Our Town - March 30, 2017

The local paper for the Upper East Side

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WEEK OF MARCH - APRIL

30-5 2017

2017 OTTYS ▲ P. 12

CROSSWISE ON 79TH STREET TRANSPORTATION The Select Bus Service aims to improve one of Manhattan’s slowest routes. But critics question how much time it will really save.

BY LAURA HANRAHAN

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (standing) explained his office’s response to the recent increase in reported hate crimes at a community event March 23. Photo: Michael Garofalo

PUTTING HATE ON TRIAL LAW ENFORCEMENT DA Vance addresses the killing of Timothy Caughman at community forum, adds terrorism charges

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

A community forum on hate crimes held on the Upper West Side last week took on added emotional heft in the wake of the death of Timothy Caughman, a 66-year-old black man who was allegedly killed by a white supremacist days earlier.

Caughman was stabbed to death on West 36th Street late on the evening of Monday, March 20, allegedly

by James Jackson, a 28-year-old white man who admitted to police that he had traveled to New York from Baltimore specifically to kill black men.

The meeting, held on Thursday, March 23 at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School on West 102nd Street, had been scheduled in response to earlier incidents, but as New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance and other city officials gathered to discuss the city’s response to recent hate crimes and field questions from the public, Caughman’s death weighed heavily over the proceedings.

“It’s an event that hits all of us and shocks all of us,” Vance said.

Vance’s announcement that the man had been charged with second degree murder as a hate crime was met with scattered cheers from the sizable crowd in the high school gymnasium. The DA explained that the charges would carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years for Jackson if he is found guilty, five

CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

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One of Manhattan’s busiest — and slowest — bus routes will soon join the growing list of select bus services (SBS). The M79 crosstown bus, which serves more than 14,000 riders each day, is expected to make the change in service later this May. The select service will require riders to pay at kiosks on the sidewalk before boarding the bus, in an attempt to cut down on time spent idling and improve the route’s 4.3 mph average speed. Signs with real-time arrival information will also be installed at each stop. The annual operating budget is expected to be approximately $1.73 million, according to the January 2017 MTA Transit and Bus Committee meeting handbook.

Council Member Ben Kallos, who represents the Upper East Side, personally requested that the service be implemented.

“Our crosstown buses serve tens of thousands of passengers a day and it makes a huge difference and cuts a lot of time off people’s commutes,” he said. “On 79th Street I, like many residents, have had to wait in lines around the block to get on the bus and I’ve often found that when the lines get that long it’s faster to just walk where I’m going instead of waiting for the bus.”

In a presentation by the MTA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to the Upper East Side’s Community Board 8 in October, results from the M86 SBS were presented as an example of how the service could work for 79th Street. The daily average of time saved after switching to SBS was 2.6

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Passengers pay at kiosks before boarding the SBS. Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit, via flickr minutes on eastbound travel and 1.7 minutes on westbound travel. Dr. Arline Bronzaft, professor emerita of environmental psychology at CUNY and a longtime Upper East Side resident, was concerned by these numbers.

“I listened to their presentation and they said that maybe you’ll save about two minutes on a trip. Would you call that a lot?” Bronzaft said. “The critical question is how much would you save during the rush hours when people are really concerned about getting across faster.”

The MTA and DOT did not respond to calls for further information. “If you’re going to make a presentation you should come with data,” Bronzaft said.

All stops will remain unchanged with the exception of an eastbound stop at West 81st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, “due to low ridership and close proximity to a stop at 79th

Street and Amsterdam Avenue,” the MTA said. Changes to the street and sidewalk have also been proposed by the MTA and DOT to facilitate traffic flow, including lane realignments to allow for designated areas for buses to pull up in front of stops.

“I asked the obvious questions because the woman said she ‘hopes’ the proposed methods to set up the street in a way to increase the flow of traffic would help,” Bronzaft said of the Community Board 8 presentation. “I

CONTINUED ON PAGE 27 Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset.

Friday, March 31 – 7:02 pm.

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

FIGHTING FOR POCKET PARKS OPEN PLACES The City Council pushes to protect the city’s more than 500 privately owned public spaces

BY MADELEINE THOMPSON

They are hidden between blocks and tucked inside skyscrapers. You might walk through them, or past them, without ever knowing. But not all New Yorkers have forgotten that they are entitled to access the city’s more than 500 privately owned public spaces, or POPS. Last summer, the New York Times noticed that a marble bench in the atrium of Trump Tower, which is a POPS, had gone missing and their reporting resulted in its quiet return.

Now, the City Council is hoping to protect POPS by passing three bills that would, among other things, require annual inspections and fine owners who violate the law.

In exchange for more room to build or other construction perks, landlords can bargain with the Department of City Planning to reserve and maintain a POPS nearby. Often, however, they fail to uphold that part of the bargain.

One such case is the pocket park on

East 88th Street between Second and Third Avenues, which is owned by the Monarch at 200 East 89th Street.

Nancy Ploeger, who lives nearby, took the matter of its rehabilitation into her own hands and contacted the building’s management. “He said ... when the park was given to them, they planted flowers and bushes and they were all stolen,” she said. “This was back in the 1980s. This park has literally been desolate and horrible for over 20 years.”

Ploeger offered to raise money and buy the plants herself if the building would maintain them, but that didn’t work either. So she turned to her elected officials. “I said, ‘I can’t imagine that this is the only POPS that has been neglected in the city,” she said.

Ploeger had Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Council Member Ben Kallos send a letter to the departments of buildings and city planning notifying them of the East 88th Street park’s violations. “Our public spaces are limited and it is imperative that we protect and maintain them,” Brewer and Kallos wrote.

“POPS law requires owners of the property to provide maintenance and upkeep of these spaces … This space should be restored and available to the

community.”

Kallos, along with fellow Council member Dan Garodnick, introduced a POPS-related package of legislation earlier this month. “The Upper East Side and East Midtown, including my district and Council Member Garodnick’s, have the highest concentration of POPS in the city,” Kallos said.

The Upper East Side, coincidentally, is notorious for its lack of green space in general. “In some cases a problem is so large that is requires legislation, and this was exactly that,” he said.

Kallos credited Ploeger and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer with leading the push for protection of these pocket parks.

The three bills Kallos and Garodnick introduced would raise fines against landlords with POPS in violation of their individual agreement to $10,000 for a first-time violation, with a fine of $2,500 for each month the park remains unfixed. Another bill would require signage to be present in each POPS indicating which amenities should be available. These could include 24/7 access, a certain number of trees, seating, and bathrooms. The third would create a website where complaints about non-compliant POPS could be registered, and would

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Nancy Ploeger tried to rehabilitate the pocket park on East 89th Street and Third Avenue on her own, to no avail. New legislation hopes to hold landlords accountable for these spaces. Photo: APOPS / Municipal Arts Society mandate annual inspections.

Franny Eberhart, president of the board of Friends of the Upper East Side, has been helping Ploeger with the POPS preservation effort. “They’re enormously important on the Upper East Side where we are so underparked,” she said. Friends of the Upper East Side recently gave an award to a POPS at the northeast corner of East 80th Street and First Avenue, where statues by Tony Rosenthal provide seating and aesthetic pleasure.

Other groups have also taken notice of the problem. The Municipal Arts

Society created a website in 2012 with the Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space that has maps, photos and information about some of the city’s POPS. The mission statement of the collaboration echoes the sentiments of everyone who has become involved in the effort: “We believe that a city’s greatness is enhanced by an attractive, usable, and egalitarian public realm.”

