Our Town - March 5, 2020

The local paper for the Upper East Side

WEEK OF MARCH

WEEK OF MARCH

OTTY AWARDS

5-11

05-11 2020

SPECIAL ► EDITION P.9

2020

THE PASSION OF ST. BERNARD’S EDUCATION

Forty Years at the Blackboard

Parents, alumni and donors at a private Manhattan boys’ school are in an uproar over the planned departure of the beloved longtime headmaster

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

Inspector Kathleen Walsh, commander of the 19th Precinct, said police have arrested suspects they believe are linked to a series of store break-ins in February. Photo: David Noonan

UES CRIME: BEHIND THE NUMBERS LAW ENFORCEMENT

19th Precinct Commander Kathleen Walsh explains the many factors contributing to an uptick in burglaries and other offenses

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

Two months into 2020, crime rates on the Upper East Side are up compared to this time last year across multiple dimensions.

In a tragic turn of events, the neighborhood saw its first murder in two years with the death of Kenneth Savinski in January. Oklahoma resident Alex Ray Scott turned himself in to police in the

It was a fleeting moment the “Old Boys” will never forget.

At least 200 all-male alumni of St. Bernard’s School on the Upper East Side descended on East 98th Street on Jan. 16 for a joyous event known as the Old Boys Dinner.

From all over the country and all over the world, they come to Carnegie Hill on the third Thursday of every January to exult in a tradition dating to 1916 – and featuring a healthy dose of wine, liquor and camaraderie.

But before the bonding, networking and singing of the “Old Boys’ Song” got underway that evening, the former classmates – as young as 21, as old as 90 – would hear from Stuart H. Johnson III, the headmaster they all seemed to revere.

His very first words brought a gasp and nervous laughter, followed by a loud ovation: “It’s a great opportunity to be able to preside at your own funeral,” Johnson said, according to separate accounts from three Old Boys in attendance.

“Graceful gallows humor,” is how one witness described the episode in the school’s first-floor auditorium. “Funereal words spoken in funereal times,” another said. “A cri de coeur, a cry from the heart, to everybody in that room,” a third offered.

All three requested anonymity.

If the Old Boys’ English usage seems particularly eloquent, it’s because St. Bernard’s has taught them very well indeed.

And it may sound corny, but as they belted out their eponymous song – “Sing we a song of our first Alma Mater, home of our tenderest triumphs and fears; little the Earth has to offer hereafter, can equal the hopes of those earliest years” – there were few dry eyes left in the place.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

A sea change is coming to St. Bernard’s, an elite, private school that currently enrolls 365 boys, from kindergarten through ninth grade, who stand out in their navy blue blazers, Oxford shirts and khaki trousers.

Founded in 1904, the school boasts an enviable record of placing its graduates in top private day and boarding schools. Since 1985, with Johnson at the helm, the school’s character, prestige, and pedagogical excellence has been enhanced, while its diversity has been boosted – students hail from 52 countries, Armenia to Vietnam, and speak 24

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Crime Watch Voices NYC Now OTTY Awards

3 5 6 9

BEAUTY, POISE AND STYLE

Ballet and fashion at The Museum at FIT. p. 26

CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

WALKING AND BRAIN HEALTH

Research shows that how fast you walk is linked to well-being. p.8

TOLERANCE IN A TIME OF XENOPHOBIA

A college teacher and his students confront coronavirus prejudice. p. 5

An undated photo of Stuart H. Johnson III, the outgoing headmaster of St. Bernard’s School on the Upper East Side, in a familiar pose – with a book in his hands.

Photo: St. Bernard’s School website

WEEK OF AUGUST

08-14

Your personal edition of Our Town Eastsider Since 1972

OurTownEastSide

INSIDE

City Arts 26 Restaurant Ratings 27 Real Estate 28 15 Minutes 29

2019

‘MY HANDS ARE OUTSTRETCHED’ P. 19

f d h e s, p gs ng st ts alng ish ass eel

◄ 15 MINUTES,

Eastsider INSIDE

SUTTON PARK,

AT LAST

just For East Side residents, major having access is a accomplishment. p.5

chair of the City Ydanis Rodriguez, committee, Council’s transportation street s afety on speaks at a rally for steps of City Hall legislation on the McCarten/NYC May 8. Photo: John Council

IS VISION ZERO WORKING? SAFETY

has seen a surge Five years in, NYC fluctuating and in cyclist deaths – and motorist numbers of pedestrian fatalities

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

year that saw 299 In 2014, after a traffic-related incipeople killed in Mayor Bill de Bladents in the city, eliminate all traffic sio set out to

CONTINUED ON PAGE

6

WOODSTOCK SOJOURN an NYPD judge recommend at City Hall after Photography Office holds a press conference Appleton/Mayoral Mayor Bill de Blasio 2019. Photo: Michael Friday, August 2,

firing Officer Daniel

Pantaleo on

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Kamala HarWarren, Cory Booker, and Bernie debates,” longris, Amy Klobuchar for the September Pete strategist George Sanders, South Bend Mayor time Democratic doesn’t have former Texas Rep. Artz says. “De Blasioare way down Buttigieg and both Beto O’Rourke. the donors, and close, but none of A few others are in the polls.”

Hank Sheinde Blasio or GilliPolitical consultant that either them are named kopf says it’s “50-50” “Any- brand. returned reBY STUART MARQUES will make the next round: Neither campaign but they’re not quests for comment. thing can happen, agree that Warde Blasio faced to qualify.”

Pundits generally When Mayor Bill held off the more Gillibrand – likely a minimum of Candidates need to ren and Sanderson the first night. off with Sen. Kirsten Democratic presi- 130,000 unique donors and have moderate field and eight other in four qualigot high marks on – on July 31, it Booker and Yang and hit at least 2 percent dential hopefuls the last Billy candidates have the second night, but Biden a might have marked presidential fying polls. Eight the polls. and are assured at the are still ahead in hit those marks and Gilly Show largely igon Sept. 12 Harris Gillibrand Houston and in De Blasio debates. ei- spot onstage Presiawful tough for are former Vice 18 “It’s going to be and and 13. They Senators Elizabeth CONTINUED ON PAGE get the donors dent Joe Biden, ther of them to needed to qualify polling numbers”

POLITICS

dim for Presidential prospects Democratic New Yorkers on the debate stage

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CRIME

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 days following the murder. He entered a plea of not guilty and will return to in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 1.

Meanwhile, the year-to-date number of burglaries, robberies and car thefts on the Upper East Side have also increased.

While the numbers are concerning, there’s no cause for panic, according to Inspector Kathleen Walsh, commander of the 19th Precinct.

A closer look at the data on recent crime on the Upper East Side reveals a number of citywide and unexpected factors contributing to some of the upticks.

For example, of the 52 burglaries recorded so far in 2020, the majority took place at commercial locations. Of those, 13 were what’s called “trespass notice,” in which a repeat shoplifter who has been banned from a store returns and steals again. The ban effectively raises shoplifting, usually classified as petty larceny, to the more serious crime of burglary.

“Unfortunately we have a few that are repeat offenders. If you get picked up for a burglary now, you’re not getting [assigned] bail, so you’re coming back out again,” Walsh noted, referencing the statewide bail reform pol-

icy that went into effect on January 1.

The legislation forbids arraignment judges from setting bail for suspects accused of most misdemeanors and lower-level felonies.

Another factor that contributed to commercial burglary on the Upper East Side was a borough-wide pattern of store break-ins that police traced to a roving band of juveniles. The modus operandi matched seven late-night burglaries within the 19th Precinct.

The police arrested suspects they believe to be linked to the burglary spree in mid-February.

“The seven of ours, none of them had alarms that activated. Some had them, but they didn’t have them on; some didn’t have them. So we’ve gone back and encouraged those who had alarms to activate them and those who didn’t to please activate,” said Walsh.

Of the 13 burglaries of Upper East Side residences this year, seven were package thefts, for which four arrests have already been made.

On the subject of robbery, Walsh reiterates the importance of paying attention to one’s surroundings and being mindful of showing off valuables like smartphones on the street or in the subway.

Of the 42 robberies on the Upper East Side in January and February, 20 (48 percent) took place on the street.

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Another 31 percent started off as shoplifting incidents but then escalated to violence or threats, often when store employees attempted to intervene.

Walsh does not encourage storekeepers to act heroically, telling Straus News, “I’d rather they not try and stop them.”

Finally, in terms of car thefts, the mild winter may have something to do with the 366 percent jump from three in the first two months of 2019 to 11 so far in 2020.

“Our GLAs [grand larceny auto] usually spike in the spring and the summer, particularly of motorcycles,” Walsh explained. “Usually it will die down when the cold weather comes around, but this year it hasn’t because the weather hasn’t been too bad.

Walsh also notes that of the 11, three were cases in which the driver left the keys in the ignition while away from their vehicles.

While most of the year-to-date crime numbers may be a simple aberration, Walsh does not qualify Savinski’s murder, which she calls “a tragedy.”

“The scene was processed from top to bottom,” Walsh assured. “Even though we had a confession, you want to make sure you have all the physical evidence to back it up. One is one too many.”

Mild winter weather has contributed to a dramatic jump in car thefts on the UES, the 19th Precinct commander said. Photo: David Noonan

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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STOLEN ATV ARREST

STATS FOR THE WEEK

On Sunday afternoon, Feb. 23, officers responded to a radio dispatch concerning a disabled All Terrain Vehicle in front of 345 East 80th St. A computer check showed that the vehicle had been reported stolen in Prospect Park.

According to police, the male driver said the ATV belonged to his friend and he was waiting for a tow because it broke down. Geridson Abreu, 27, was arrested and charged with criminal possession of stolen property. The recovered vehicle was a Yamaha YZF450R Sport ATV valued at $10,153.

Reported crimes from the 19th precinct for the week ending Feb 23

BOGUS CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT OPENED Police said that on Friday, Feb. 14, a woman living on East 87th St. received an email from her bank about a recent change in her credit report. She then realized that someone had opened a credit card using her Social Security number without permission or authority. The victim was later informed that the card had been used to make purchases

Two Good Samaritans interceded and saved a delivery man’s ebike, police said. At 8:05 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 21, a delivery man locked his bike to a metal sign post in

SUSPECT CHARGED WITH PACKAGE THEFT At 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 22, police said, officers responding to a radio report saw a man holding multiple

2019 % Change

1 1

0 3

n/a -66.7

2 2

2 1

0.0 100.0

38 20

22 18

72.7 11.1

Grand Larceny

9 33

7 25

28.6 32.0

46 279

41 239

12.2 16.7

Grand Larceny Auto

1

0

n/a

9

2

Felony Assault

WITNESSES HELP POLICE NAB SUSPECTED EBIKE THIEF

2020

2019 % Change

n/a n/a

Robbery

front of 215 East 68th St. While he was inside the building making deliveries, polices said, a man got on the bike and tried to drive it away.

According to police, two men saw what was happening and stopped the suspect and held him until police arrived. Marvin Lemus, 35, was arrested and charged with grand larceny.

The ebike was valued at $1,650.

2020

0 0

Rape

on three different days at the Macy’s Herald Square store and there was a balance on the fraudulent card of $3,343.93. The ID thief had used the victim’s previous address – her parents’ home – to open the account.

Year to Date

0 1

Murder

Photo by Tony Webster, via Flickr

Week to Date

Burglary

packages outside 319 East 78th St. A woman told police that she saw the suspect remove a package from that building, and police determined that the package, which contained 7 shirts totaling $119, belonged to a resident of the building.

Christophe Greene, 58, was arrested and charged with burglary. Police said he was a suspect in several previous burglaries as well.

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POLICE

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BODEGA CATS AND A REZONING MISSTEP EAST SIDE OBSERVER

BY ARLENE KAYATT

Rezoning happens - I’m hoping that CB8’s zoning committee’s vote to reject the Mansion Restaurant’s application for a rezoning isn’t followed by the full board on March 18th. The 70-plus-years-old familyowned restaurant wants to rezone for an unenclosed outdoor cafe east of 86th St. and York Ave. The Mansion’s been in the same location with the same family ownership since the 1940s. In the 1970s, when Our Town began publishing, the Mansion was a regular advertiser. Their ads were business-sized cards that appeared weekly along with 15 to 20 other restaurant and dining-related ads. Of all those restaurants, only the Mansion is still in business. Longevity and commitment to a community should be considered when deciding the merits of any rezoning application.

Maz Mezcal, a Mexican restaurant on East 86th St., was previously granted a rezoning for an outdoor cafe. I have no doubt that the rezoned outdoor cafe has made it possible for them to still stand and stay in business. The same goodwill and faith consideration should be given to the Mansion.

Small businesses along York Ave - between 86th and 87th

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- on the street where the Mansion is located - are mostly gone. And having a responsibly run unenclosed outdoor cafe off the corner, where the sidewalk is wide enough to accommodate local street traffic, will enhance and benefit the community.

