The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF MARCH - APRIL THE GOOGLIFICATION OF CHELSEA ◄ P.16
29-4 2018
A SEASON OF FAITH WORSHIP Love triumphant is celebrated on Easter, freedom ascendant is commemorated on Passover — and as the two great spring holidays overlap this weekend, Trumpism will be confronted from the pulpit Access to a two-block portion of the East River Esplanade near Gracie Mansion is blocked due to repair work on a collapsed portion of the waterfront pathway. Photo: Douglas Feiden
ESPLANADE REPAIRS FACE DELAYS INFRASTRUCTURE Waterfront project in Carl Schurz Park will now last until “next winter” and require construction of a temporary bridge BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The reconstruction of a collapsed stretch of the East River Esplanade near Gracie Mansion, originally scheduled to be completed by this May, will take several months longer than anticipated because of unforeseen design work, Our Town has learned. The repair forced the closure of part of Carl Schurz Park early last summer after a portion of the waterfront path, near East 89th Street, crumbled into the East River during a May rainstorm. Fencing blocks access to the waterfront esplanade from roughly East
88th to East 90th Streets, as well as to a hill just north of Gracie Mansion — a popular winter destination for neighborhood sled-riders — which was selected as a staging area for construction equipment to access the esplanade. As a result of delays relating to the hill, located near the entrance to the FDR Drive tunnel that runs under Carl Schurz Park, the project is now expected to be completed “next winter,” according to a Parks Department official. “Due to additional design work needed to address site access and foundation issues, NYC Parks needs to build a temporary bridge over the FDR tunnel,” a Parks Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The tunnel itself is not strong enough to handle the construction equipment that we must drive over it to complete the necessary work.”
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BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
“Love wins!” said the Rev. Dr. Cathy S. Gilliard in a classic two-word encapsulation of the Easter message of hope and new life and how it can overpower pain and sorrow and even death itself. And the senior pastor of the Park Avenue United Methodist Church on East 86th Street, the first AfricanAmerican to hold that position, quickly added a two-word coda: “Exclamation point!” “Freedom is possible,” said Rabbi José Rolando Matalon in a synopsis of the Passover message that a people of faith, with divine guidance, can defy their oppressor and be emancipated from bondage. And the lute-playing, Buenos Airesborn senior rabbi of B’nai Jeshurun on West 88th Street, the synagogue’s spiritual leader for the past 25 years, added a cautionary note: “But it’s not easy.” Due to a quirk in the religious calendar, the two hallowed institutions — a temple founded in 1825, a church established in 1837 — are about to observe, at the same time but in their own very separate ways, one of the great defining holidays of their respective faiths. Good Friday, which commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus at Calvary, falls on March 30, and this year it coincides with Passover, marking the liberation by God of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, which begins at sundown the same day with the first of the
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The Rev. Jennifer Reddall, rector of the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal church at York Avenue and East 74th Street. Photo courtesy of Church of the Epiphany two Seders. For Christians, the holiday is a day of fasting and penance, and for Jews, a time to tell the story of the Exodus through stories, songs and a ritual if festive meal, which is repeated in the second Seder on March 31. Easter Sunday, a joyous celebration of the cornerstone of Christianity — the resurrection of Jesus from the dead — falls on April 1, which is also the second full day of the week-long Passover holiday. Theologically, the holidays would seem to have little in common. Culinarily, they both involve feasting. But there’s more: Mortal enemies of
both faiths fall — Pharaoh’s army is obliterated, the Israelites, no longer slaves, cross the Red Sea dry-shod, Roman prefects are humiliated, Jesus prepares to ascend to heaven — and as
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat and the Holiday candles. Friday, March 30 - 7:01 pm Passover Saturday, March 31 – after 8:01 pm from a pre-existing flame. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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