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com

ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND

thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY

Imagining Men & Women with Susan Faludi and Anna Quindlen

FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED OR READING DISABLED

THURSDAY, MARCH 30TH, 8PM 92nd Street Y | 1395 Lexington Ave. | 212-415-5500 | 92y.org

THE JBI LIBRARY CAN HELP YOU OR A LOVED ONE FULLY ENJOY THE

PASSOVER SEDER

Pulitzer Prize winners Susan Faludi and Anna Quindlen kick off a new series at the Y, looking at feminism, identity, and creativity. There will also be signings of Quindlen’s new novel and Faludi’s new memoir (about her search for her transgender father). ($45)

A Sufi Voice of Pakistan: A Conversation with Sanam Marvi

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5TH, 6:30PM

Please call the JBI Library before April 3, 2017

800-999-6476 DOWNLOAD OR ORDER ONLINE

Asia Society | 725 Park Ave. | 212-288-6400 | asiasociety.org Catch a lecture-demonstration by superstar Pakistani singer Sanam Marvi, who will provide insight into the technique and philosophy that underlies her interpretations of a mystical tradition. ($12)

Just Announced | Dr. Willie Parker & Lena Dunham on Women’s Rights

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5TH, 7PM The Strand | 828 Broadway | 212-473-1452 | strandbooks.com The Christian case for abortion is the intriguing hook for a conversation with Christian pro-choice advocate Dr. Willie Parker. There’ll be a look at the growing tide of state-sanctioned restrictions and their disproportionate impact on the poor and women of color. ($15 gift card or $25 signed book)

www.jbilibrary.org

For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,

sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 19th precinct Week to Date

Year to Date

2017 2016

% Change

2017

2016

% Change

Murder

0

1

-100.0

0

1

-100.0

Rape

0

0

n/a

3

0

n/a

Robbery

2

0

n/a

16

19

-15.8

Felony Assault

0

1

-100.0

33

24

37.5

Burglary

4

6

-33.3

44

50

-12.0

Grand Larceny

23

32

-28.1

280 293 -4.4

Grand Larceny Auto

1

1

0.0

7

SPIRITED AWAY

COFFEE COP

SHAKE TAKE

RISTORANTE ANTE

Bad guys have been in hot pursuit of purses in recent weeks. At 10 p.m. on Friday, March 17, a 33-year-old woman was having a drink at the Barley & Grain bar at 421 Amsterdam Avenue when she realized her purse was missing.

Items stolen included an iPhone, an undisclosed amount of cash, and a driver’s license.

Carrying large amounts of cash always entails risk, as this story reminds us. At 6 a.m. on Thursday, March 16, another 33-year-old woman was partaking of refreshments in the Starbucks location at 2045 Broadway when she too discovered her purse had disappeared, along with its contents — $1,200 in cash.

In yet another purloined purse incident at 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 5, a 20-year-old woman was seeking sustenance at the Shake Shack located at 366 Columbus Avenue when she looked for her purse and found it had vanished. She had been robbed of a wallet, an iPhone, and $300 in cash.

There was more red sauce to be found than greenbacks for a burglar breaking into an Italian restaurant. At 5:45 a.m. on Saturday, March 11, the front door lock was discovered to have been broken overnight at the Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto restaurant located at 283 Amsterdam Avenue. The intruder got away with just $120 in cash.

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APY*

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BRANCH LOCATIONS

FLAGSHIP BRANCH 655 Third Ave. New York, NY (212) 292-5254

MANHATTAN 902 Second Ave. New York, NY (212) 829-9998

SCARSDALE 80 Garth Rd. Scarsdale, NY (914) 722-1500

RIVERDALE 583 West 235th St. Bronx, NY (718) 601-8300

WOODLAWN 4349 Katonah Ave. Bronx, NY (718) 324-7100

MAIN OFFICE 655 Third Ave. New York, NY (212) 818-9090

*Effective 1/17/17, the 60 month IRA interest rate is 1.98%, Annual Percentage Yield is 2.00%; 48 month IRA interest rate is 1.632%, APY 1.65%; 36 month IRA interest rate is 1.485%, APY is 1.50%; 30 month IRA interest rate is 1.340%, APY is 1.35%; 24 month IRA interest rate is 1.240%, APY is 1.25%; 18 month IRA interest rate is 0.992%, APY is 1.00%; 12 month IRA interest rate is 0.745%, APY is 0.75%. The minimum opening deposit for any term IRA to qualify for the APY is $1,000.00. Penalties may apply for early withdrawal. Rates are subject to change at the bank’s discretion. The deadline to make a 2016 IRA contribution is April 18, 2017. Please consult with your tax advisor for eligibility and other tax information.

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Useful Contacts POLICE NYPD 19th Precinct

153 E. 67th St.

212-452-0600

FDNY 22 Ladder Co 13

159 E. 85th St.

311

FDNY Engine 39/Ladder 16

157 E. 67th St.

311

FIRE

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

FEMALE POWER

BY PETER PEREIRA

FDNY Engine 53/Ladder 43

1836 Third Ave.

311

FDNY Engine 44

221 E. 75th St.

311

CITY COUNCIL Councilmember Daniel Garodnick

211 E. 43rd St. #1205

212-818-0580

Councilmember Ben Kallos

244 E. 93rd St.

212-860-1950

STATE LEGISLATORS State Sen. Jose M. Serrano

1916 Park Ave. #202

212-828-5829

State Senator Liz Krueger

1850 Second Ave.

212-490-9535

Assembly Member Dan Quart

360 E. 57th St.

212-605-0937

Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright

1365 First Ave.

212-288-4607

COMMUNITY BOARD 8

505 Park Ave. #620

212-758-4340

LIBRARIES Yorkville

222 E. 79th St.

212-744-5824

96th Street

112 E. 96th St.

212-289-0908

67th Street

328 E. 67th St.

212-734-1717

Webster Library

1465 York Ave.

212-288-5049

100 E. 77th St.

212-434-2000

HOSPITALS Lenox Hill NY-Presbyterian / Weill Cornell

525 E. 68th St.

212-746-5454

Mount Sinai

E. 99th St. & Madison Ave.

212-241-6500

NYU Langone

550 First Ave.

212-263-7300

CON EDISON

4 Irving Place

212-460-4600

POST OFFICES US Post Office

1283 First Ave.

212-517-8361

US Post Office

1617 Third Ave.

212-369-2747

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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TRACKING COYOTES IN NEW YORK WILDLIFE A conservation project helps researchers understand where the elusive animals are coming from

BY GAIL EISENBERG

When Ferdie Yau quit his job as a NYC ecologist in 2013 to focus full-time on his dogtraining business, he hoped to return to wildlife conservation one day. As fate would have it, he didn’t have to wait long.

About a year later, Yau received a call from Mark Weckel, a conservation biologist at the Upper West Side’s American Museum of Natural History and co-founder of Gotham Coyote Project (GCP), a collaborative research effort to better understand the elusive coyote and its role in our urban ecosystem. The two had had the same graduate research advisor while studying jaguars in Belize, and Weckel thought Yau could employ his dog-training expertise to train dogs to detect coyote scat (droppings) in the ďŹ eld. “I have always wanted to work with animals, and have been incredibly lucky to have had the experiences I’ve had, but this was exactly the type of opportunity that I was looking for — a way to use my skills as a dog trainer for wildlife conservation,â€? says Yau. Despite Yau’s vast background with animals, including working with Central Park’s infamous polar bears Gus and Ida, he had never done scent work before. He enlisted a “Nose Workâ€? instructor to help him learn the basics of teaching a dog to detect a speciďŹ c scent, and from there developed a program to train the

 Three coyote pups hanging out in Riverdale in May 2016. Photo: Gotham Coyote dogs for the unique challenges of NYC fieldwork. In part, the process entailed placing a delicious treat alongside various coyotes’ scat from the wild as well as scat provided by the Queens Zoo in a cardboard box one-by-one so that the dog learns to associate the treat with the scat. Then, overtime, he made the treat smaller and smaller until there was just the scat scent to hunt.

The DNA from scat helps the researchers understand population — where the NYC coyotes are coming from, who is related to whom, how many coyotes are there — as well as learn more about the ecology of urban coyotes by examining their diet. “We also learn how they’re surviving in NYC by what are they’re consuming, whether they’re providing a beneďŹ t for us by eating a lot of rats, for example, or if there are potential conflicts, though the threat to human safety is extremely low,â€? says Yau. “Coyotes usually become problematic because people feed them intentionally or unintentionally — through garbage or food left out for stray cats, for example — and they become habituated to humans.â€?

There are currently a total of four dogs in the invite-only training program, with Scout, Yau’s energetic 9-year-old Jack Russell Terrier mix, the only dog â€œďŹ eld ready.â€? Alas, ďŹ nding the right kind of dog for the challenges of ďŹ eldwork can be tricky. “Dogs should exhibit an intense focus and drive to search for a toy or food, and also be able to focus on the handler in an extremely distracting environment like NYC. It can be a hard combination to ďŹ nd. The ideal dogs are usually the working breeds, either full-bred or mixes,â€? says Yau. The lion’s share of scat hunting is conducted in the Bronx, where most of NYC’s coyotes currently reside and where the first was spotted in 1995.