Bodega cats - Gentrification takes its toll on pets as well as people. The NY Times’s recent article about bodegas, included a photo op of a resident bodega cat curled up in front of a row of bodega/grocery shelves. I’ve always had a soft spot for these felines in residence, some in shoe repair shops, others in groceries and bodegas. Back in the ‘80s, when instant - maybe seconds or minutes - Polaroids were in vogue, I snapped a picture of bodega kitten snuggled on a shelf among the wares for sale at a bodega (not the photo above) . With mom and pop type businesses on the wane, cats no longer find homes on shelves. The pretty bodega kitty’s shelf life has long since expired, as has the bodega, which was located in a now tony Bushwick. In its place, I’d bet, is a mega-supermarket like Morton Williams or Whole Foods where there’s no shelf life for a resident cat.

Cootie mom - Sharing has gone too far when a mom sits with her 8-year-oldish child in a Dunkin D’s, seated

A big, fat bodega cat, on duty.

Photo: Matt MacGillivray via Flickr

in a counter seat facing the avenue, where passersby along with other customers, can see her with a tweezer in hand as she removes ‘things’ from her son’s hair, then inspects, photographs and sends each ‘thing’ to whomever. It’s not only gross and disgusting, but raises public health issues. There are ways to handle louse-y issues, mom, but not in public!

So sorry dept - Several readers advised that “I got it wrong.” In a recent column, I wrote that POTUS’s change of residence - from NY to Florida - would take effect after he left the presidency.

Wrong. It’s a done deal.

POTUS is now a Floridian.

PROMOTE TOLERANCE IN A TIME OF XENOPHOBIA THE PUBLIC EYE

BY JON FRIEDMAN

A Chinese college student in one of my classes this semester appeared to be fighting back tears as she recounted an episode from life on campus. It seems that last week she was taking a bus, with plenty of empty seats, from one end of campus to the other. She suddenly noticed that other students glances were fixed on her a few seconds longer than usual. Then she had a crushing epiphany.

“Nobody wanted to sit anywhere near me on the bus,“ she said, still – days later – unnerved by the moment. “They seemed to move as far away from me as they could.”

Within minutes, other Chinese-born and ChineseAmerican students in the class were chiming in about similar jarring experiences in campus dining halls, classrooms and other familiar settings.

The global outbreak of the coronavirus, which had spread to 65 countries and infected nearly 90,000 people at press time, is scary.

But the hidden story, which, sadly, has also been gaining a lot of traction, is the social aspect of the virus. The illness had its origins in the Wuhan section of China and the sometimes deadly disease has unleashed a torrent of xenophobia, directed at people who might be Chi-

nese.

Underscoring the sense of widespread overreaction on campus, a student the other day emailed my teaching assistant to say he had to miss class because he was sick – BUT NOT, he felt a need to stress, WITH THE VIRUS.

The Role of Educators Teaching is more than grading papers, giving lectures, assigning homework and taking attendance. It’s up to educators to assume leadership positions in the classrooms, too.

I happen to be teach sections of a class highlighting leadership, diversity and race relations. The stories about the xenophobia have dominated our classroom discussions.

I’ve reminded my students that any of society’s “isms” – racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and the like – item from ignorance and fear. Bigots don’t want to get to know you as an individual and prefer, pathetically, to view you as a member of a group.

Compounding this, they are afraid of the unknown and so they imagine the worst about you.

I told the Chinese students that racists target them because they, the racists, are afraid, not because the students have anything to apologize for.

Internationalization Xenophobia directed toward Chinese and other Asian students is an ongoing challenge because of the

numbers of visitors coming to study in the U.S. Increasingly, universities are recognizing that they can make a nice windfall by enrolling foreign-born students. They can charge them more, and, if the prospective students’ home governments help subsidize their education here, it can turn out to be a nice sum.

An Opportunity to Do the Right Thing As terrible as the corninavirus outbreak is, it gives us an opportunity to remember to guard vigilantly against xenophobia. If another pandemic breaks out in the future, it could be an entirely different ethnic group that gets the blame.

The growing fear touches us in unexpected ways. For example; I like to go to lunch in a slightly pricey Chinese restaurant in Midtown on occasion. I popped in recently at about 1:30 in the afternoon, confident that I could get a table since the lunch-hour rush would begin to subside.

As it turned out, the restaurant was practically empty. Surprised, I felt compelled to ask the hostess why the place was so empty. She gave me an ironic look that suggested, “You know the answer.”

Sorry to say, I had a clue.

The bottom line is: We must all work harder to promote tolerance and understanding. To quote the song, “What’s so funny ‘bout peace love and understanding.”

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▲HARPSICHORD: BYRON SCHENKMAN

FILM: ALMAYER’S FOLLY (2011)

▲19TH-CENTURY TEA TASTING

Kosciuszko Foundation 15 East 65th St 7:00 p.m. $40 This dazzling performer opens the Music Before 1800’s Harpsichord Festival with works by Frescobaldi and Domenico Scarlatti, famous Italian keyboard composers who define the beginning and end of the Baroque Era. mb1800.org 212-666-9266

FIAF Florence Gould Hall 22 East 60th St 7:00 p.m. $7-14 A tale of an occidental merchant, Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice.

Part of FIAF’s celebration of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. fiaf.org 212-355-6100

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum 421 East 61st St 1:30 p.m. $15-20 Hear about the history of the world’s most popular beverage and how it was prepared in early 19thcentury America. Historic teas and herbal infusions will be served on 19th-century ceramics, accompanied by period appropriate refreshments. mvhm.org 212-838-6878

MARCH 05-11,2020

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SUNSHINE. WATER. FRESH AIR. SPEND THE SUMMER OUTDOORS Sun 8

Mon 9

Tue 10

▲VAUGHAN WILLIAMS CHORAL FESTIVAL

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS

▼ZACK O’MALLEY GREENBURG: A-LIST ANGELS

Asia Society 725 Park Ave 8:30 a.m. $20-30 The negative economic impacts of the coronavirus came swiftly and will likely worsen as the outbreak continues. Economist Daniel Rosen sheds light on China’s economic trajectory in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and assesses the global ramifications. asiasociety.org 212-288-6400

Corner Bookstore 1313 Madison Ave 6:00 p.m. Free Through extensive reporting and exclusive interviews with stars, Forbes senior editor Zack O’Malley Greenburg takes an up-close-andpersonal look at the rise of celebrity investors and their impact on companies including AirBnB, Spotify, and Uber. cornerbookstorenyc.com 212-831-3554

Church of The Heavenly Rest 1085 Fifth Ave 4:00 p.m. $10-25 Since its first performance of Vaughan Williams’ choral work in 1954, the Canterbury Choral Society has explored many of his works. This selection will tell a harmonic and melodic story that will be simple at times, overwhelming at others, and beautiful to hear performed live. canterburychoral.org 212-289-3400

Wed 11 CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS FOOTWEAR (ADAPTED FOR USE) David Zwirner 34 East 69th St 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Free The exhibition by artist Christopher Williams features new photographs as well as distinctive wall treatments, hand-painted signs, printed ephemera, sculptures, and videos, referencing a wide range of source material including Ikea catalogues and coloring books. davidzwirner.com 212-201-0420

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Photo via National Institute on Aging

WALKING AND BRAIN HEALTH AGING

Research shows that how fast you walk at age 45 is linked to cognitive and physical well-being Walking speed at age 45 was associated not only with physical health but also with brain health in midlife and even early childhood, according to an National Institute on Aging-supported study. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, suggest that a simple test of how fast a person walks could be a helpful indicator of how both the body and brain are aging.

A team led by researchers at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, looked at data from 904 participants in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a population-based study that has followed 1,037 people born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. At the most recent assessment, researchers measured the 45-year-old participants’ physical and cognitive functioning and imaged their brains in an MRI scanner. All participants had their cognitive function first

measured at age 3.

Gait speed — how fast someone walks — is often used to test older adults’ physical capacity and to predict risk of future disease, disability and death. This study showed that gait speed could be used similarly in a younger population. Participants with slower gait speed had more physical limitations, such as weaker hand-grip strength and more difficulty getting up from a chair, than those who walked faster. Even their faces were rated as aging at a quicker rate.

In addition, participants with slower gait speed were aging faster, as measured by a set of 19 biomarkers that included body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, cardiorespiratory fitness and gum health. These biomarkers were measured at ages 26, 32, 38 and 45, allowing the researchers to assess how the participants had aged over time.

In terms of brain health, participants with slower gait speed had signs more typically found in older adults, the MRI results showed. Compared with participants who walked faster, they had a smaller brain, a thinner brain

cortex (which controls thinking, information processing and other brain functions) and more white matter hyperintensities — a sign of vascular disease and a risk factor for stroke and dementia. Participants with slower gait speed also performed worse on tests of memory, processing speed, reasoning and other cognitive functions.

Remarkably, participants who walked slowly at age 45 had performed relatively poorly on cognitive tests at age 3. Though many factors from diet to genetics may have influenced brain health over the years, this association suggests gait speed in middle age could be an indicator of lifelong brain health, the researchers concluded.

“Gait speed is a simple, inexpensive indicator of wellbeing across adulthood,” wrote Stephanie Studenski, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in an accompanying commentary. “Certainly, as the authors suggest, midlife adults with slow gait speed are a potential target for interventions to prevent latelife disability and dementia.”

Source: National Institute on Aging

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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2020

OTTY

Dr. Jonathan Avery Weill Cornell Medicine & NewYork-Presbyterian

Colin B. Bailey The Morgan Library and Museum

Charles Coutinho Sutton Area Community

Kathryn Coyne The Animal Medical Center

Our Town Thanks You

AWARDS Val Day 59E59 Theaters

Captain James Grismer FDNY Ladder 16

Galen Guengerich All Souls Unitarian Church

Dr. Carol Horowitz Mount Sinai Health System

Michael Kane Park East Kosher Market

Police Officer Brian Larkin NYPD 19th Precinct

The New York Community Trust

Tony Oroszlany Loyola School

Rabbi Sarah Reines Temple Shaaray Tefila

David Rodriguez Asphalt Green

Robert S. Schwartz Eneslow Shoes

Kerry Walk Marymount Manhattan Colleger

Sponsored by

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 DR. JONATHAN AVERY

SAVING LIVES AND FIGHTING STIGMA A leader in the emerging field of addiction psychiatry, he treats patients and educates the community, including his colleagues in healthcare, about the scourge of opioids

BY DAVID NOONAN

Dr. Jonathan Avery was in the right place at a bad time.

Avery, 40, began his medical education as the opioid epidemic was surging. “I broke my foot in med school, and I got 180 Percocet,” he said, cit-

ing a classic example of the kind of over-prescribing that helped drive the catastrophe that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the last 20 years.

Motivated by the unfolding public health disaster, Avery decided to become an addiction psychiatrist. His choice of specialty was questioned by some who thought he was wasting his medical education on people who were bound to relapse.

“Part of that was this old

Photo: David Noonan

narrative that addiction is not a part of medicine proper, that it’s handled in the support groups or elsewhere,” he said. “And part of it was the idea, you know, that these are

Val Day, 59E59 Theaters Charles Coutinho, Sutton Area Community Officer Brian Larkin, NYPD 19th Precinct The New York Community Trust and all the other 2020 OTTY Honorees!

East Midtown Partnership 875 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022 • 212-813-0030 EastMidtown.org

folks that don’t get better.”

But Avery didn’t see it that way. “It was silly from the beginning that we separated out addiction from the rest of medicine,” he said. “Now more than ever, as doctors, we need to step up and treat this as any chronic disease.

The reason I was encouraged as a young student is, I saw the most change with these folks versus others. I saw people get better.”

As a TKTK at New YorkPresbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, Avery is on the front lines of the opioid crisis, treating his patients with medications like Suboxone and methadone, as well as with private and group therapy sessions. When possible, he includes his patients’ families in his treatment plans.

He also has a robust outreach program that includes in-hospital sessions as well as visits to schools, bars and clubs, homeless shelters and community groups to raise awareness about addiction.

There is, for example, a monthly event in the pediatric clinic where parents and kids can learn about substance use.

Underscoring the lethality of opioids, including the fentanyl that has been coming into the U.S. from China and Mexico, Avery’s presentations include information about the use of Narcan for the emer-

You can’t be any kind of a doctor without encountering substance use on a daily basis.” gency treatment of overdose victims. As part of his efforts, he provides free Narcan kits for those who want them.

As Avery points out, the striking thing about the opiate epidemic, here and elsewhere around the country, is that no one is immune to it. “It spans the socio-economic spectrum, it spans race, gender, age,” he said. “There are areas in the South Bronx and Harlem and Staten Island that have received more publicity, and where the overdoses are more well documented. But we see quite a few people on the Upper East Side struggling with opioid misuse.”

