getting Sucked Into a Fight. to both sides, then claim In extreme situations, you are unable to decide on triangulation can make you the matter. Other triangulafeel as if you are trapped in tion diffusers? Try “Don’t JeaNNe MaRTiNeT a scene from Who’s Afraid ask me—I’m the proverbial of Virginia Woolf? disinterested third party” or But it doesn’t always manifest as an “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it actual argument; it can be more passive may incriminate me.” Or even “Look they than that, such as when a husband flirts have marriage counselors for this!” with you in front of his wife or a wife To the Jennifer/Rick debate above, I makes cutting remarks about her husmight smile and say, “I make enough bad band in front of you. decisions about my own life. Please don’t Sometimes it’s the third wheel herself ask me to make bad decisions for yours.” who is responsible for pushing the evening onto the third rail. She can inadverJeanne Martinet, aka Miss Mingle, is the tently reveal a secret one person has told author of seven books on social interacher to “put in the vault.” Or she can bring tion. Read her blog at MissMingle.com.

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