That said, the researchers expect the coyotes to eventually colonize Long Island, the only remaining large land mass in the nation without a breeding population. GCP’s long game is to be prepared for the coyotes when they arrive out east, seizing the unique opportunity to collect real-time data when they do.

But to get there, the coyotes — one of the most resilient animals in North America —

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Ferdie Yau checking a camera trap in Riverdale Park with Josue Marquez, a student from the WERM program 2015. Photo: Tatyana Graham must navigate the concrete jungle that is New York City, an urban environment difficult to traverse because of its traffic and human activity. The researchers and educators of the Gotham Coyote Project are determined to help the coyotes do so while also keeping New Yorkers safe. And as the song goes, if they can make it here, they can make it anywhere.

In addition to analyzing scat, camera traps play an integral part in the overall mission of GCP, tracking coyotes across the city as they colonize all ďŹ ve boroughs and Long Island.

GCP coordinates efforts with NYC Parks and the Urban Park Rangers to run the motiontriggered cameras in Central Park (there’s one hidden in The Ramble) and Inwood Hill Park.

In 2014, Yau expanded surveillance to Riverdale, where he resides and also mentors city high school students to help with GCP’s efforts through the

Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship program (WERM) during the summer.

Not long ago, Yau captured pictures of pups on camera — at about 4 weeks old, the youngest they’d ever recorded.

The family had made a den in a private residential neighborhood just north of the city.

About a week after the discovery, Yau received a call from the president of the neighborhood homeowners’ association saying two coyotes had chased a resident and his dog. “Since I’d just seen the pictures of the pups, I realized that the parents were likely defending a nearby den — fourweek-old pups don’t wander far — because coyotes usually avoid humans whenever they can,� says Yau. Yau spoke to the president and NYC officials to coordinate an effort to educate residents about how to live with coyotes and steer clear of negative in-

teractions. “Some residents were understandably very scared, but weeks later when the pups were mobile, the entire family disappeared like ghosts, moving to a quieter location just as we had predicted,� says Yau. “We assuaged fears and left the coyote family alone, likely saving their lives because removal doesn’t usually end up well for them. We hope to teach New Yorkers how to safely live with and enjoy the amazing wildlife around us, because like it or not the city’s newest immigrant is here to stay.�

To learn more about Ferdie Yau and his work with and for animals and wildlife conservation, go to http:// www.sitsnwiggles.com/ To learn more about the Gotham Coyote Project—or to report a coyote sighting—go to http://www. gothamcoyote.com/

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com AT THE CHURCH OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA 980 PARK AVENUE between 83rd and 84th ®

Out & About

K. SCOTT WARREN ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

More Events. Add Your Own: Go to ourtownny.com

Heavenly Music in the Neighborhood

PHOTO: LAURIE LAMBRECHT

CHANTICLEER: WASHING OF THE WATER Sunday, April 30 at 4 PM

GRAMMY®-winning male vocal ensemble Chanticleer presents an afternoon of music about the symbolic power of water to cleanse, redeem and restore.

Tickets $35-$85

PHOTO: LISA KOHLER

HAYDN’S THE CREATION

Wednesday, May 24 at 7 PM

Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola K. Scott Warren, conductor Performed in English, Franz Joseph Haydn’s beloved oratorio depicts the creation of the world as told in the Book of Genesis and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Tickets $25-$80

CARITAS CONCERT: WINE & SONG

Wednesday, April 5 at 6:30 PM

%HQHȴ W FRQFHUWȄ RI WLFNHW VDOHV go to Jesuit Refugee Service Tickets $50

BUY TICKETS TODAY! www.smssconcerts.org ȏ 212.288.2520

Thu 30 Fri 31

Sat 1

UNTERMYER GARDENS

MOVEMENT THERAPY

MUSIC FOR AUTISM

92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. $300.

Engage, inspire and uplift older adults and people with dementia through dance and expressive movement. Three sessions, Mar. 31-Apr. 2.

212-415-5552. 92y.org

92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. 11 a.m. Free. RSVP. Enhancing quality of life and raising public awareness through free, autism-friendly, interactive concerts for autistic individuals and their families.

877-863-7473 ext. 1. musicforautism.org

N.Y. School of Interior Design, 170 East 70th St. 6-7:30 p.m.

Lecture covers the glory days of Samuel Untermyer’s estate, Greystone, when it was internationally recognized as one of the greatest gardens in America.

212-472-1500. nysid.edu

BEING CATCHY SQUANDERED SUNDAY | FILM Czech Center, 321 East 73rd St. 7-8:30 p.m. Free.

Existential, absurdist and beautifully shot satire on Czech military (1969). Desperation permeates the environment, as well the mind of a young soldier.

646-422-3399. czechcenter. com

The Soho Loft Penthouse, 800 Third Ave. 5:30-6:30 p.m. $99.

A capsule workshop, introduction to the world of copywriting and what it does to boost corporate image and increase sales.

212-845-9652. thesoholoft. com

MOCCA ARTS FESTIVAL ▲ Society of Illustrators, 128 East 63rd St. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. $5.

400 artists display work, award-winning honorees speak about their careers and featured artist conduct workshops, lectures and film screenings. Apr. 1-2.

212-838-2560. www.societyillustrators.org/ mocca-arts-festival

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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JOHN KRTIL FUNERAL HOME; YORKVILLE FUNERAL SERVICE, INC. Dignified, Affordable and Independently Owned Since 1885 WE SERVE ALL FAITHS AND COMMUNITIES 5 )/'&1 /'+$1)-,0 $2250 -+.*'1' 5 )/'&1 2/)$*0 $2850 5 4.'/1 /' *$,,),( 3$)*$%*'

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Huge Selection of

Photo By Erik Holfelder via Flickr

Sun 2 RECOVERED VOICES Park Avenue Christian Church, 1010 Park Ave. 5:30-8 p.m.$25.

Soprano Kristina Bachrach and pianist Miori Sugiyama journey through forgotten vocal music by composers whose voices were suppressed by the Nazi regime.

212-288-3246. parkavenuechristian.com

COLON CANCER Randalls Island, Icahn Stadium Loop 7:45 a.m.-1 p.m.

The 14th Colon Cancer Challenge: Run, walk and be inspired by knowledgeable individuals dedicated to educating community about colon cancer prevention.

914-305-6674. coloncancerchallenge.org

Mon 3 BELLEVUE MAYHEM Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth Ave. 6:30 p.m. Free.

History of America’s oldest hospital, charting turbulent rise of American medicine, path from butchery and quackery to professional scientiďŹ c endeavor.

212-340-0863. nypl.org

SPIRIT OF OCEAN▲ The Explorer’s Club, 6 East 70th St. 6 p.m. $25.

Combining photographs and stories, Jonathan White shares his discoveries and explorations of the deepest workings of the oceans’ tides around the globe.

212-628-8383. explorers.org

Tue 4

Wed 5 CARITAS CONCERT Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, 980 Park Ave. 6:30 p.m. $50.

Evening of wine & song: opera, Bway, operetta and folk music. Caritas meaning charity, proceeds go to charities that address social justice concerns.

212-288-3588. smssconcerts.org

AUTHORS IN KIND Metropolitan Club, 1 East 60th St. 11:30 a.m. $350-$25,000.

God’s Love We Deliver hosts “Authors In Kind,� literary fundraiser luncheon. Supporters gather for intimate reception, discussion and book signing.

212-262-7066. glwd.org

NEW MINIMALISM Japan Society, 333 East 47th St. 6:30-8 p.m. $13. “Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism,� inspired by aesthetics and principles of traditional Zen Buddhism. Book signing.

212-832-1155. japansociety.org

FRENCH JAZZâ–ź Vella Wine Bar, 1480 Second Ave. 8-11 p.m.

To accompany your ďŹ ne dining, enjoy a night of jazz with French and Latin accents with the Carte Blanche Jazz Band.

212-335-0456. vellanyc.com

Bibles Fiction/Non-Fiction Children’s Books Greeting Cards .VTJD t (JGUT Original Art Events and More! )PVST . 5I BN QN t 'SJ BN QN 4BU BN QN t 4VO QN QN

:PSL "WF #UXO SE UI 4U t www.logosbookstorenyc.com

8

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

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

OF ANIMALS AND AGING GRAYING NEW YORK

BY MARCIA EPSTEIN

I love my cat. I take her to the vet and make sure she’s got her thyroid medication. I wish I could put my cat on my Medicare. Yes, there’s pet insurance we can buy, but like all insurance, it’s a crapshoot. From what I’ve read, pet insurance is pretty much like the insurance I pay to my Medigap provider every month. I may need it, I hope I won’t. For the most part, you pay the pet insurance company pretty much what you’d pay the vet, unless your animal has a big crisis. And there are deductibles, co-pays and premiums. At this point, my Simone has a pre-existing condition and wouldn’t be covered under most plans, at least for her

thyroid condition.