One of the insidious things about opioid addiction, Avery said, especially when the drugs are prescribed by a physician, is that it tends to sneak up on a person. And healthcare providers can exacerbate the situation, he adds, because “people feel fearful to present because we haven’t provided good treatment options, or we haven’t been the friendly face of the medical community.”

In addition to working with his patients, Avery researches and writes about the stigma that people struggling with addiction experience in the healthcare system .

“My research has been on characterizing the attitudes of the medical community towards patients with substance use disorders,” he explained. “And it’s clear that attitudes are worse towards patients with these disorders than towards any other medical or psychiatric condition.”

It’s a common enough tendency, Avery acknowledges.

“Doctors aren’t different than anyone,” he said. We’re prone to the same societal biases, and we tend to be finger waggers.” To counter that, he holds educational events about stigma with doctors where they meet and hear from people who are in recovery. “We’re just trying to help them get a narrative that’s more hopeful, that’s more rounded, and make sure they have the necessary knowledge and skills.”

It’s simply impossible, Avery said, for a doctor today to avoid addiction in their practice. “You can’t be any kind of a doctor without encountering substance use on a daily basis. And so if you’re going to ignore it, you’re going to do your patients a disservice.”

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 KATHRYN COYNE

When those dogs come in and they go home with those [veterans], it’s like the best day of your life, honestly.”

Strengthening Communities

Photo: Corey Towers, courtesy of Animal Medical Center

CARING FOR THE ANIMALS

How Animal Medical Center CEO Kathryn Coyne saved the world’s largest non-profit veterinary hospital.

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

On a recent Wednesday, MRI technicians at the Animal Medical Center on East 62nd Street chatted excitedly about the return of some of their favorite patients — the Bronx Zoo penguins. Elsewhere in the building, an NYPD officer waited in the dermatology unit with his giddy canine partner, Petey, for a monthly allergy shot, while surgeons on another floor performed a groundbreaking feline kidney stone procedure pioneered at the center. In the elevator, the medical center’s CEO, Kathryn Coyne, comforted an older pet owner whose dog was undergoing treatment for lymphoma.

As the Animal Medical Center enters its 110th year in 2020, its team is looking forward to a $70 million building expansion and enjoys a thriving donor base, both of which seemed far out of reach when Coyne joined the team in 2010. Back then, the not-forprofit veterinary hospital, a world leader in specialty care, was facing challenges on multiple fronts.

The center confronted a funding crunch as pet owners reduced their spending on animal health care amidst the

financial crisis, while many of those who could afford to had begun taking their pets to the for-profit clinics springing up across the city - in part because the center’s excellent standard of care had been tarnished by a reputation for shoddy customer service.

Coyne’s job was to rescue a 100-year-old institution that provided lifesaving care to 26,000 animals a year.

“Nobody wants to invest in a sinking ship, no matter how much they care about something, and we really were at a very desperate, I would say, point in time back in 2008, 2009 up till 2010,” Coyne says.

Fresh off a decades-long career in hospital strategic planning and turnaround management, she got to work recruiting donors and attracting clients back to the center with a culture change.

“Sometimes people forget that there’s somebody at the end of the leash that’s actually the person that’s paying the bill and can actually communicate with you, so it took a little bit of time to kind of reeducate people in terms of the importance of customer satisfaction, which in my soul, I felt was really the key to success,” she explains.

Coyne’s drive to advocate for patients and their caretakers brought her to work in hospitals in the first place.

Originally a journalist by training, Coyne got involved

in health care after the birth of her daughter, who was born with spina bifida. Coyne spent 27 years in human health care management, focusing on “patient care and patient satisfaction.”

As it had in hospitals before, Coyne’s advocacy and focus on relationship-building paid off. Today the Animal Medical Center treats upwards of 56,000 creatures a year with the help of loyal donors and partnership programs with neighboring hospitals including Cornell Weill, NYU Medical Center, and Memorial Sloane Kettering — which worked with the center to develop a cure for melanoma in animals as it works towards a human antidote.

The AMC has also expanded its charity care under Coyne’s leadership, including the Seniors’ Animal Veterinary Effort (SAVE) which subsidizes care for the pets of seniors on fixed incomes, and “401Canine” providing free health care for dogs returning from active military duty and veterans’ service animals.

“When those veterans come in and that dog is their only lifeline, and you save it for them or extend the quality of life for them so that they don’t have to be separated ...

When those dogs come in and they go home with those people, it’s like the best day of your life, honestly,” says Coyne.

CON EDISON IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE

OTTY Awards AND CONGRATULATE ITS 2020 HONOREES

Everything Matters

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 REV. GALEN GUENGERICH

ENCOURAGING ‘DEEDS NOT CREEDS’

Under the senior minister’s leadership, the Unitarian Church of All Souls has expanded into social-justice work

BY MELINDA BECK

It’s a rainy Monday night in February. About 100 hungry men and women are huddled in the courtyard of the Unitarian Church of All Souls, waiting for the church’s weekly free dinner service to begin.

For many of them, this is the best part of the day.

A tall man in a green apron with “Rev. Galen” embroidered on the front works his way through the line, offering hot chocolate and a smile.

“Thank you, Reverend, and bless you,” one man says.

“That’s Rev. Galen - he’s my friend,” says another.

Rev. Galen enjoys it too.

“Any problems I think I have in my life just disappear after I’ve been here for about five minutes,” he says.

The rest of the week might find Galen Guengerich, senior minister of All Souls, a 200year old Unitarian Universalist congregation on the Upper East Side, preparing a Sunday sermon, meeting with prospective members or writing his column on “The Search for Meaning” for psychologytoday.com. Some weeks, he attends programs at the Council on Foreign Relations or meets with the Partnership for Faith in New York City, a group of clergy from a variety of traditions who work to ease tensions among the city’s religious and ethnic communities.

Several times a year, Guen-

gerich (pronounced “Gingrich”) travels to Israel where he leads the “Humanities in Conflict Zones” initiative at Tel Aviv University, which puts future Jewish and Palestinian leaders together as they study the region’s history and culture in hopes of forging developing new perspectives.

These days, Guengerich is also preparing for the publication of his second book, “The Way of Gratitude: A New Spirituality for Today,” in May. At a time when nearly one-third of Americans describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” the book is a guide forbeing spiritually fulfilled through the practice of gratitude.

His previous book, “God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age,” ad-

The 19th Precinct Community Council congratulates

BRIAN LARKIN, Community Affairs Officer 19th Precinct on achieving his OTTY Award.

19th Precinct Community Council Nick Viest President Kathy Jolowicz Vice President Bridie O’Reilly Treasurer

Susan Gotteridge Secretary Abbie Sheridan Asst. Secretary David Gillespie Sergeant of Arms

I think we are ready to move beyond being all things to all people and develop a distinctive identity.” dressed the disconnect between traditional religious teaching and the modern secular approach to life based on science and reason.

Both are part of Guengerich’s efforts to develop a unique theological identity for Unitarian Universalism, which embraces people of all beliefs, including atheism, and encourages “deeds not creeds.”

“Some people think we’re the place in the center of the Venn diagram of religions where everything overlaps,” he says. “But I think we are ready to move beyond being all things to all people and develop a distinctive identity.”

That quest has made Guengerich one of the leading voices in the Unitarian Universalist Association and a popular speaker at its annual convention.

Guengerich took an unusual path to his Manhattan ministry. He was born on a dairy farm in central Delaware into a community of Conservative Mennonites, who are somewhat more mainstream than traditional Amish. (“We had electricity, for example, but no television,” he explains.) His father, six uncles and a dozen of his first cousins or their spouses were Mennonite ministers and he was expected to follow suit. But he struggled to fit the Mennonite mold and found Unitarian Universalism while studying for his PhD at the University of Chicago and relished the chance to forge his own spiritual path.

After serving at a small UU congregation in Lincroft, N.J.,

Photo: Mitchel Gray

Guengerich was hired as an Assistant Minister at All Souls in 1993 and was called as Associate Minister two years later. There he met his wife, Dr. Holly Atkinson, a physician, journalist and crusader for human rights who now works at the City University of New York, training young doctors to practice in underserved areas. Guengerich served alongside Rev. Forrest Church at All Souls and succeeded him as senior minister in 2007 after Church was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

All Souls was already wellknown for its social-service programs. Its Monday Night Hospitality and Friday Soup Kitchen, for example, have served meals to 300 to 400 community members every week since the 1980s.

Under Guengerich’s ministry, the church has expanded into social-justice work as well, advocating for immigration and LGBTQA rights and

against racism, economic injustice and sex trafficking.

While those programs are now led by Associate Minister Audette Fulbright, Guengerich occasionally joins picket lines himself, such as the 2012 protest against a Village Voice-owned classified ad site being used to facilitate sex trafficking. “Seeing Galen out there was one of my proudest moments as a Unitarian Universalist,” says Betty McCollum, a longtime All Souls member and former trustee. The site later closed under pressure from law enforcement agencies.

“When Galen speaks, people listen,” says Peter Rubinstein, Rabbi Emeritus of Central Synagogue, now Director of Jewish Community at the 92nd Street Y and a past co-chair of the Partnership of Faith in New York City.

“He’s a thinker who uses his intelligence to prompt activities that make this community and this world better.”

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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Weill Cornell Medicine & NewYork-Presbyterian congratulate Dr. Jonathan Avery & all of the 2020 OTTY award recipients.

Care That Connects To You.

Jonathan Avery, M.D. Director of Addiction Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and Attending Psychiatrist at

Visit weillcornell.org and nyp.org

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 THE NEW YORK COMMUNITY TRUST

HOW NEW YORKERS PAY IT FORWARD

Participants in the citywide Cool Culture program that NYCT helped fund. Photo: Margarita Corporan

The New York Community Trust finances projects to build a better city for tomorrow, using the generosity of generations past

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

Francis Florio was a widower who made his living in real estate. He passed away in the early 1970s, and details about his life are hard to come by these days, except for one fact: Mr. Florio had a friend who died of a blood disorder, and in her memory he endowed a fund for the study of blood diseases with the New York Community Trust in 1974.

A decade later, when local government was struggling to respond to a mysterious new disease spreading through the city, the Trust was prepared. It drew from The Francis Florio Fund to issue one of the first private grants for research into HIV/AIDS. Thanks to the New York Community Trust’s stewardship, Florio’s gift continued to support AIDS research through the 1980s and ‘90s, and his bequest continues finance research and clinical trials in New York City to this day, paving the way for future breakthroughs dec-

ades after his death.

For New York Community Trust President Lorie Slutsky, stories like Florio’s show how the Trust powers local philanthropy by channeling New Yorkers’ generosity to respond to the city’s immediate, long-term and future needs.

“What’s kind of unique about my job is that the role of a community foundation evolves naturally with the community,” says Slutsky. “Our mission is to improve the quality of life for all of those who live and work here. The things we are challenged to make better or support are really driven by the changing nature of New York.”

Few New Yorkers have watched the city change as closely as Slutsky, who has been working with the Trust since 1977 and under whose leadership the organization’s endowment has grown exponentially.

Founded in 1924, the Trust’s first charitable fund was established with just $1,000; today the foundation’s endowment is almost $3 billion.

In 2019 alone, the Trust issued more than 11,000 grants to individuals and organizations working on causes ranging from heroin addic-

tion treatment on Staten Island to a Long Island c a m p a i g n against singleThe things use plastic. Using we are the Trust’s genchallenged eral fund, the to make foundation was better or also able to make support are funds available really driven quickly following city emergencies by the including Sepchanging tember 11th and nature of Hurricane Sandy.

New York.”

Thanks to the size of the Trust’s endowment, it sustains long-term relationships with many of its grantees.

“I think I can say that the funding we have received from the Trust is one of the reasons we’re still here after 50 years,” says Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children, a charity that has worked with the New York Community Trust over a decade.

“They really understand New York City,” Sweet adds. She points out the Trust’s mastery of the city’s

complex government and non-profit sectors, as well as its appreciation for New York’s unique “vibrancy.”

“What I find the most rewarding is, because I have this kind of 100foot perspective, I can identify these challenges by being in the community and doing site visits and getting a sense of what’s going on on the ground, and then link up with organizations that are all working on a similar issue and then bring them together to focus on the systemic,” says Rachel Pardoe, a program manager at the Trust. “I think that’s a really exciting place to be,” Since 2015, Pardoe has worked on the Access-a-Ride Reform Group, an initiative to improve public transportation for New Yorkers with disabilities. AARG grew out of the frequent complaints about unreliable service and long delays in the city’s paratransit program that Pardoe heard about from partner organizations working in the field.

Issuing grants from its general fund, the Trust helped four local organizations hire staff to lobby the MTA, and within a year the transportation authority had committed to testing a ride-hailing service for New York-

ers with disabilities. Now in its fourth year, AARG is pressing the MTA to expand the on-demand ride service and empower more New Yorkers with disabilities to participate in civic life.