So far she’s responding well to the medication, and our vet is very understanding. She says, “Ideally you should have her tested every few months, but if she stays well, bring her in next year.” Thank you, doctor.

But she may not stay well and she may develop a different condition.

Even her regular exam and blood test costs between $300 and $400 a pop. We saw a dog in the vet’s office who’d been attacked in the park and had a bloody, torn ear. John heard the receptionist say, “That’ll be $550 for today.” The owner was an older woman. Who knows, she may be wealthy. But then again, she may not be. So like everything else, it’s a personal decision.

Our last cat suddenly became very sick and we ended up paying a few thousand dollars, and she died of un-

known causes anyway. She wasn’t very old, which was sad. I think if I had an elderly animal and it needed really expensive treatment, I would consider the lifespan of the animal and how much we could realistically pay. This is life. I feel the same way about myself. One of the members of my women’s group says she “wants everything. Any and all treatment until the end.” Many of us don’t feel the same way. I certainly don’t, and I’d feel the same way about my cat.

We give her a good and loving life, and will do what we can for her, within bounds. We seniors on limited incomes have to make decisions every day about what we can and cannot pay for, and also what our philosophy about life is. Animals have a lifespan; I’d take that into consideration with Simone. No hate mail please. We all do what we can.

Actually, I often wonder about those oldsters with their walkers and their little old dogs I see every day on the Upper West Side. It’s wonderful for those who end up old

Voices

and alone to have a companion, but what will happen if the person dies first? I wonder if these people have someone looking after them and their animals, and what will happen to the pet if the owner is no longer around. Unless there is a caring family member, it would probably be good-bye Fido. I have mixed feelings about all of this. I remember a day years ago when I was walking to a hair appointment and an old man was standing on a corner with his elderly cocker spaniel, asking for someone to take the dog and give it a home. To this day, I wish I had grabbed a cab and taken them to the ASPCA. But I didn’t, and I have never really forgiven myself. I’ll never know what happened to that sad duo, but it stays with me. So sad for the elderly, both human and animal, who end up alone.

SelfHelp Community Services has a Virtual Senior Center that is a lifeline for homebound seniors. Using either their specially designed, senior-friendly touch screen com-

puter, or your own computer, the member is able to connect with other seniors by taking on-line interactive classes such as health, computer skills and exercise and also play rummy. Crazy 8s and Hearts are coming soon. The website has a list of classes, and it’s very diverse and interesting. SelfHelp will teach the participant to use Skype to be in touch with others. If interested in SelfHelp’s Virtual Senior Center, call 866-735-234 or email info@ selfhelp.net.

One last note. Last time I wrote about how hospitals ought to have single rooms only, and I asked my friends what their ideas were for making the stay more comfortable.

By far, the noise problem was on top.

One friend had a terrific suggestion: make headphones mandatory for those patients who insist on having their televisions blaring constantly.

I second that. It’s only a beginning, but food for more thought on making hospital stays bearable.

A LIVABLE CITY AT STAKE

BY BETTE DEWING

“The Fighter: Brash News Legend Gave Voice to the City’s Powerless.”

This Daily News front page headline told us that Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jimmy Breslin had succumbed to pneumonia at age 88. I’m writing this mainly because that’s what small businesses so desperately need to thrive and survive — brash, mad-as hell-and-not-going-to-take-itanymore major media voices.

Small neighborhood businesses are surely among the city’s powerless, despite being so essential to the overall, everyday quality of city life. But they never organized and never protested being slowly but inexorably run out of the city. They should have a major say in how the city is run. But now, wherever you look, either the lowrise buildings which housed them are gone or going, or rents are over-thetop unaffordable. And with Internet shopping, even department stores like Sears are being run out.

But to stay with the locals. Of course there have been media outcries, in-

cluding this paper and other smallbusiness supporters. My not-brashenough voice has long warned against the killing off of these neighborhood lifelines. Major media seems unconcerned, except for the late Christopher Gray, whose “Streetscapes” column ran in The Times Sunday Real Estate section until 2014. We cold not afford to lose Gray, and at the achingly young age of 66.

Forgotten is the late Jane Jacobs’ deservedly lauded work on what makes a livable city — neighborly, self-sustaining neighborhoods.

So this column is again banging this drum while banging my head reading Arlene Kayatt’s column “Big’s In – Small’s Out” with revealing details on the razing of an entire low-rise block of small businesses we can’t afford to lose. Do check out the doomed block at First between 79th and 80th.

I remember the 2008 routing of the 38-year-old 79th Street Cafe — a diner with booths and a counter and open almost 24 hours. Our Town gave it considerable coverage and I said the

landlord could be a real New York hero if he’d just give this diner a new lease with a rational rent. He didn’t. And so many suffered the loss of that community place. AA members went there after meetings at St. Monica’s next door.

It was a second home to the church members. And this profound community loss is just one of thousands. The forever loss of these places relates to healthcare/preventive care — and to the “epidemic of loneliness,” for which this is an unrecognized factor, as my Times letter claimed.

Incidentally, we’re ever grateful for civic leader Betty Cooper Wallerstein’s longtime work on zoning which relates to saving low-rises. But so much more public involvement is needed — and holding legislators’ feet to the fire. And hey, one thing you can do right now, dear reader, is call your local legislators. This paper’s Useful Contacts column has their numbers.

And how we need some protest posters — not only on First between 79th and 80th — or just some small posted rueful notes. These lifeline losses must

Jane Jacobs at a press conference in the West Village in 1960. Photo: Phil Stanziola, New York World-Telegram and Sun, via Wikimedia Commons

not go unheeded. Or unchallenged. It can be done if enough of us — if more of us — try. A livable city is at stake. To

be continued — often and loud. bettedewing@aol.com

President & Publisher, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com

STRAUS MEDIA your neighborhood news source

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

Associate Publishers Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Regional Sales Manager Tania Cade

Account Executive Fred Almonte Director of Partnership Development Barry Lewis

Director of Digital Pete Pinto

Editor-In-Chief Alexis Gelber editor.ot@strausnews.com Deputy Editor Richard Khavkine editor.otdt@strausnews.com

Staff Reporter Madeleine Thompson newsreporter@strausnews.com Michael Garofalo reporter@strausnews.com

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2017 OTTY WINNER

Jody Scopa Goldman and Lula Mae Phillips teach techniques that can save lives. Photo: Michael Garofalo

HANDS-ON COMMUNITY HEALTH Lula Mae Phillips and Jody Scopa Goldman empower New Yorkers with CPR training

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

Lula Mae Phillips and Jody Scopa Goldman are on a mission to show New Yorkers that with a bit of training, anyone can help save a life.

The duo have taught countless members of the public — everyone from students to seniors — how to perform hands-only CPR through their work with New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center’s community training program.

It only takes a few minutes for Phillips and Goldman, both nurses, to teach hands-only CPR. It’s as easy as demonstrating proper chest compression technique on mannequin torsos and imparting a simple mantra: check, call, and compress.

People are sometimes sheepish about getting on their knees to practice on the dummies — “If I can get on my knees, you can too!” Phillips often says to convince would-be pupils — but the lessons almost always end with a smile.

“It’s really nice when they get up and are like, ‘Wow, I can do it!’” Goldman said.

Hands-only CPR — which, in contrast to traditional CPR, does not involve mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — can make a life-saving difference in cases of sudden cardiac arrest. Less than half of the 350,000 Americans who suffer out-ofhospital cardiac arrests each year receive any help before EMS arrive — a statistic Goldman and Phillips are working to change. Immediately administering CPR can double or even triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival.

“We want to really encourage the community

and show that there’s nothing to it,” Goldman said.

In addition to teaching classes at the medical center’s Upper East Side campus, Phillips and Goldman take their training program on the road to sidewalk health fairs, senior centers, churches, and farmers’ markets around the city.

Health fairs, like the one New York-Presbyterian/ Weill Cornell holds each June during national CPR Awareness Week, are a way to show the public just how easy — and important — the technique is.

Goldman, a program manager at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute, especially enjoys her weekly training sessions with drivers from the Black Car Fund, an organization that provides health benefits to black-car and limousine drivers. The drivers often begin the class with lukewarm enthusiasm, but inevitably loosen up as they learn the technique on mannequins. “By the end, they’re almost tripping over each other to do it,” Goldman said with a laugh.

Phillips, community engagement and research manager at Weill Cornell Medical College’s Clinical Translational Science Center, was momentarily taken aback when a woman loudly called for her at one recent event. “She said, ‘Yo! I’m looking for you,’” Phillips recalled. “And I said to myself, ‘Oh God, what did I do?’” But the woman wasn’t angry — she just wanted to tell Phillips that she had saved her granddaughter’s life using the techniques she had learned at an earlier session.

“It empowers them,” Goldman said. “This is a way of taking control of your community’s health.”

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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2017 OTTY WINNER

ANSWERING THE BELL FDNY Commander Richard Tarello’s 10th Battalion helped ensure safety during the Second Avenue subway construction

BY MICKEY KRAMER

The FDNY’s Battalion 10, representing the Upper East Side, is always ready to answer the bell.

Battalion 10 encompasses Engine 39 and Ladder 16 on East 67th Street, Engine 44 on East 75th Street, Engine 22 and Ladder 13 on East 85 Street, and Engine 53 and Ladder 43 on Third Avenue at East 102nd Street.

According to Battalion Commander Richard Tarello, the seven units “answered the bell” 39,675 times last year, and Ladder 43, in particular, was the busiest ladder company citywide, responding to more than 5,700 calls.

In addition to risking their own lives fighting multi-story blazes to handling daily concerns such as gas leaks and elevator emergencies, Battalion 10 ensured the safety of residents and workers during the years’-long Second Avenue subway construction project.

There are some events that deserve special recognition, such as one last

All Battalion 10 companies were first to arrive and they did an outstanding job, considering how advanced the fire was, and the severe life hazard to the building occupants.”

Richard Tarello October when a six-alarm fire broke out in an East 93rd Street apartment building. Although there was a fatality, it could have been worse if not for the FDNY’s heroic efforts.

Tarello, 62, a member of the FDNY since 1983 and Battalion Commander since 2005, explains, “All Battalion 10 companies were first to arrive and they did an outstanding job, considering how advanced the fire was, and the severe life hazard to the building occupants.” Especially noteworthy was a rare and risky maneuver where

firefighter Jim Lee, from Rescue 1, repelled from the roof via a rope to save an elderly man trapped in his apartment. Both were lowered down to safety.

Three members of the 10th Battalion were involved as Joe Moore, Ladder 13, acted as a guide. Andrew Hawkins, Ladder 43, and others from another company lowered Lee down from the roof and got him to the window and Stephen Janicki, Ladder 43, helped anchoring the rope.

While the Second Avenue subway is now up and running, for years the 10th Battalion was successful ensuring safety procedures, fire protection, and proper access to buildings on Second Avenue. “It was major construction and there were some serious fires and some injuries, but no fatalities during the long and dangerous project,” says Tarello.

Gene Kelty, 62, has been a member of the FDNY for over 37 years, and a Battalion Chief since 2009. He feels a special sense of community on the East Side. “It’s a dynamic area, always vibrant … mostly residential, complimented by mid-level businesses, so we get to see the same people every day

Battalion Commander Richard Tarello. Photo: FDNY and they know our doors are always open.”

Sadly, eleven members of the 10th Battalion lost their lives on September 11th, 2001, but in a fitting tribute, there are currently five relatives, including sons, brothers, and a daughter, who are now FDNY members serving the

Upper East Side.

The ever-modest Tarello always comes back to his fellow firefighters.

“I enjoy going to work every day, but I’m just the chief,” he says. “How they meet the challenges of a difficult and dangerous job fighting fires is the real story.”

the 19th Pct Community Council

The 19th Precinct Community Council &RQJUDWXODWHV &ULPH 3UHYHQWLRQ 2൶FHU Anthony Nuccio on his OTTY Award, for his dedication to the 19th Precinct.

19th Precinct Community Council President: Nick Viest Vice President: Kathy Jolowicz Assistant Secretary: Mary Ford

Treasurer: Diane Klages Secretary: Geri Corbett Sergeant of Arms: Dave Gillespie

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

2017 OTTY WINNER

A READABLE FEAST Nach Waxman’s bookstore is a wonderland for food lovers

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

Kitchen Arts & Letters has been a Lexington Avenue fixture for more than three decades, but the bookstore’s impact extends far beyond the Upper East Side. Culinary professionals the world over — along with home cooks from around the corner in the East Nineties — come to founder Nach Waxman for his expertise in works on food and drink. Waxman grew up in a kosher household in Vineland, New Jersey. “Ethnic food was spaghetti and meatballs,� he says, looking back.

Though he no longer keeps kosher (“It’s left me�), his childhood experience with food left a lasting imprint — as he describes it, he “internalized� important aspects of what it means to cook by spending time in his mother’s kitchen. “People should really see food being made,� he says. In college, armed with a copy of “The Joy of Cooking� (a gift from his mother), he set out

on his own kitchen journey. “I never wanted to stop cooking after that,� he says.

Waxman later found his culinary passion in the avors of India, which he studied as a graduate student in anthropology. It’s clear that the academic discipline informed the mission of Kitchen Arts & Letters. “For years, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that it’s not a cookbook store,â€? he says. Rather, the store is a compendium of works relating to the culture and history of food, including recipes, of course, but extending to science, production, distribution, and beyond. “That remains a dominant part of my thinking,â€? he says. “Food is just one little piece in a lot of different things.â€?

Waxman opened the store in 1983, after more than a decade working in publishing. “I thank the mercy of heaven every day that I didn’t choose open a general bookstore,� he says.

The sharp focus of Kitchen Arts & Letters allowed the store to develop a customer base of professionals from the food world, who account for 60 per-

Kitchen Arts & Letters reects Nach Waxman’s anthropological approach to food and drink. Photo: Michael Garofalo cent of sales. “Those people continue to buy books,â€? Waxman says. “They want expertise and guidance.â€?

These days, most of the store’s dayto-day operations are handled by Waxman’s partner Matt Sartwell (“He does the heavy lifting,� Waxman says), while Waxman focuses on the aspect of the business he is most passionate about — helping customers find rare and out-of-print books. Waxman

Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House And the Guests of The Urban Outreach Center Congratulate

The Reverend Beverly Dempsey Senior Pastor and Executive Director And all of the 2017 OTTY Award recipients

draws on his decades of connections in publishing and retail to track down hard-to-find titles, often sourcing books internationally. In the market for a decades-old multivolume Frenchlanguage encyclopedia on the wines of Burgundy, but can’t seem to ďŹ nd it anywhere? Nach Waxman can help. “The interesting part is the books that you discover that you never knew existed in the ďŹ rst place,â€? he says.

Waxman and his wife are still an avid home cooks, but “fancy cooking� and complex recipes have little appeal.

More captivating is the beauty in simplicity — “three to five ingredients put together in the most thoughtful way possible.� He grows rapturous as he describes a simple pasta dish of olive oil, anchovies, red pepper, garlic. “I can’t think of anything better,� he says.

When he was scouting locations for Kitchen Arts & Letters, Waxman, a longtime West Sider, chose the Upper East Side for practical reasons.

In the early 1980s, he says, “It was affordable, which is ludicrous in current terms.� The East Nineties were different then — the store was held up twice in its early days — but over the years, Waxman developed an affection for the area. “I’ve really become attached to the neighborhood,� he says. “To the people, to its history, to Yorkville down the hill.� “It’s a wonderfully friendly place,� he adds.

Waxman worries that rising rents could yet price the store out of the neighborhood, but his passion for the business is as strong as ever. “It is a constant process of very exciting discovery,� he says.

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

2017 OTTY WINNER

THE DUKE OF YORK Leonard Litwin built and developed landscaped luxury buildings that transformed the East Side

BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN

It was December 2008. Bernard Madoff had just been unmasked as the biggest financial swindler in U.S. history. And the builder-extraordinaire Leonard Litwin, then a mere 94 years old, whose elegant luxury towers had transformed the East Side, was out untold millions of dollars.

“I was scared to death to tell him how much he had lost,” said Charles C. Dorego, general counsel of Glenwood Management, which owns 26 residential buildings in Manhattan. Upon hearing the news, Litwin put his head down briefly. Then, he began to take care of the other victims.