“Our goal is to try to share with our donors a broader view of charitable needs in New York,” says Slutsky. “We try to let them all know that the New York Community Trust, because of its real focus in New York and because it has got a deep bench of staff expertise, can really help turn donors’ interest to work. It’s not only meeting today’s problems, but it has the ability to meet tomorrow’s problems, things we never thought about.”

When Francis Florio wrote that he wanted to “hasten the conquest of human misery and physical suffering,” he could never have conceived of the AIDS crisis or the role his fund would play in fighting it. But thanks to the New York Community Trust, Florio and thousands more New Yorkers are able to reach a helping hand far into the future.

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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Kenneth L. Davis MD and the Mount Sinai Health System Congratulate

Valerie Orellana, R.N, M.S and all OTTY award recipients

Sabina Lim, MD MD MPH MPH,and all the 2020 2019 OTTY Award Recipients Carol Horowitz And thank them for their service to their local communities

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 VAL DAY

BRINGING NEW VOICES TO THE STAGE As artistic director of 59E59, she seeks out original plays and works to build trust with the audience

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

For creatives trying to make it in New York, a time often comes when you realize that things aren’t quite working out as you had imagined, and, inexplicably, the rent is due.

Val Day had to confront this predicament about two years into working as a freelance director. By that time, she was 36 and had already lived several different lives as a bookstore owner and theater director in Florida.

But over the course of her graduate studies at the University of California at San Diego, she was inspired by shows like the “X Files” and “Six Feet Under,“ and she realized she wanted to direct for television. But the debt she accrued from her degree was making it impossible to live without a study income.

“I had $28 in the bank,” said Day. She advises anyone saddled with student loans to do what she did then, in the late 90s: make a list of all of the jobs associated with your interests that pay actual money.

It worked out for Day. She leveraged a job as an assistant at William Morris into a long and successful career as a top agent in their theatrical literary department. Those 20 years of reading scripts and representing talent turned out to be the perfect preparation for her current role as the artistic director of 59E59 Theaters, a nonprofit foundation on the Upper East Side.

In 2004, 59E59 opened as a space for both emerging and established theater companies to reach New York audiences. The foundation partners with these companies by offering highly subsidized rental rates, as well as support with production, marketing and press. The theater companies still receive 100 percent of their net

We can reallyly alter the experience nce of mer.” each customer.

She’s slowly been trying to expand the comfort zone of the theater’s traditional audience.

Photo courtesy of Eneslow Pedorthic Enterprises

OTTY HONOREE 2020 ROBERT SCHWARTZ

Photo: Nathaniel Johnson

box office sales.

The founder of the theater, Elysabeth Kleinhans, envisioned the space as an affordable place for playwrights and companies to show their new stuff in New York. Subsequently, 59E59 only hosts off Broadway productions, meaning no revivals, adaptations of stage classics or stage classics.

It’s now Day’s job to curate the 30 plays 59E59 presents each year. She reads scripts and travels to see shows being staged that could be presented at the theater.

What she’s had to learn over her three-year tenure at the theater is how to choose productions that are doing something different, and will also sell tickets.

“I might see a show and think it’s awesome, but I can’t sell tickets to that,” said Day. So, slowly, she’s been trying to expand the comfort zone of the theater’s traditional audience, and offer them new or unusual storytelling.

“I’m really trying to bring in things that are satisfying on the linear story level that also push our typical audience into understanding that there are different forms of storytelling that aren’t

scary,” said Day. “It’s just incrementally building that trust with them.”

In doing so, Day hopes to elevate 59E59 beyond its reputation as simply a rental house. She thinks the uptick in quality is already evident, especially with the upcoming shows. On March 12, the theater will present the OffBroadway premiere of Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow’s musical “Whisper House,“ produced by The Civilians.

Additionally, Day is working on a showcase that she said has never been done before in the city. Starting in the fall of 2020, the theater will be presenting the OffBroadway debut of three separate works from the same playwright. The writer, who has yet to be announced, is a woman who comes from a group with an underrepresented voice in the industry, according to Day, and has mostly been produced regionally.

“The idea here was there are so many amazing writers who get pooh-poohed and aren’t allowed to be done in New York,” said Day, adding that this kind of showcase would give that writer an opportunity to make a splash.

And that’s really what the founding mission of 59E59 Theaters is all about.

A BUSINESS BUILT ON STRONG FOUNDATIONS For more than 40 years, Eneslow’s Robert Schwartz has helped New Yorkers keep it moving in style and comfort

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

In February, a customer came to Eneslow Shoes and Orthotics with a dilemma: Diagnosed with early-stage dementia, exercise was the best treatment doctors could recommend, but this customer was stuck. His big toes stuck up in the air, making off-theshelf shoes impossible to wear. But Eneslow President and CEO Robert Schwartz and his team had a solution.

“We made him a beautiful pair of blue suede walking shoes, but with much more style to them” and featuring “nice, big toe box,” and cushioning to accommodate the customer’s gait, Schwartz explains. “We’ve given him back his life.”

At 79 years old, Schwartz’s personal history is a catalogue of similar stories of collaborative problem-solving on issues both small and large, punctuated with awards for civic virtue, of which his 2020 OTTY is just the latest.

In December 2019, New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney recognized Eneslow in the Congressional Record as a “true New York City institu-

tion that has been fitting residents … with stylish and comfortable footwear for over a century” and Schwartz personally as “fourth generation footwear maven.”

Schwartz returned to his family’s custom footwear empire in 1973, after a successful career in sales and marketing management at International Playtex Corp, and quickly became a global authority on foot health.

“I am virtually the father of pedorthics,” Schwartz says. “I was in the first graduating class in 1974. Even though there were pedorthists before, that was when the credentialing started.

I’m certainly, in terms of still actively in practice, in practice the longest, and have been one of the primary educators, trainers, mentors and leaders for the profession for at least the last 40 years.”

His claims are not boastful.

Schwartz has served at various times on the boards of the Pedorthic Footcare Association, the Shoe Retailers League and the National Shoe Retailers Association, while also consulting for U.S. and European footwear brands.

Schwartz has held faculty positions at almost a dozen pedorthic programs including UCLA, Northwestern University and New York University Medical Center. As of 2019 he was an adjunct professor at

the New York College of Podiatric Medicine.

The self-proclaimed “hyper, Type A” store owner has also devoted a great deal of his boundless energy to New York City’s small business sector, with specific attention to business environment on the Upper East Side.

As a board member of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Schwartz worked to eliminate the city’s Commercial Rent Tax. In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio — reportedly a longtime Eneslow customer — acknowledged Schwartz at the signing of the Fairness to Small Business legislation.

Schwartz also served on the executive committee of the 23rd Street Association until 2009.

As consumers increasingly turn away from local stores and towards online retailers for their shoes, Eneslow, like other small businesses, has seen its revenue shrink, but remains viable, unlike so many brick-and-mortar operations by the singular impact its products have on customers’ well-being.

“The only reason I’m still in business is because of the uniqueness of Eneslow, that we provide this very special service where we make custom shoes. We make orthotics. When we sell regular shoes, we can make them fit perfectly,” Schwartz says with passion. “We can really alter the experience of each customer. Even when they’re buying a branded shoe that they could buy online, when they buy it from us, we convert it into something that really makes a difference in their lives.”

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 CHARLES COUTINHO

A VOICE FOR SUTTON PLACE As president of SAC, Charles Coutinho is concerned about maintaining the character of the neighborhood

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

To Charles Coutinho, Sutton Place offers an air and demeanor of an older New York.

The quiet coziness of the Upper East Side enclave suits Coutinho’s own sensibility as a former academic and current businessman. And it’s the desire to preserve the neighborhood’s old world charm that drives him in his role as president of Sutton Area Community.

Long before getting involved in community affairs, Coutinho earned a doctorate from New York University, writing his dissertation in diplomatic history and AngloAmerican relations in the 1950s. He taught at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, but found the industry was not very sustainable.

“Genteel poverty is not something that you can stand very long, particularly as you get a little bit older,” said Coutinho. “If I had been willing to live in places like Kansas or Wyoming or Nebraska, I could have continued, but I had made a determination very early on that I didn’t really want to leave New York.”

Coutinho took over an existing family reality business that had been operating out of Westchester, repositioning it to purchase buildings in Manhattan. He’s been managing the business now for 22 years.

For about 10 years, Coutinho and his wife have called Sutton Place home. He became a member of Sutton

Area Community (SAC) — a group that aims to “actively engage residents and business establishments in efforts to maintain and enhance the quality of life” in Sutton Place — in 2012. By 2016, he was recruited to the board by the group’s former president, Bernard Dworkin.

“They said they were looking for younger members, and I think only for certain perspectives can I be described as young,” joked the 56-yearold.

By January 2017, the board elected Coutinho to be their next president.

Currently, there are two main issues Coutinho and the board have eyed as risks to maintaining the character of Sutton Place: the 847-foot Sutton Tower being constructed at 430 East 58th Street and plans for a bridge that would cut through Clara Coffey Park on 54th Street.

SAC has not taken the lead in fighting either issue, Coutinho said, but he said the group is playing a supportive role. The East River 50s Alliance has been the main organization fighting the developers of the tower on 58th Street, which neighbors feel is much taller than the existing buildings in the neighborhood.

At Clara Coffey Park, which is mostly frequented by an older population, the city plans to install a bridge that will connect the East River esplanade to 54th Street, and a ramp to the bridge will cut through a corner of the park.

Residents are worried about the cycling traffic that will bring through the typically sedate park. Cannon Point Preservation Corporation has sued the city to shut the pro-

ject down.

“It’s the only park that for elderly people, and Sutton Place has an older demographic than the average city neighborhood,” said Coutinho. “It’s the only part that they don’t have to climb any steps. And that’s very important for the neighborhood for our members.”

Contesting the project at the park has been one of SAC’s biggest challenges, Coutinho said, adding that he has been surprised at how challenging it’s been to get elected officials to take an interest in the neighborhood’s concerns about the park.

“I would say it has been very frustrating and a little bit depressing that in an instance where the community is so vociferously opposed to such a project, it doesn’t really count,” said Coutinho.

The community expects a ruling on Cannon Point’s latest challenge in March.

One thing Coutinho thinks could help strengthen SAC as a voice in the city in the future is the addition of younger members to its ranks.

“It’s difficult … to deal with the change in how younger people — under the age of 40 — relate to these types of groups,” said Coutinho.

He thought the lack of participation among the younger generation to some extent could be explained by their use of social media and technology. A December tree lighting and egg hunt in the spring has engaged younger families, but they’re still working toward ways to recruit them as members.

“I think it will be the case that we will resolve it, but it’s still a work in progress.”

Coutinho has been surprised at how challenging it’s been to get elected officials to take an interest in the neighborhood concerns about Clara Coffey Park.

Photo: Emily Higginbotham

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 FDNY CAPTAIN JAMES GRISMER

A CALLING ANSWERED Photo: Courtesy of FDNY

A Christmas Eve rescue epitomizes 25 years of vigilance, courage and service to the community

BY JALEN CROSBY

“A calling that I don’t take lightly at all,” is how Ladder 16’s Captain James “Jim Grismer describes his experience “Jim” N York City firefighter. Grismer as a New hails from a family of decorated firefight fighters, with his father and uncle each prov providing over 20 years of service to their communities.

As a 21-year-old senior at Oswego State Grismer was unclear about his State, purp purpose in life. He recounts his moment en of enlightenment.

“I read a book about firef firefighters in the early ‘70s South Bronx, which happened to be a really tough time period. The stories and perspectives from that book pushed me to become what I am today.” Grismer began his career in 1995 with Ladder 13 in Yorkville, keeping that book, “Report from Engine Co. 82” by Dennis Smith, in his mind.

Grismer worked his way up to captain and is dedicated to serving the Upper East Side – “a lively neighborhood, fun to work in” – where he has spent a total

of 16 years during his 25-year career.

Asked about the challenge of progressing through the ranks, he simply said, “Difficult, yet rewarding.” He then added, “I’ve always wanted to challenge myself my whole career.”

There is no greater challenge for a firefighter, and no experience more satisfying, than saving a life. Capt. Grismer recalls the “most rewarding” moment of his career. It was a calm, early morning last Christmas Eve. Grismer was unwinding, preparing to spend the day with his family, when the station received an alarm for smoke in a subway station. Shortly after, Ladder 16 confirmed that the smoke in the subway was due to an ongoing fire in a nearby building, at 400 East 56th Street.

Upon arriving at the 40-story building, Capt. Grismer, alongside firefighters Leonardo Campo and Paul Vellucci, was met by building personnel, who told him the fire originated in an apartment on the 28th floor. “It was another day on the job”, Grismer says, before further detailing the events of that morning.