Within hours, as Dorego tells the story, his boss gave him a handwritten list bearing the names of 32 friends, widows and associates who might need looking after. Each was contacted and offered financial assistance. Many declined, but roughly 10 accepted, and soon, Litwin was tapping into his personal fortune to help them recoup.

There was no attendant publicity, it was handled quietly, discreetly, as befits a most modest man: “His foundation got wiped out, but upset as he was, he had the compassion to help carry those who were suffering, those who lost everything and those who needed to pay the rent,” said Steven Swarzman, his grandson.

Now 102, Litwin continued to pop into the office until he was 98, and in all that time, he never veered from his multi-decade insistence on being a rental-only, builder-manager. Why eschew more lucrative condominium development?

His was the old-fashioned view — of a man born two months after the guns of August, meaning the start of World War I — that the city’s rental stock was its economic lifeblood and the essential means of providing homes for its young professionals, ambitious strivers and starter families.

Litwin’s legacy is writ large in the landscaped and garden-bedecked residential apartment buildings dotting York Avenue. In fact, the first of his seven buildings on the avenue, the 838-unit Pavilion at 500 East 77th Street, the island’s biggest apartment dwelling when it opened in 1963, was for two decades a talking point for Circle Line tour guides.

“Among his fellow developers, he was affectionately known as the Duke of York,” said Gary Jacob, Glenwood’s executive vice president. “It was uni-

versally held that he had always been Manhattan’s premier developer of luxury rental homes.”

Being a duke came with certain responsibilities. Honor in business practices was one of them, said Hal Fetner, president and CEO of Fetner Properties, a developer whose late father Sidney used to build reinforced concrete superstructures for Litwin’s East Side towers.

“How business has changed,” he said. “My father used to do deals with Lennie on a handshake, and then he’d go out and do the concrete.”

But being a duke also meant possessing a certain healthy territoriality.

After Fetner’s father in the late 1960s developed Gracie Plaza, at 1725 York Avenue, all but wedged in between Litwin’s Andover to the south and Barclay to the north, he was suddenly on the receiving end of some goodnatured ribbing from his friend.

“Lennie would always tease my father, ‘I don’t know how I let you slip in there and build,’” Fetner recalls. “He would say, ‘You broke up my string of buildings!’”

As one of the city’s largest private landlords, Litwin developed a wellmanaged portfolio of 12 buildings on the Upper East Side, seven on the West Side, four in Midtown East and three downtown. One calling card for all his properties: an abundance of the color green.

THE HISTORY Litwin’s father, Harry, who fled pogroms in Czarist Russia as a teenager, was a landscaper and gardener who built a small nursery on Long Island in 1933 that eventually morphed into the 200-acre, Litwin-owned Woodbourne Cultural Nurseries, which still grows thousands of trees and shrubs.

His son followed him into the family business, and before long, the

I don’t think there’s ever been anybody in the industry who solicited Mr. Litwin for a worthy cause who was refused” Jeffrey Levine

It was universally held that he had always been Manhattan’s premier developer of luxury rental homes” Gary Jacob

Builder and philanthropist Leonard Litwin. Photo: Glenwood Management. father-and-son nurserymen had become landscaping subcontractors, digging holes and planting trees for property developers. Most builders, if you scratch deep enough, began as contractors before venturing into ground-up development themselves, says Carole Litwin Pittelman, the Litwin daughter who now runs the family business.

“After a while, they thought, ‘We could do this development thing ourselves,” she added. “So they started from the bottom up.”

Literally. Just as a Litwin building was rooted in bedrock, the recessed gardens and towering trees that grace the frontages alongside many of his towers were rooted in the soil of York Avenue and elsewhere.

Others would build to the lot line so a uniform street wall would line up with the city’s grid. Litwin often did that, too, but many times he’d utilize the perimeter around a building’s footprint to create mini-emerald spaces.

“We in the city need as many trees and flower and shrubs as can be allowed because we don’t have enough green spaces,” Litwin Pittelman said.

The bottom line: depending on applicable zoning, Litwin left as much room for landscaping as earthly possible. Ideally, if given a choice, his floor plates would utilize all the available square footage in a “financially beneficial way,” while allowing space for “planters, gardens, the maximum number of trees, roof gardens — and as much green as anyone would let us,” she said.

Was Litwin’s tenure in the roughand-tumble, politically treacherous,

super-competitive, supernova of Manhattan real estate unblemished?

The answer is, not exactly. He plunged into the market with his father in the 1950s, and in 2015, his second century, twin political corruption scandals plagued his firm.

Glenwood and its then-101-year-old boss figured in two criminal cases that toppled ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and ex-state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. In each trial, the company’s practice of using a maze of limited liability companies to contribute to the biggest figures in New York politics went under the microscope.

When they were over, both Silver and Skelos were convicted on several corruption counts. Neither Litwin, Glenwood nor any company executives were charged with anything.

Still, it emerged that Silver, in one scheme, had pressured Glenwood to hire a law firm that funneled fees to Silver, who in turn backed legislation sought by the developer. As for Skelos, he supported bills benefiting Glenwood, while pushing the firm to send some title insurance work to his son.

A future Litwin biographer can decide if these were troubling lapses or mere footnotes amid many mitzvahs.

But consider those good deeds:

SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY Litwin gave $5 million to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

He donated $500,000 to the restoration of gardens at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“He made a monumental contribution to the Jewish National Fund,”

said builder Jeffrey Levine, national president of the group, which buys land and plants trees in Israel. “I don’t think there’s ever been anybody in the industry who solicited Mr. Litwin for a worthy cause who was refused.”

Said developer and philanthropist Donald Zucker, “I asked him to contribute $5 million to an Alzheimer’s research foundation. He said, ‘Okay,’ but that he’d only do so if I matched the contribution, which I did.” Thus was born the Litwin-Zucker Research Center for the Study of Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders at Northwell.

Any list, however abbreviated, of his medical and scientific giving would have to include massive support for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and the founding of the New York Crohn’s Foundation. His grandson Howard Swarzman suffers from the disease.

In addition, “He was the first developer to build downtown after the 9/11 attacks because he always wanted to make the city a more desirable place to live,” said Swarzman, who is also a Glenwood vice president.

Indeed, Dorego says the “embers were still hot” at Ground Zero when Litwin “stepped up to the plate and committed $50 million in equity to show the world that downtown would rise again.” Eight months after 9/11, Glenwood broke ground for Liberty Plaza at 10 Liberty Street.

It’s been a dizzying life, so, one wonders, what did Litwin ever do for relaxation? As Zucker tells the story, there was a time, maybe 15 years ago, that the two men went to Paris on vacation with their wives.

“We were having dinner, and suddenly he tells me, ‘I don’t belong here, I got to go back to work.’ I told him, ‘Lennie, we’re here, try to enjoy it,’ and he says, ‘No, I hate it here! I got to go back to work.’”

Zucker implored him to stay, and Litwin agreed to tough it out in Paris.

But it was clear that his heart was elsewhere. Perhaps at Glenwood. Or on York Avenue. Or with the philanthropic work he adored.

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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2017 OTTY WINNER

DEDICATED TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD Barry and Judy Schneider, creators of a group to help the East Sixties, â&#x20AC;&#x153;see eye to eye on almost every issueâ&#x20AC;?

BY MADELEINE THOMPSON

Barry and Judy Schneider began their decades of service on the Upper East Side with an empty lot. SpeciďŹ cally, one at the southeast corner of East 63rd Street and Second Avenue, MTA property that decades ago was staging ground for construction at the Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street station and that the authority later wanted to turn into a parking lot. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how a group starts, with an issue,â&#x20AC;?

Judy Schneider said. The Schneiders lobbied to use the space as a garden, which they did from about 1993 until 2000. The group they then created to continue servicing the area, the East Sixties Neighborhood Association (ESNA), just celebrated its 25th anniversary last fall. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We found that ...

there are other issues in the community that need our attention, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how we started,â&#x20AC;? Judy said.

Barry stressed the coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agreeable partnership as a main factor of their success. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I know many couples, the woman is very much involved and the husband just doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have anything to do with it, or lots of times vice versa, but here weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re both involved in the same issues,â&#x20AC;? Barry said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what keeps us going and also keeps an association alive, because we do see eye to eye on almost every issue.â&#x20AC;? The Schneiders have three children and four grandchildren. They have lived on the Upper East Side for 50 years in the apartment they bought that was, at the time, in the ďŹ rst condo building in the city.

Before they dedicated their lives to the neighborhood, Barry worked at an ad agency and Judy was an architecture and design consultant. But after

We found that ... there are other issues in the community that need our attention, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how we startedâ&#x20AC;?

Judy Schneider

The Schneiders recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of their group, the East Sixties Neighborhood Association. Photo: Madeleine Thompson they started ESNA, they found that their old jobs didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean as much as the community work they were doing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When we could afford not to work, then we both kind of gave it up,â&#x20AC;? Judy said. The services for which the neighborhood association became known â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like its annual directory of local businesses â&#x20AC;&#x201D; eventually required

their full attention.

But the Schneidersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; involvement doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop with ESNA. Judy is on the board of St. Katherineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Park at First Avenue between 67th and 68th Streets, and both have been members of Community Board 8. They have fought in particular for more and better green space, leading tree

trimmings in the warmer months, and they even organized a New York City Bridge Centennial Commission to celebrate the 100th birthdays of ďŹ ve major city bridges.

Barry and Judy arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t shy about the effect their decades of work have had on the Upper East Side. Asked what makes the neighborhood great, they said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We make it what it is.â&#x20AC;? However, they were quick to credit the elected officials and city agencies who have collaborated with them for so many years. Plus, they added, every amenity and form of entertainment is â&#x20AC;&#x153;within 10 minutes.â&#x20AC;?

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WE SALUTE

OUR TOWN AND CONGRATULATE THE 2017 HONOREES

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

Weill Cornell Medicine & NewYorkPresbyterian congratulate Lula Mae Phillips and Jody Scopa Goldman & all of the 2017 OTTY award recipients.

Care That Connects To You.

Lula Mae Phillips, RN, MED, MDiv

Jody Scopa Goldman, MS, RN

Community Engagement & Research Manager

Program Manager / Education Specialist

Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC)

Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell

weillcornell.org

Visit weillcornell.org and nyp.org

nyp.org

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

2017 OTTY WINNER

HOSPITALITY FOR THE HOMELESS For Pastor Beverly Dempsey, the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church is a “premier, one-stop social services operation”

BY GENIA GOULD

The Rev. Beverly Dempsey, Senior Pastor and Executive Director at The Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House on East 74th Street, is, as she describes it, “creating a space for the neighborhood to thrive.”

The church was first established by a Czech immigrant community in 1888. Consistent with its theological foundation as a justice-minded congregation, the church focused its mission to outreach for the homeless, one hundred years later.

Since Dempsey was installed in September 2014, the church has continued to embrace the homeless and deeply impoverished people of New York City, expanding its mission to the breadth of human vulnerabilities. Now, with a small membership and staff, the Urban Outreach Center of Jan Hus Presbyterian Church is serving as many as 27,000 individuals a year.

As a “premier, one-stop social services operation,” says Pastor Beverly, The Urban Outreach Center at Jan Hus provides weekly meeting rooms for 65

12-Step recovery groups, offers pantry food distribution five days a week, a hot meal on Tuesday evenings, counseling, referrals for SNAP benefits and housing, and other services aimed at the “worth and dignity of their guests.” Equally important, they provide a mailing address for a few hundred people who otherwise wouldn’t have a place to receive a social security check, medical or employment mail, or maybe even a Christmas card. “That’s vitally important certain times of the year, it can be the only connection they have to know that a family member or old friend cares.”

Dempsey encourages her team to practice “just hospitality.” The pastor explains the concept as a way of relating with individuals who live at the margins of society: “It’s when people reach across socially constructed boundaries to engage true relationships with those she might otherwise not meet through an ordinary course of life.”

One of the biggest surprises to the pastor when she arrived was that there was only one facility on the entire Upper East Side for the hundreds of local homeless individuals to shower. “Can you imagine that?” says Dempsey. “If you’re freezing in the winter, or sweaty and hot in the sum-

It’s when people reach across socially constructed boundaries to engage true relationships with those she might otherwise not meet through an ordinary course of life.”

Beverly Dempsey

The Rev. Beverly Dempsey in the sanctuary of her church. Photo: Genia Gould mer, there’s essentially no place to get clean. Thanks to our supporters, we were able to build-out our pre-existing locker room to create a spacious facility for homeless men and women to take a shower, shave, and brush their teeth. A hot shower is transformative for our friends, just as it is for you and me.”

She also saw a benefit in creating three separate clothing distribution rooms so that men, women and children could have their particular needs met. Last fall, with the support of a benefactor, her team created a resource center “so people don’t just walk in and wonder what help is available for them. Now, they can access a whole room that has neatly organized bins of categorized information about anything our deeply impoverished guests might need.”

In 2016, the pastor implemented their “Neighborhood Harvest: A Roof Garden” made possible by a seed grant

from the United Way that also hosts the only two beehives on a religious institution in all five boroughs.

“Isn’t that something? It’s so foundational to the Abraham tradition of the land of milk and honey,” the pastor says. “John ate honey, everybody ate honey in the Bible.”

More recently, Dempsey encouraged one of her employees — a formerly homeless military veteran — to launch Veterans Connect: a monthly program for homeless veterans “to gain a greater sense of community, along with insights and resources to gain stability and a path forward for their lives.”

While Pastor Beverly is working to maximize and optimize the programs of the Urban Outreach Center, she has also been strengthening the worship community of the church. Beginning with a base of 10 members when she arrived, the church now has three separate “faith-formation experiences at three different times throughout

the week so that more people of the neighborhood have an opportunity for spiritual development.” There are now nearly 100 people worshipping or benefiting from the experiences each week.

The church building has become a boon to the neighboring community, renting the recently renovated gymnasium for various physical education and fitness programs, the sanctuary for gallery exhibitions, readings, concerts and for production crews doing local filming.

Dempsey is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and Goucher College. She is now completing her Doctorate in Ministry from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Prior to her ministry, Reverend Dempsey was in consumer packaged goods marketing, strategic planning and banking. She lives in New Jersey with her husband Joe and the youngest two of the family’s five children.

2017 OTTY WINNER

ENGAGING EDUCATION Author turned principal fosters community at East Side Middle School

BY MOLLY COLGAN

Kids always end up in the principal’s office at East Side Middle School — but not because they’re in trouble. They’re assembling around the desk in Principal David Getz’ office during zero period before school has even begun for poetry club — or they’re having a meeting about the 59th Street bubble, working to get it back under public control.

Then homeroom rolls around and the student council group shows up.

They’ve been working with Getz and City Council Member Ben Kallos to get legislation passed that would require all middle and high schools in the district to have gay-straight alliances.

“It’s always been a very involved, very engaged school,” explains Getz.

“My kids are trying to make the Upper East Side a better place. We’re trying to make the city a better place.”

His days are jam-packed with teacher observations, lunch-period book clubs, meetings with parents, and unexpected student issues.

“My typical day? It’s interrupted every five minutes,” he jokes. “Things are always happening. It’s fun — it’s a lot of fun, but things are not always scheduled.”

But the many interruptions don’t stop Getz from doing what he does best: fostering a strong sense of community and respect throughout ESMS, which gives educators and students alike the ability to create a positive learning environment.

“What really permeates our school

David Getz, principal at East Side Middle School on East 91st Street, who fosters a strong sense of community and respect among students. Photo: Molly Colgan is trust, respect, compassion and concerning thoughtfulness,” he says. “We want to develop kids who are really rigorous thinkers, and empathy and

emotional literacy is a big part of what we do here.”

Prior to his days as principal, Getz worked as an elementary school

teacher and an author. Much of his writing was inspired by his early years as a teacher. When he wrote his novels, they were taken directly from his teaching journals. While composing his nonfiction books, he imagined his very own students as his target audience.

Since taking over the helm at ESMS, however, he hasn’t felt the same compulsion to write that he used to. “My job is very creative,” Getz said. “The creativity that I needed to find an outlet for through my writing — a lot of it happens here. The drive and the connection is similar. Part of my impulse to write is to communicate with people about things I find important. I’m doing that all the time, and it’s reciprocal. If you write for theater and create a play, people in the audience are being moved by your words onstage.

That’s what you seek. I’m creating that in the morning when I come to work. ...

It’s a real joy.”