“After gaining entry, we were met with high heat and clutter behind the front door while making a push inside to search for life. Upon finding the per-

I’ve always wanted to challenge myself my whole career.” son covered by debris, we immediately cleared a path to facilitate the rescue of this individual and assist the Engine Company with advancing the hose line to extinguish the fire.” The victim, a woman in her 60s, was found unconscious with no pulse and was not breathing. Firefighters then worked with EMS personnel to safely revive her.

Grismer recalls the drive home on Christmas Eve. “It was truly a special feeling, you know, like you just saved someone’s life. It was invigorating.” He went on to enjoy the rest of his day with his wife and children.

In 25 years, Grismer has never shied away from his calling, but he enjoys time with his family. When he’s not responding to fires, he’s driving his daughter to lacrosse practice, taking his son to Boy Scouts, or teaching, courses on fire safety. Jim is just a “busy dad” who has a passion for serving his community.

Congratulations

Tony Oroszlany ’87 Your tireless work as President has preserved and strengthened Loyola School academically and spiritually.

Your example of generosity has touched us all and truly developed our students into “Women and Men for Others.”

The Loyola School Community

MARCH 05-11, 2020

19

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 DAVID RODRIGUEZ

A NOBLE PURSUIT Asphalt Green’s aquatics director helps his young athletes handle the pressure of competing for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

David Rodriguez’s job comes with a unique pressure most people cannot relate to.

As the Senior Director of Aquatics at Asphalt Green, Rodriguez oversees all of the organization’s water programs, from adult swim to free lessons to the city’s public school students. But part of that job is serving as the head coach of AGUA, Asphalt Green’s highly competitive swim team that in the past has produced Olympic medalists.

This year, Rodriguez has three swimmers who have qualified to compete at the Olympic trials, which will determine Being able whether or to not they make it understand onto Team that failure USA for the isn’t a Olympics negative in Tokyo thing this July. allows us to F i g u r i n g really push out how to navigate the that presenvelope.” sure with his athletes as they prepare for the trials is a big part of his job.

“They’re not naive to the pressure of the situation,” Rodriguez said of his athletes.

“And a lot of what we try to do is create a scenario where they’re very matter of fact

David Rodriguez has three swimmers who have qualified for the Olympic Trials this year.

Photo: Courtesy of Asphalt Green

about their performance.

They do their process of preparing to race the same way that they would do it at a meet that’s here. We try to keep everything almost on autopilot.”

Although he’s now playing a major role in shaping top caliber athletes, Rodriguez said he stumbled into coaching.

Originally from Miami, Rodriguez began swimming competitively at the age of eight. He continued through college, swimming at the University of Nevada. Upon graduation, he returned to south Florida, unsure of what his next step would be in life.

That’s when his former coach reached out looking for someone to help out at some practices.

A three-month stint turned into four years. He was recruited to coach at an elite

high school in Fort Lauderdale where he worked for another three years, before ambition took him to Manhattan.

“I understood the South Florida swimming scene,” said Rodriguez. “And I was like, let me see if I can do it somewhere else. It was supposed to be, in my mind, a three or four year ordeal — it’ll be eight years in October.”

Rodriguez was promoted to head coach of AGUA after working with the team as an assistant coach for three years. In 2017, Rodriguz was made director of all of Asphalt Green’s aquatics programming.

In his leadership role, Rodriguez has tried to put his mark on the elite program, both with his swimmers’ training and their mentality.

Two years ago, the team did away with early morning workouts, which Rodriguez said is rare for the sport. With their academic workloads, his swimmers weren’t getting enough sleep. As a result, it’s been two of his team’s most successful years.

With such great expectations for the program, Rodriguez also tries to manage the pressure put on his swimmers’ shoulders.

“I tell my athletes that failure is part of the process,” said Rodriguez. “I think being able to understand that failure isn’t a negative thing allows us to really push the envelope and try new things.”

Looking to the Olympic trials, Rodriguez and his team are looking forward to the challenge. In 2016, he had a 13-year-old swimmer compete for a spot on the team going to Rio, but she fell short.

Now 17, she’s preparing for another shot.

“We were absolute tourists last time we were there,” Rodriguez said. “Obviously, the expectations are different this time around.”

But no matter the results, Rodriguez is going to relish the opportunity.

“It’s a really noble pursuit, right? It’s something that not a lot of people get an opportunity to do,” Rodriguez said of his team’s Olympic dreams.

“We should have fun getting ready to be the best version of ourselves as possible.”

C O N G R AT U L AT E S OT T Y AWARD WINNER

DAVID RODRIGUEZ

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 TONY OROSZLANY SZLANY

EDUCATING THE WHOLE PERSON

As an alumnus of the institution he leads, Loyola School President Tony Oroszlany knows how a Jesuit education can enrich students for life.

OTTY HONOREE 2020 DR. CAROL HOROWITZ

HEALING FROM WITHIN Photo courtesy of Loyola School

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

“I was a little bit nerdy” Tony Oroszlany answers cheerfully when asked about his time as a student at Loyola School. “I loved school. I went on to be a history major in college, so history was likely one of my favorite subjects, but when I was here, I loved math as well. Where I was least talented, though I liked it a lot, was the arts.”

The conversation takes place in Oroszlany’s office on the ground floor of his high school alma mater, which he has led as president since 2011. The space is decorated with memorabilia from Oroszlany’s decades at Loyola School, from pictures of alums attending each other’s weddings to a portrait of Mrs. Oroszlany holding their newborn son that was photographed by Frederick Agnostakis, the school’s director of athletics. Every item evokes a spirit of community and love for Loyola that has grown deeper with time.

The Loyola School mission statement references cura personalis, a Jesuit principle translated as “care for the whole person.” It’s an approach Oroszlany models for his students, showing how Loyola not only honed his math skills and admiration for the arts, but also shaped his principled approach to leadership.

“I often say to say to our students: ‘I also want all of you to go on to be great professional successes and, you know, hopefully you’re a great teacher, hopefully a great doctor. You’ll be a great lawyer ...

But then you recognize that whatever you have, you can help others with as well.’ Our students seem to embrace that message. It’s an easier way to go about life, to be honest with you.”

Whatever you have, you can help others with as well ... our students seem to embrace that message.”

During his tenure as presid ent, Oroszlany has fostered Loyola’s community service programs, which send students out to perform acts of service as far afield as Baltimore and as close as the Mary Manning Walsh nursing home on East 56th Street.

After graduating from Loyola in 1987, Oroszlany completed his undergraduate degree at Georgetown University, but the Upper East Side native soon returned to Loyola, joining the staff in 1994 and sticking around until 2001, during which time he also completed an MBA at Fordham University.

A business degree is a somewhat uncommon step for a school administrator, but it has proven useful.

“When I received my MBA …

I wasn’t imagining that I’d be the school’s leader, but I did recognize that some of what you would learn in receiving an MBA can be applied to notfor-profit management,” Oroszlany says.

He came home to Loyola most recently in 2003, putting his business skills to use as the school’s vice president for advancement and strategic planning before stepping into his current role.

Combining his managerial training and dedication to Loyola’s spirit, Oroszlany has overseen strategic initiatives — including the remodeling

of the school’s library, arts facilities, and science labs — that have helped Loyola maintain its competitive edge and holistic tradition.

“The manager I probably lean on the most is the founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius. He has so many thoughts that are 500 years old that still apply to us every day. He tells students: ‘Go forth and set the world afire.’ So just go out and capture it,” Oroszlany says. “He wants us as educators to influence those who will influence others. That’s going to be true a hundred years from now as well.”

While values remain the same, Oroszlany is far from stuck in the past. Even the teaching of Jesuit principles has evolved with the times.

Since priests, who used to embody the school’s spiritual core, have fallen into short supply since the 1970s and ‘80s, Jesuit schools have become more proactive in sharing their philosophical foundations, while also celebrating the “added dimension of learning” that comes from welcoming students of other faiths into the school community.

“The world they’re going out to is very different, Oroszlany says. "Ten years ago, the iPad was just starting. Ten years before that, you’re kind of getting used to computers ... They’re being prepared for a different world every step of the way."

“So often people see this generation as one who are too dependent upon technology, and I firmly disagree. I really believe that they are ready to lead the world. I think they’ll do a better job than we’ve ever done.”

How Dr. Carol Horowitz is breaking down barriers to help more patients — and doctors — thrive

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

Dr. Carol Horowitz’s office on the second floor of Mount Sinai’s Icahn Medical Institute overlooks NYCHA’s Carver Houses. The contrast between her office’s bright interior and the worn stone face of the public housing development is stark, but the view anchors a central aim of Horowitz’s medical career: making medicine more equitable, both within the profession and for the patients it serves.

As a physician, researcher and advocate, Horowitz has received awards from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Lighthouse International, Academy for the Public’s Health and many more. Today, she divides her work life into three buckets. She is, fundamentally, a primary care doctor, and despite her growing list of titles and responsibilities, she still carves out time to see patients at Mount Sinai’s clinic on East 101st Street, as well as a researcher and advocate for culture change within the medical profession.

Much of Horowitz’s time is devoted to research geared toward improving health outcomes within underserved populations. But as a professor of population health science and policy at the Icahn School of Medicine, she isn’t looking for answers via microscopes or biopsies. Instead, she’s starting conversations.

“The approach is called community-based participatory research,” she explains.

“Who am I to figure out what’s going on in Harlem and take care of it by myself?

The idea of communitybased participatory research is that at the table with me as real partners are people from the communities, are the priority populations I’m working with.”

Photo: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

How lucky are you that people trust you with their lives? What an honor and a privilege that is.”

Depending on the project, her partners can include stakeholders ranging from pastors and community group leaders to app developers and insurance representatives.

“Think about any problem and say, ‘Who should be around the table so we can figure out what’s broken?’

We can do something about it, and if we find something that works, we can sustain it.

We can find roots in the community to let it continue.”

In January, Horowitz got to witness one of her community-based initiatives materialize with the opening of an “Adult Fitness Zone” at the Carver Houses. The project brought together residents, NYCHA officials, Mount Sinai, and The Trust for Public Land to plan and

construct an outdoor gym, with plans for additional programming to be provided later in the year.

For Horowitz, the reward was in making one group feel seen. “When we had our opening, even though it was a little cold out, it was a bunch of young guys,” she recalls. “Young black men and young Latino men are not who we usually target health stuff on, and this is what I’m saying: ‘This is for you. You want this, you have this.’ So that’s what’s really nice.”

Horowitz’s advocacy isn’t reserved for the world outside of Mount Sinai, however. In 2019 she was appointed Dean for Gender Equity in Science and Medicine, a role she is the first to hold. As dean, her primary focuses are identifying the barriers to entry that keep minorities out of medical professions and stemming the tide of women who enter but then leave the field prematurely. It’s an administrative leadership role that has her examining pay and promotions for equity, as well as studying social forces, such as unpaid caretaking that often falls on women.

In her first year, Icahn has already moved to install lactation pods and created grants to help offset costs for early-career researchers with overwhelming home demands.

For all her responsibilities, Horowitz remains grounded, as much for the “wonderful people” she collaborates with in the field as for the “unbelievable opportunity” to spearhead equity initiatives within Mount Sinai. But neither overshadow her wonder at the simple miracle of the doctorpatient relationship.

“How lucky are you that people trust you with their lives?” she asks rhetorically.

“Think about it. What an honor and a privilege that is.

You know, I never quite get over it.”

OTTY HONOREE 2020 RABBI SARAH REINES

OTTY HONOREE 2020 NYPD OFFICER BRIAN LARKIN

A FRIEND IN BLUE

‘EVERY DAY HAS MEANING’

Following in his father’s footsteps, he chose a life of service, helping preserve quality of life for New Yorkers

BY JASON COHEN

Photo courtesy of Temple Shaaray Tefila

She forged a unique career path built on creating – and serving – communities wherever she goes

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

Rabbi Sarah Reines learned what it meant to be a part of a community from a very young age.

When she was born, the youngest of five children, her family moved from Manhattan to Great Neck, Long Island. In the Great Neck area, there were plenty of synagogues for the family to attend; instead, they continued to make the trip to the Upper East Side to attend services at Temple Emmanu-El, where they had long been members.

Because of this, Reines felt like there was always a place for her on the east side growing up.

“It taught me at a young age that a community can be a home to you even if it’s not part of your nearby surroundings,” said Reines.

She’s found a similar sense of community at another Upper East Side synagogue — Temple Shaaray Tefila — where she joined the clergy team in July 2018 after being a longtime congregant with her husband and two daughters.

Reines had first considered becoming a rabbi during college at Brandeis University in Massachusetts — but she didn’t feel quite ready. She felt as though she didn’t have “the God stuff” worked out yet. (It

I just love congregational work.” was years later when she realized that she still didn’t have it figured out, but maybe that was just fine.) So instead of jumping into seminary, she got a masters degree in Jewish communal service, which Reines described as something of a pre-professional degree. The program exposed her to a diversity of people she had not yet experienced.

“My world at that point had been in reformed Jewish New York,” said Reines. “[In my program] I met Jews from all over the world. It was very small — 17 of us from six or seven counties, from secular to modern orthodox.”

It was a formative experience, and afterward she felt ready for rabbinical school.

Reines spent her first 14 years out of seminary at Central Synagogue of New York — and then she was inspired to do things on her own. Essentially, Reines freelanced: performing bat and bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals and convening study groups. But Reines calls it being a “rabbi without walls.”

“People’s time is limited, but their interests are high.

People need convenience,” she said. “I think that we talk about it sometimes in a negative way. But I really appreci-

ate that there were all these families who were making an effort.”

The independence allowed her to spend more time with her daughters, work as the copresident of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, and engage more in activism following the 2016 election.

“Taking a step outside the walls allowed me a little freedom to do things that serve the community and other ways,” she said.

After about 10 years outside the walls, she stepped back into a congregation when a position opened up at Shaaray Tefila.

“I knew the community. I knew the people. I knew the work,” said Reines. “I just love congregational work. Two years in, she just extended her contract for a third year.

She and Senior Rabbi Joel Mosbacher have struck up a partnership in guiding their community through a world that Reines finds much too uncertain.

“I’m feeling more vulnerable than I ever have in my life as a Jew in this city and in this nation,” said Reines of the clear rise in anti-Semitism in recent years, adding that the fear and anger has also brought people in her community closer together. And in her own work, she finds hope for the future.

“Every day has meaning,” said Reines. “I leave feeling enriched and having enriched, and that I think is a huge blessing.”

Brian Larkin is a secondgeneration member of the NYPD – his father served as a narcotics detective in Brooklyn – who almost didn’t become a police officer. As a college student, he had his eye on Wall Street, but he graduated in 2007, just as the recession arrived.

He worked an office job briefly, but as it turned out, sitting at a desk all day wasn’t what he was looking for after all.

He wanted to help people.

So he took his dad’s advice and sat for the police exam.

Larkin, 35, joined the force in 2009 and today serves as the community affairs officer at the 19th precinct “Police Officer Brian Larkin is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life

Photo: Sgt. Joseph Leonard

for all on the Upper East Side,” said Inspector Kathleen Walsh, the 19th Pct. commander. “His passion for the work he does is paramount in the relationships he has built in our great community. Congratulations to Brian on receiving an OTTY award.”

Larkin was just 7 when his dad, also named Brian, hung up his shield.

But he remembers seeing his dad come home smilIt’s all ing, which about made an imbeing pression on there for a young kid. people.

And he recalls how his father spoke highly about being a member of the NYPD While he worked in a few different precincts his first couple years, he has found a home on the Upper East Side. Larkin noted “it’s one of the most sought after precincts in the borough.”

As a community affairs officer, he works with commu-

nity leaders, civic organizations, block associations and concerned citizens to educate them about police policies and practices, and to establish and maintain lines of communication.

He also helps provide police officers for rallies, protests, parades and various events in the neighborhood.

Most importantly, he said, it’s about being there for people.

Larkin told Our Town he wouldn’t trade his shield for a suit any day of the week, and he definitely wants to advance up the NYPD ladder.

Married, with two children, he commutes to the Upper East Side from Long Island, but said that it’s worth the hour-long drive He acknowledged that the job has its ups and downs, but in the end he enjoys it.

He is not sure what the future holds – and whether he wants to be a narcotics detective like his dad – but with a loving family at home and at the 19th precinct, he sees only good things ahead.

22

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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OTTY HONOREE 2020 KERRYY WALK

THE CITY IS THE CAMPUS

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

The president of Marymount Manhattan College is helping students make the most of the school’s hometown

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

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

It’s your neighborhood.

It’s your news.

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In a city like New York, it can be difficult to find places that feel small and intimate.

But according to Kerry Walk, that’s exactly what prospective students will find at Marymount Manhattan College. “[Marymount] is in the greatest city and it’s one of the only small colleges on the island of Manhattan,” said Walk, the school’s president.

“Families and students alike come here because they want the kind of high quality education we have to offer and they know that we have practically 100 percent of our classrooms filled with fewer than 30 students. So we occupy a unique position in the higher education ecosystem.”

Walk’s own mix of experience at both large institutions and small liberal arts colleges was terrific preparation for when she took on the role as president in July 2015.

Originally from the Pittsburgh area, Walk earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature at Wellesley College. At the University of California Berkeley, Walk received a PhD in English literature, with a focus on English Renaissance literature and the Victorian novel.

She spent the first half of her career at Ivy League institutions, including Harvard and Princeton universities. At Princeton, she built and directed the acclaimed interdisciplinary Princeton Writing Program. From 2011 to 2015, Walk served as both provost and interim president of Otis College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles, where she saw the college through a campus

Unless you really see through the walls of your college, you can remain very insular...the city is our campus.” expansion and the implementation of a new strategic plan.

“I’ve had a chance to be deeply embedded in liberal arts education and combining that with a creative education,” said Walk. “I feel lucky to be at Marymount Manhattan, which combines creative practice and critical inquiry. I feel like it sums up my own interests and sums up my career pretty well.”

Since taking the helm at Marymount, Walk said she and her administration have taken down “the fourth wall” between the college and the city, making connections across Manhattan as part of an initiative called CityEdge.

“The idea of CityEdge is for us to leverage this great location and for our students to have experiences across the city that are deliberately educational, to prepare them for the professional world,” said Walk.

For example, Walk said Marymount offers some classes that never meet at their 71st Street campus. Art History classes instead go to galleries,

studios and museums, speaking with curators, museum directors and art critics. For the students in the dance and theater programs, the college is taking advantage of the experts in its backyard, bringing in choreographers, directors and lighting designers.

“Unless you really see through the walls of your college, you can remain very insular,” said Walk. “Instead, we are spreading out. The city is our campus.”

Additionally, Walk said Marymount is working develop its reputation as a creative college. The school is in the process of allocating resources, including faculty, programming and physical space, in order to enhance this identity.

“I think that that will have a long lasting effect on who our college is attractive to and how we are perceived nationally and internationally,” said Walk.

Walk said she feels honored to be able to do such consequential work at Marymount.

“For every student that we have an impact on, we know that we’re having an impact on that student’s family, that student’s community — and by extension, the nation and the world,” said Walk. “That sounds like a grandiose way of describing the work that we do, but it’s actually true; the ripple effect is immediate.”

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com ny. y.ccoom

OTTY HONOREE 2020 MICHAEL KANE

Photo: Graham S. Haber.

Courtesy of Morgan Library & Museum

OTTY HONOREE 2020 COLIN BAILEY

MAKING THE MORGAN SHINE BRIGHTER The director of a unique Manhattan institution strives to give visitors a memorable experience

Photo: Jennifer Doherty

A BOUNTIFUL TRADITION For Michael Kane, owner of Park East Kosher, quality speaks for itself

BY JENNIFER DOHERTY

As a third-generation butcher, Michael Kane knows meat.

Kane’s grandfather and two of his uncles were both butchers, and Kane grew up visiting the meat counter for both shopping and social calls.

“We lived in the Bronx, and in those days it was a very Jewish ethnic community. I remember walking the street with my mom at the time and going into the local butcher to say hello to Grandpa and Grandma,” Kane recalls.

Kane’s grandfather joined the team at Park East Kosher when it was still housed in its original location on Madison Avenue, and later brought Kane’s uncle on board too.

Kane himself began training as a butcher at 17 years old and took over the store from his uncle 28 years ago.

Under his leadership, Park East Kosher has remained an Upper East Side institution, while diversifying to meet his clientele’s changing lifestyles.

As in any bona fide kosher store, one of the two masgiachs on staff is present at every moment Park East is open to ensure that kosher standards being met.

“They actually open the

When you do things that are proper, you don’t really brag about it.” store; they have the key. I don’t have the key to get in. It just ensures continuity in the customs,” Kane explains.

While the business’ religious principles remain unchanged, its products have evolved. Crucially, when Kane took the reins in the early ‘90s, he expanded the store’s repertoire beyond its roots selling ingredients for home cooked meals and started offering prepared foods for busy New Yorkers. He also launched Park East’s popular catering service.

In 2018, he moved the store into its current location at 1733 First Avenue. Today, the bright boutique space is as aesthetically pleasing as the gourmet pastries on display in the front of the shop and as fresh as the meat for sale in the back.

Behind the counter, employees joke like old friends and offer customers the same attention regardless of the size of their orders, a point of particular importance to Kane, though he doesn’t flaunt it.

“When you do things that

are proper, you don’t really brag about it,” he says.

Instead, his reputation and his long-distance customer relationships speak for themselves.

Park East Kosher ships nationwide, with its No. 1 ordered item being none other than its steaks. The only reason Kane doesn’t ship internationally — despite requests — is to avoid the customs hassle.

Meanwhile, within the community, New York State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright wrote to Our Town in her letter of support ahead of the OTTY announcements: “Constituents have expressed that the market is an Upper East Side institution of 55 years … Michael Kane offers a great experience for the customers of his small business offering a multitude of kosher products and a warm welcoming atmosphere.”

Much of that atmosphere likely traces back to the positive relationship Kane fosters with his staff.

“They all take a lot of pride in what they do, and I look at this as not only a way to support my family, but their families as well,” says Kane. “It’s important to me that the people that work with me understand that it is a team, and I thank them for that and want to continue for many more years.”

BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM

To Colin Bailey, running the Morgan Library & Museum was a once in a lifetime opportunity. So even though he had only been the director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for two years, he jumped at the chance to take the position at the Morgan when it opened up.

“It was early to think about leaving San Francisco, but having opportunity to come and work here was really something that wouldn’t come again,” said Bailey, who became the Morgan’s director in 2015.

The Morgan, which began as wealthy financier Pierpont Morgan’s private collection, attracted Bailey because of what it had to offer, both and art museum and a research library.

“I’d known it as this wonderful library and repository of rare materials. It has such fantastic collections in all of the areas that have departments,” said Bailey. “For a museum of this scale, it’s like nothing else in the country.”

Art history was not initially a part of Bailey’s academic pursuits. If it had been up to his parents, Bailey would have been a lawyer, and his brother a doctor.

“That didn’t happen,” Bailey said with a laugh.

Instead, Bailey, who grew up in North London, attended Oxford University where he studied history. Art

history wasn’t an interest just yet. In graduate school, he began to gravitate toward French 18th century art, and got turned onto art history as a discipline. He further pursued that interest in a PhD program in Paris.

“I lived in Paris for four years, which really consolidated my love of that period, of that language, of that country,” he said.

During his doctoral work, Bailey met many American students and realized they had much more experience working in museums. His studies so far had not yet given him an obvious path to that kind of work, and his American friends persuaded him to apply to an internship in the states.

He took part in a yearlong fellowship at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and there he found inspiration.

“I realized that I’d found the type of work that was exciting to me,” said Bailey.

He finished his doctoral work in Paris and began gaining experience in renowned museums, working his way up from curator, to chief curator to deputy director. In 2000, Bailey joined the staff at the Frick Collection, which was a dream role for him.

“It’s one of the joys of New York. In a way I thought that was heaven,” said Bailey. “I thought I would never leave.”

But after 12 years at the Frick, Bailey wondered what it would be like to lead an institution, and he enrolled at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, where he learned some of the skills he’d need to run the Morgan.

Since coming on as director, Bailey said he has tried to encourage curators to conceptualize exhibits and think about borrowing from other institutions a little bit more ambitiously. He’s also made it a priority to produce good catalogs and books with their programs as often as possible.

“I would like to think that slightly more attention is now being paid to the exhibitions,” said Bailey.

Looking ahead, Bailey is very excited for the completion of the McKim building restoration and outdoor garden. Next year, there will be an exhibition called “This Bookman’s Paradise,” that will showcase the making of the building and how Morgan and his architect created the actual brick and mortar.

He hopes what he’s changed and altered has really started to stick with museumgoers.

“When we say the Morgan Library, I would like everyone to think immediately of Tolkien or the Gutenberg Bible, or coming in for a concert in the piano auditorium,” said Bailey. “I’d like there to be something resonating immediately that attaches to what we do here.”

When we say the Morgan Library, I would like everyone to think immediately of Tolkien or the Gutenberg Bible, or coming in for a concert in the piano auditorium...”

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MARCH 05-11, 2020

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

The Board of Trustees and the entire Marymount Manhattan College community congratulate PRESIDENT KERRY WALK, PH.D. and ALL THE 2020

OTTY AWARD RECIPIENTS! Marymount Manhattan College 221 East 71st Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)

www.mmm.edu

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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A FAMILY TRADITION CAMP

For some, the summer camp experience is passed down from generation to generation

BY MELISSA KOSSLER DUTTON, ASSOCIATED PRESS

When Sarah Wagoner’s first child was born, the doctor announced during delivery, “It’s a girl. Do you know what to do with a girl?’’

Without hesitation, Wagoner responded: “We’re going to send her to Clearwater Camp!’’

For many families, summer camp is a thing passed down from generation to generation.

Wagoner, who lives in Chicago, spent many happy summers as a camper and counselor at Clearwater Camp for Girls in Minocqua, Wisconsin. She hopes her daughter, Abigail, now 2, will

someday embrace camp life and the important lessons it has to offer.

“Camp gave me so much confidence and taught me how to make good decisions,‘’ she said. “I want her to experience that.’’

Returning to the same camp over generations is an ideal way to enhance family connections, said Dimitris Xygalatas, a professor in the departments of anthropology and psychological sciences at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Family traditions “provide a feeling of continuity, and this is very important for our sense of collective identity and unity,‘’ he said.

“When we do things the way our ancestors have done them, we feel that we are continuing their heritage.’’

It also gives families a shared experience to talk and reminisce about.

As a kid, Jack Angelo enjoyed talking with his dad

The parents had an experience that helped them become who they are today ...They want their daughters to have that same opportunity.’’

Connie Scholfield, camp director at Red Pine Camp for Girls about canoeing, hiking and other activities he took part in at Keewaydin, a camp in Salisbury, Vermont, because his dad had also experienced those things there as a boy.

Today, 50-year-old Jack shares those stories with his son, 11-year-old Julian.

“It reminds me of all the conversations I had with my father, and that makes me feel a connection to him,‘’ he said.

It’s also a way for Julian to feel connected to his late

At Red Pine Camp for Girls in Wisconsin.

Photo: redpinecamp. com

grandfather. At camp, Julian can look at the boards that list the activities his dad, uncle and grandpa participated in.

“I hope he feels like he’s not really alone at camp - that when he’s there he’s with all of us,‘’ says Angelo, who lives in Los Angeles.

Clearwater, which opened in 1933, has many campers whose mothers or grandmothers attended, said Liz Baker, great-granddaughter of the founder. Traditions are a big part of the camp experience, she said, and grandparents and grandkids can enjoy talking about Tuesday Muffin Nights, say, “or recall what it’s

like to sit around the council fire and say the Clearwater pledge or sing the council fire song."

"There's something timeless about camp,'' she said. "A lot of people like knowing that they can walk on the premises of Clearwater Camp and feel like it hasn't changed a bit.''

Connie Scholfield, camp director at Red Pine Camp for Girls in Woodruff, Wisconsin, explained: “The parents had an experience that helped them become who they are today. They made binding camp friendships, developed self-esteem and confidence.

They want their daughters to have that same opportunity.’’

Sheila McNulty, 58, of Glenview, Illinois, loved Red Pine as a kid because she was in the outdoors, learning to sail, build fires, portage a canoe and experience many other new things. She feels she learned from both her successes and her failures there.

“One of the greatest things that camp does is provide you an opportunity every day to get out there and try things,‘’ she said. ``It leads to a real sense of accomplishment.’’

Her daughter, Jillian Entenman, felt the same about Red Pine, and appreciated the fact that her mother, aunts and many of her cousins had attended. “I was desperate to go,‘’ said the 29-year-old, who lives in Queens, New York.

She remembers getting a thrill each time she saw one of her cousins’ names carved into the rafters of a cabin, or saw family members in old photos.

“It definitely felt like a family tradition,‘’ Entenman said.

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MARCH 05-11, 2020

BEAUTY, POISE AND STYLE INSPIRATION

IF YOU GO WHAT: Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse WHERE: The Museum at FIT, Seventh Ave. at 27th St. WHEN: Through April 18.

HOW: fitnyc.edu/museum/

A new show at The Museum at FIT traces ballet’s influence on high fashion in the modern era

BY VAL CASTRONOVO

If you need a classical dance fix between now and the beginning of the New York City Ballet’s spring season in April, head downtown to The Museum at FIT, where a new exhibit explores ballet’s impact on the fashion industry, mid-20th century couture especially.

Today, ballerinas are revered as artists, paragons of elegance and grace. But that was not always the case. Until the early 1900s, the ballerina was relegated to the fringes of society, exploited and not taken seriously. The profession was not considered respectable.

That started to change when Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes debuted in Paris in 1909, wowing audiences and unleashing “balletomania,” a fan frenzy that swept the West in the years between the world wars. The dancers in flesh-baring corsets and tutus became objects of worship and role models, not just for their beauty, their skill and their poise, but for their style.

Whereas ballet costumes had once drawn inspiration from couturiers, the couturiers were now tak-

Charles James, “La Sylphide” silk organza and satin debutante dress, 1937. The Museum at FIT, Gift of Mrs. John Hammond. ©The Museum at FIT

Yves Saint Laurent, ostrich feather dress worn by Margot Fonteyn, 1965.

Lent by Fashion Museum Bath.

Photo: William Palmer

ing their cues from the ballet. As Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT, recently wrote in an essay in Air Mail: “In fact, in the 1930s a one-sided, centuries-old practice, which saw ballet costumes appropriating the latest civilian trends, stopped. The tutu was now waving its wand over high fashion.

Designs that invoked — and often were named for— swans and sylphs and fairies, especially The Sleeping Beauty’s Lilac Fairy, pervaded couture collections.”

Chanel, Dior and Much More The glittery show at FIT boasts some 90 offerings, a profusion of tulle skirts — long ones and short ones — satin pointe shoes and feathery headpieces interspersed with the fashions they spawned, both haute-wear and ready-to-wear.

The legendaries are here — Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Balmain, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Charles James — along with lesser knowns with an enduring legacy, like Russian émigré Barbara Karinska, who collaborated with George Balanchine on costumes for the New York City Ballet after a brief stint as a couturier.

Aficionados will thrill to the sight of Anna Pavlova’s “Dying Swan” tutu (ca. 1920), crafted from silk satin and goose feathers, on loan from the Museum of London. But you don’t have to be a devotee to appreciate the

show. An appreciation of beauty, haute fashion and a passing knowledge of the art form will suffice. It’s the stories behind the garments — and the people who wore them — that’s the draw.

A sub-theme looks at the ballerina as an image-conscious style icon, with superstar Margot Fonteyn’s dancing partnership with Rudolf Nureyev — and the mod clothes she wore after-hours in the swinging ‘60s — highlighted. Yves Saint Laurent became her go-to man in this period. A trio of the designer’s outfits that she rocked: a sequined minidress (1966), a Mondrian-patterned sheath (1965), and a wildly exuberant dress-and-coat in ostrich feathers (1965), just the ticket for tripping the light fantastic with Nureyev (there’s a charming photograph).

But Christian Dior was her first love. His refined black-wool “Daisy” suit (1947), “Goemon” coat (1947) and sequined “Debussy” gown (1950) are also showcased.

Virginia Johnson, a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and another fashion maven, favored Halston. His no-frills silk evening dresses (ca. 1980), two on display, are throwbacks to the disco era. They’re sleek, sexy and suited the body type of the long-legged prima ballerina.

Wide and Ongoing Influence The crossover from the stage to the runway took many forms. It’s apparent in the evening gowns on view, with fitted bodices and poofy skirts, inspired by classical ballet; in the ballet-shoe-styled footwear, fabulously fetishized by Christian Louboutin and Noritaka Tatehana; and in the American ready-to-wear casual wear by the likes of Claire

Behnaz Sarafpour, white tulle and gold-brocaded evening dress, fall 2003, New York. Lent by Behnaz Sarafpour. Photo: Val Castronovo

McCardell and Danskin’s Bonnie August, inspired by dance-rehearsal garb. Think leotards, tights and leg warmers as the inspiration for onesies, leggings and athleisure.

In a nod to the aesthetics of classical ballet, Couturier Charles James created romantic gowns from semisheer fabrics. He named “La Sylphide” (1937), on exhibit, after the eponymous ballerina in the dance classic. A dreamy debutante dress, the garment features a corset top, soft folds and a gorgeous array of silk roses across the chest.

James likely appropriated other elements from classical ballet. According to a recent post on the museum’s Instagram feed (@museumatfit), his “Swan” gown (1954), with sweeping, layered skirt, appears indebted to the long tutus produced from multi-colored layers of tulle by New York City Ballet costumer Barbara Karinska.

Her skirts of many colors, like the gray, pink and red tulle tutu she made for Balanchine’s La Valse (1951), on loan from the company, have echoes in the work of other couturiers (see Christian Lacroix’s black and pink silk net evening dress, ca. 1990).

By the 1980s, ballet’s influence on high-end fashion started to fade, “in large part because the great figures who gave rise to balletomania have passed,” Mears writes in the catalog, citing George Balanchine’s death in 1983.

Yet, after years of decline, the new millennium has witnessed a happy revival. Behnaz Sarafpour re-ignited the flame with her filmy white tulle and gold-brocaded evening dress, named one of the best dresses by People magazine in 2003 and worn

by Selma Blair to The Met’s Costume Institute Gala that year.

And it goes on.

MARCH 05-11, 2020

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RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS FEBRAUARY 20 - 26, 2020 The following listings were collected from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website and include the most recent inspection and grade reports listed. We have included every restaurant listed during this time within the zip codes 10021, 10022, 10028, 10128, 10029.

Some reports list numbers with their explanations; these are the number of violation points a restaurant has received.

Amy’s Bread

1220 5th Ave

A

Aquavit

65 E. 55th St

A

Barcha

2241 1st Ave

A

Bobby Van’s Steakhouse

131 E. 54th St

A

Brasserie Cognac East

963 Lexington Ave

A

By The Way Bakery

1236 Lexington Ave

A

Campagnola Restaurant

1382 1st Ave

A

Caribbean Fiesta

1544 Madison Ave

A

Eastend Bar & Grill

1664 1st Ave

Not Yet Graded (27) Thawing procedures improper. Facility not vermin proof.

Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Food worker does not use proper utensil to eliminate bare hand contact with food that will not receive adequate additional heat treatment. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Non-food contact surface improperly constructed. Unacceptable material used. Non-food contact surface or equipment improperly maintained and/or not properly sealed, raised, spaced or movable to allow accessibility for cleaning on all sides, above and underneath the unit.

Evolve

221 E. 58th St

Not Yet Graded (23) Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food worker does not use proper utensil to eliminate bare hand contact with food that will not receive adequate additional heat treatment.

Facility not vermin proof. Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist.

Fresh & Co.

127 E. 60th St

A

Gina La Fornarina

1016 Lexington Ave

A

Hillstone

153 E. 53rd St

A

Made In Mexico

247 E 111th St

A

Mcdonald’s

1872 3rd Ave

A

Morningstar Restaurant

949 2nd Ave

A

Sefton

1373 1st Ave

A

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

ST. BERNARD’S

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 languages. They also come from zip codes in Harlem and East Harlem, as well as the Upper East and West Sides.

Now, there are fears in the St. Bernard’s community that those gains could be at risk, and that the school’s character could be jeopardized, according to Straus News interviews with parents, donors and Old Boys, and a review of a trove of emails between parents, alumni and school officials.

At issue is the seemingly abrupt announcement before last Christmas that the 65year-old headmaster would be stepping down at the end of the 2021 academic year after 40 years at the school.

As word began to circulate, Johnson on Dec. 19 penned a somewhat elliptical letter to the “boys, Old Boys, colleagues, families, trustees and friends of St. Bernard’s, past and present:” “The 2020-2021 school year will be my last at this magical place,” he wrote.

“After 40 years here, I’d like to try something different. (Suggestions welcome.)”

More than two months later, the circumstances behind his departure remain shrouded in mystery. Does he want to leave or was he pushed out? No clear explanation has yet been offered.

“This beloved school is at a point in its history when planning for the future and leadership succession is necessary to ensure that future generations will continue to receive the quality education that is the hallmark of our school,” said board president Craig Huff in a state-

The quality of a school rests on its fundamental character, and Stuart Johnson has formed the character of St. Bernard’s.”

Andrew Solomon ment.

But constituents say the transition was poorly handled by the school’s four-member executive committee and 24member board of trustees. A loss of confidence in board leadership by parents and some Old Boys has fueled calls for resignations. More than $500,000 in pledges has already been revoked, according to a letter from parent and donor Scott Bessent. And a petition demanding Johnson stay on has garnered hundreds of signatures.

Meanwhile, tensions, bitterness, sharp divisions, even name-calling, have been rending the school since Christmas. Though Johnson’s exit is still 16 months away, the pending vacuum has already proved toxic in the eyes of parents and alumni, the email correspondence and interviews show.

Reading, Writing and Backbiting “As an Old Boy, I have been involved with St. Bernard’s for more than 60 years,” wrote James S. Olson, a graduate of the Class of 1961 and himself the parent of two Old Boys, in a Feb. 13 letter.

But in all that time, Olson said, “I have never experienced St. Bernard’s as convulsed in anger, accusations, recriminations, and rancor as

at present.”

Even Johnson, who stressed the need to restore calm, alluded to past divisions at St. Bernard’s in the early 1980s, and lamented the return of ill will in a Feb. 4 letter to the school community: “One colleague said he had felt more tension in the last four days than in the previous 25 years. That is not good for learning, not good for teaching, and not good for anyone here,” Johnson added.

St. Bernard’s should be a school to which “parents are eager to send their sons, where boys are proud to be, and where teachers are delighted to work with them,” he wrote. “Continued intransigence and rancor on all sides will wreck it, and us.

This is no example to set for young boys.”

Johnson didn’t return emails from Straus News or directly address the issue of his departure, but his office forwarded three letters he sent the community in December, January and February reflecting his thoughts on the matter.

“Some of you have asked whether I would consider staying at St. Bernard’s after the 2020-2021 school year,” he wrote on Jan. 16 in a “Dear Friends” letter.

“This is very flattering, and it is also deeply touching,” Johnson went on. “My family and I have discussed this possibility. We have decided that it would not be right for us.”

Due to the absence of clarity and details over the headmaster’s exit, as well as the murky manner in which it was communicated, it is by no means certain that was ever an option.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

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MARCH 05-11, 2020

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Real Estate Sales

ST. BERNARD’S

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

newly impaneled search committee would be co-chaired by two Old Boys.

Confidentiality and a “Finite Timeline”

The Wolf on East 98th Street

“All boards must rely on confidentiality of discussions and deliberations to address sensitive issues freely and candidly,” Huff wrote in a letter to the community on Jan. 22. It was provided to Straus News as part of the school’s response.

Huff said that in May 2019, as part of the succession planning, “Stuart and I discussed, reflecting input from a significant number of trustees, that it was now appropriate to set a finite timeline for succession, rather than maintain the usual open-ended arrangement we have had in the past.”

Johnson asked that talks about the transition be held with the smaller executive committee, not the larger board. It was agreed he’d stay on as headmaster until the end of the 2021 academic year to foster a smooth transition and help identify his successor, Huff wrote. The full board voted its approval in December.

With arrangements finalized, Johnson’s departure could have been disclosed in November, but the headmaster didn’t want to overshadow a December Christmas caroling event.

Other St. Bernard’s officials argue it’s wrong to call the exit unexpected or abrupt because the board respected the headmaster’s timetable for going public.

In any event, Huff said Johnson would play an “important role” in the search for his successor, and that a

But both the exit and the search process quickly drew fire. “This board of directors has acted in bad faith and deceptively, and allowing them to form a search committee is like entrusting the new lamb to the wolves,” wrote Andrew Solomon, a best-selling author and former PEN America board president who is the parent of a St. Bernard’s student.

As a trustee of both the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he’s got plenty of experience on nonprofit boards, and he drew on it for his Feb. 2 letter: “When it comes time for a change in hands-on leadership, the usual protocol is to build consensus among stakeholder groups by talking openly about what needs to happen, and why it can’t happen under the current administration,” Solomon wrote.

“The board of St. Bernard’s chose to comport itself otherwise, which has resulted in as pronounced a schism between board and community as I’ve ever encountered,” he said.

“The quality of a school rests on its fundamental character, and Stuart Johnson has formed the character of St. Bernard’s,” Solomon added.

What should happen next?

For one Old Boy, the answer is simple: After a “board miscarriage of this magnitude,” the president and any board members involved in precipitating this crisis must resign, Olson wrote.

Meanwhile, without hard facts to guide them, scores of St. Bernard’s parents, at informal coffee klatches convened with board members to discuss Johnson’s departure, have been referring to it as a “de facto dismissal,” a “socalled resignation,” and an “undisclosed termination.”

And they’ve warned of financial consequences to the school: “My spouse and I were among the top 10 givers to St. Bernard’s last year,” wrote Scott Bessent, the parent of a student and former chief investment officer for George Soros, who now runs his own giant hedge fund.

In a Jan. 16 letter, Bessent said he was “sickened” that any portion of his family’s gift could have been spent on legal representation for the board. “As such, we have cancelled this year’s pledge … and would encourage all other donors to do the same,” he wrote.

Gifts in excess of tuition should be withheld and fundraising activities and events should be halted, Bessent argued. And he noted that “more than $500,000 of pledges” had already been revoked as of mid-January.

At the center of the storm, the headmaster continues to take the high road – and to urge calm.

In concluding his Feb. 4 letter, Johnson wrote, “I’ve spent most of my adult life here, in immense satisfaction, happiness, and gratitude for many friends, young and old.

Nothing is more important than to see it restored to good spirits again, in the proper hands for the next generation.

“Please do your part.” invreporter@strausnews.com

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MARCH 05-11, 2020

29

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

YOUR 15 MINUTES

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

PLEASURE AND SURPRISE MUSIC

As artistic director of the New York Festival of Song, Steven Blier offers audiences an eclectic mix of vocal music

BY MARK NIMAR

In the world of classical music, there is no one quite like Steven Blier. Over the course of his nearly five-decade career, Blier has worked as a recital accompanist for opera stars such as Jessye Norman, Cecilia Bartoli, and Renée Fleming, and he has been a faculty member at the Juilliard School since 1992. But perhaps his biggest contribution to classical music has been as the artistic director and co-founder with Michael Barrett of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), a non-profit, which presents song recitals with music by a diverse mix of composers, such as Sondheim, Schubert, Poulenc and The Beatles.

This eclecticism Blier brings to his programming has not only brought new attention to forgotten works, but has also breathed new life into the sometimes stiff world of the song recital. NYFOS’ upcoming concert on March 17th is called “The Art of Pleasure,“ and explores different types of pleasure ranging from romance and the seaside to some of life’s darker indulgences. We sat down with Blier last week to talk about his upcoming concert, the transformative power of song and why he wants you to feel more pleasure.

What do you feel is the biggest misconception about art song recitals, or art song in general?

How do you address these misconceptions in your work?

I think people think that art song recitals are snooty. I think they think that they’re somehow only about things in the past. I think they think it’s remote from them.

I combat that by ... well, you know what my concerts are like. They’re crazy. And they always have been.

They’re full of surprises.

I think what surprises people in the concerts we do is they will be really grooving out to something that they didn’t even know existed ten minutes before the curtain went up. And then suddenly, [they’ll say], “Oh my God, that was fantastic.

What was that? I didn’t even know that was there.”

What makes the art form of song unique? What does it do for listeners that no other art form can?

Well, I think there are a few things about song. One is that we don’t use microphones. The idea of being sung to without the intermediary of amplification is a very big factor in how the music is received. It’s pure vibration straight from us to you. Which makes of course a more intimate form.

The other thing about song is that it’s very story-oriented. The great song singers are usually the great storytellers.

The thing about song is that it’s very story-oriented. The great song singers are usually the great storytellers.”

Steven Blier

When a song or a song recital is really well performed, what effect do you see it have on the audience?

People tell me that they often feel quite transformed after a NYFOS concert. And I don’t really know why.

I don’t understand it. But I’ve heard it for decades now. [My friend] Jimmy had a friend who came up from New Orleans. Giselle I think was her name. And she doesn’t go to a lot of concerts. And nothing like NYFOS. And she came up to me and said, “Steve, I am transformed. I am a different woman now.”

I try in my concerts not be soothing, but I like to give people a sense of order. That the world can be, through art, you can put your world in order. It’s hard for me to describe, but when the program has a really good arc, a good second-to-last number, a good last number, and a good encore, there’s this sort of thing that you have tied things up in a way, opened up a lot of subjects, and you’ve made, in some kind of way, some form of happy ending for people.

Your upcoming concert’s theme is pleasure. Why did you decide to take on this subject?

Because I turned on then news one morning, and just thought “Oh, God.” It just doesn’t get worse than this. And I thought, “People need to be reminded of the beauties of life.”

I think I can do that. I think I want to take that on, just to remind people to be good citizens, but also remember God gave us X amount of days on earth. There’s beauty out there. Appreciate it.

NYFOS will be performing The Art of Pleasure on Tuesday, March 17th at 8pm at Merkin Hall on 129 West 67th Street.

Tickets are available for purchase at: nyfos.org/the-season.

New York Festival of Song event. Photo via NYFOS website

Steven Blier of the New York Festival of Song. Photo: Liv Hoffman

You talk about a song being like a movie. What do you mean by this?

I once did this Meyerbeer song. I would play it, and for no particular reason, this seashore would come to my mind. It had a bollard, and not much sand, but a lot of grass. It was actually the Long Island Sound. I don’t know where that place is, but I know it was Long Island Sound [with] fairly tranquil water. Anyway, I put the song away for a number of years, and came back to it fifteen years later. I start playing it, and there’s my seashore; it’s still there.

Why did you make song the focus of your career? What attracted you to it?

I wanted to be on stage. I did not want to be playing opera rehearsals, not even at he highest level. The piano is the heart of a song. I know that’s crazy, because for 99.99 percent of the world, the singer is the heart of a song. But not for me. In a song, the singer is like the actor that you see on the screen in the movie.

But the piano is like the cinematographer. He actually has a lot of control of what is going on in that room.

So, I liked being the cinematographer.

Is the visual aspect a big part of the music-making process for you?

I think maybe more than for some other musicians. It’s also bound up with sound. Like, I’ll say I want to play a yellow D natural. I wanna make a pink B flat. And I don’t always really get the color I want; sometimes it’s just brown.

I think song is important to me, because it has so much to do with fantasy. I feel like I’m dreaming onstage. I’m putting my dream into sound. The singer is imagining something, and singing from what they’re imagining. Everyone in the audience is sitting there imagining.

And they think what they’re imagining is what the singer’s imagining.

And it isn’t what they think it is. And that’s okay. They know what it’s making them feel and think.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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PUBLIC AUCTION NOTICE OF SALE OF COOPERATIVE APARMENT SECURITY PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: By Virtue of a Default under Loan Security Agreement, and other Security Documents, Karen Loiacano, Auctioneer, License #DCA1435601 or Jessica L Prince-Clateman, Auctioneer, License #1097640 or Vincent DeAngelis Auctioneer, License #1127571 will sell at public auction, with reserve, on March 25, 2020 In the Rotunda, New York County Courthouse 60 Centre Street New York NY 10007, commencing at 1:30 PM for the following account: Ingrid Gherman, as borrower, 3224 shares of capital stock of The Forum Owners Corp. and all right, title and interest in the Proprietary Lease to: 343 East 74th Street, Apt. #19B, New York, NY 10021 Sale held to enforce rights of National Cooperative Bank, N.A. (fka NCB, FSB), who reserves the right to bid. Ten percent (10%) Bank/Certified check required at sale, balance due at closing within thirty (30) days.

The Cooperative Apartment will be sold “AS IS” and possession is to be obtained by the purchaser.

Pursuant to Section 201 of the Lien Law you must answer within 10 days from receipt of this notice in which redemption of the above captioned premises can occur. There is pre-

sently an outstanding debt owed to National Cooperative Bank, N.A. fka NCB, FSB (lender) as of the date of this notice in the amount of $539,342.08.

This figure is for the outstanding balance due under UCC1, which was secured by Financing Statement in favor of NCB,FSB, recorded on May 17, 2007, in Instrument Number 2017000186289. The same was then re-filed on February 27, 2018, in Instrument Number 2018000067946. Please note this is not a payoff amount as additional interest/fees/penalties may be incurred. You must contact the undersigned to obtain a final payoff quote or if you dispute any information presented herein.

The estimated value of the above captioned premises is $1,100,000.00.

Pursuant to the Uniform Commercial Code Article 9-623, the above captioned premises may be redeemed at any time prior to the foreclosure sale. You may contact the undersigned and either pay the principal balance due along with all accrued interest, late charges, attorney fees and out of pocket expenses incurred by National Cooperative Bank, N.A. fka NCB, FSB. and the undersigned, or pay the outstanding loan arrears along with all accrued interest, late charges, attorney fees and out of pocket expenses incurred by National Cooperative Bank, N.A. fka NCB, FSB, and the undersigned, with respect to the foreclosure proceedings. Failure to

cure the default prior to the sale will result in the termination of the proprietary lease.

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If you have received a discharge from the Bankruptcy Court, you are not personally liable for the payment of the loan and this notice is for compliance and information purposes only. However, National Cooperative Bank, N.A. fka NCB, FSB, still has the right under the loan security agreement and other collateral documents to foreclosure on the shares of stock and rights under the proprietary lease allocated to the cooperative apartment.

Dated: February 11, 2020 Frenkel, Lambert, Weiss, Weisman & Gordon, LLP Attorneys for National Cooperative Bank, N.A. fka NCB, FSB 53 Gibson Street Bay Shore, NY 11706 631-969-3100 File #01-084099-F03 #98401

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