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

Kenneth L. Davis MD and the Mount Sinai Health System Congratulate Zil Goldstein, FNP-BC and all OTTY award recipients And thank them for their service to their local communities

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

2017 OTTY WINNER

NURTURING CREATIVITY Writer and arts supporter Susan Fales-Hill finds inspiration in the conviviality of the Upper East Side

BY RUI MIAO It’s almost impossible to associate Susan Fales-Hill with any other ZIP code. The glam and elegance she carries is decidedly Upper East Side. After all, she has been living there for 20 years.

She doesn’t hail from there, or from the city — or even from the United States. “Refugees from racism,” is how she described her parents: Josephine Premice, a Haitian-American Broadway actress, and Timothy Fales, a stockbroker from “an old, WASP family,” who moved to Rome after getting married in 1958. Fales-Hill was born in the Italian capital in 1962.

The family settled in Manhattan when she was 2, and Fales-Hill grew up steeped in the arts, history and literature on the Upper West Side — a “cocoon and wonderland” full of books, music and different cultures. “We didn’t go to things like Disneyland or McDonald’s, we went to the museums and theatres.”

As a teenager, Fales-Hill took the crosstown bus to attend the Lycée Français de New York; she then graduated from Harvard University with a degree in literature and history. She spent her 20s and early 30s as a television writer and producer, starting as a writer apprentice for the Cosby Show.

Be yourself...Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides. Take some time and really figure out what makes you happy ... you will get as much as you give” Susan Fales-Hill

As a New Yorker in Los Angeles, she worked long hours until her mother became ill. She would often return to New York to care for her mother. She also started writing her first book, a memoir, “Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful.”

“She passed away in the middle of my writing it,” recalled Fales-Hill, who said writing helped her deal with the pain that her mother’s death brought.

“It forced me to confront all the emotions ... by having to ‘live’ with her everyday and remember, it really helped process the loss.”

The book, published in 2003, kicked off her career as a writer. “One Flight Up: A Novel” and “Imperfect Bliss: A Novel” came along a few years later.

Like many other New York writers drawn to the Upper East Side for its conviviality, Fales-Hill — who moved back to New York in 1997 — is grateful for this place where she can nurture her creativity.

“It is a real neighborhood,” she said.

“That sense of cocoon that you can create of a home.”

Her go-to list includes, but is not limited to: Sant Ambroeus on 78th and Madison, which is her “little dose of Italy in New York”; for special occasions, she would take her daughter to the Carlyle, where she traces childhood memories with the legacy of family friend Bobby Short; Zitomer pharmacy on 76th and Madison — “they have everything”; when her eyes crave beautiful things, she would walk past the Ralph Lauren flagship store on 72nd Street near her high school; and of course, the Frick, The Met and Central Park.

“We are New Yorkers, we get around,” she said.

Fales-Hill has a penchant for art, and ballet is among her greatest loves. She’s a committed supporter of American Ballet Theatre, among other

The author, screenwriter and arts advocate Susan Fales-Hill. Photo: Julie Skarrett cultural institutions. The passion for the arts, inherited from her mother, is carried on within the family: her daughter went to her first ballet performance when she was 13 months.

“I wanted my daughter’s life to be equally rich in culture, and interesting,” said Fales-Hill. “So I’d chosen to do a lot of things with her that my mother did with me.”

Humble as she is, she’s an inspiration for young women, be it those who aspire to write, or those who struggle with their own identities.

“Be yourself,” she said. “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides. Take some time and really figure out what makes you happy ... you will get as much as you give.”

2017 OTTY WINNER

HOSTING COMMUNITY Mohamed Murci, a math teacher in his native Sudan, is director of the city’s first mosque

BY MADELEINE THOMPSON

Mohamed Murci, director of the Islamic Cultural Center, is quick to say that anywhere in the city would be a good place for an Islamic center.

But, he adds, the Upper East Side has been a particularly welcoming community for the roughly 1,500 people who use the center, whether for prayers, school or activities. “[The neighbors] call and ask if we need anything,” he said. “[They say], ‘Do you want us to come and stand with you?’ And ‘don’t worry.’”

Murci was born in Sudan, where he taught math until coming to New York City in the 1980s. “During that time it was easy, coming and staying,” he said. “Not easy now. The time has changed.”

He attended Long Island University to study computer science, but dropped out for financial reasons.

He worked in construction and retail before getting a job at the Kuwait Mission to the United Nations.

He became director of the Islamic Cultural Center fairly recently, in 2015, but has already seen the organization through turbulent times.

In August, someone vandalized the plaque above the center’s gate, and the mosque’s sign has been spray-

Mohamed Murci, director of the Islamic Cultural Center, at the Third Avenue institution. Photo: Madeleine Thompson

painted and stolen.

Since the presidential election, the center has not been exempt from the increase in bomb threats. Murci credited the New York City Police Department’s 19th precinct with providing vigilant protection, and expressed a belief that the incidents were the cause of troubled individuals rather than being evidence of a wider mindset.

The center teaches classes to about 170 students, provides services like meals for the homeless and makes its imams available to the public every day. “That’s what the center stands for,” Murci said.

He called New York City “a small continent,” and said he loved that there are so many opportunities here. “It’s all people from all over the world,” he said. “Here, you can find anything.”

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

The 75,000 New York members of 32bj seiu congratulate

Leonard Litwin on being honored with the 2017 our town thanks you award.

32bj seiu is the largest property service workers union in the country.

25 West 18th Street, New York, ny 10011

www.SEIU32BJ.org

32BJSEIU

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

2017 OTTY WINNER

2017 OTTY WINNER

CARING ABOUT HISTORY The 19th Precinct’s Anthony Nuccio helped redesign the memorial wall for those who died in the line of duty

BY MICKEY KRAMER

Zil Goldstein of Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. Photo: Michael Garofalo

PATHFINDER IN TRANSGENDER HEALTH CARE Zil Goldstein and Mount Sinai bridge the gap in comprehensive care for trans patients

BY MICHAEL GAROFALO

Zil Goldstein works at the forefront of transgender health care as program director of Mount Sinai Hospital’s pioneering Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.

The center provides comprehensive health care for the transgender community, offering a full range of crucial services that, until recently, patients couldn’t access from a single provider.

Goldstein, a board-certified family nurse practitioner, has a hand in all aspects of the center’s mission, from clinical practice to education and research.

It its recently completed first year, the center served more than 800 people — the response has been so strong, Goldstein said, that the center is already in need of additional capacity to accommodate patient demand. “The community response has been pretty amazing,” Goldstein said. “We’ve gotten a lot of thank-you letters from a lot of very appreciative

folks who have been wanting to get these services for years.”

Goldstein’s path to medicine was paved by her work as an activist, advocating for access to healthcare and nondiscrimination for transgender people. “I saw people getting inadequate care, not getting what they needed, and being shamed about needing the care to transition,” Goldstein said.

“I wanted to go into healthcare so I could be someone who could provide these life-saving medical and surgical services without any of those barriers.” As an author and a regular panelist on the conference circuit, Goldstein has distinguished herself as a leader in the field, both in terms of practice and advocacy.

Goldstein’s responsibilities extend throughout the Mount Sinai system in her role as an educator, working with members of other departments and the community at large to promote more sophisticated care and more sophisticated sensitivity for transgender patients.

The center’s multidisciplinary approach is designed to provide patients with the full suite of medical services

in a one location, including primary care, hormonal therapy, surgical procedures, and mental health care. When Goldstein started in the field, finding a center with such comprehensive care “was just not possible.”

Being a part of the team that launched the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery last year was a “fantastic” experience, Goldstein said. “I’ve been doing this work for over ten years now, and I put a lot of thought into how to run and build something exactly like this,” she said.

Goldstein hopes that Mount Sinai’s groundbreaking holistic approach can become a model for transgender health care elsewhere. “One of the things we’ve been able to do is have this open to a broader spectrum of people who didn’t have any access to care before because they didn’t have one place that could handle all of the different aspects,” she said.

Crucially, the center accepts insurance for services that, for decades, in many cases, were strictly available on a cash-only basis.

Providing full services to people who have been turned away elsewhere is among the most important aspects of the center’s work, Goldstein explained. The surgical procedures offered by Mount Sinai now include male and female chest reconstruction, vaginoplasty, metoidioplasty, and phalloplasty.

“A few months ago we were able to complete a vaginoplasty on a 77-year-old woman who had been waiting her entire life to have a vagina,” Goldstein said. “She was just so happy that she was finally able to achieve that.”

Police officer Anthony Nuccio is a history buff with an artistic eye.

When he saw a memorial wall for members of the 19th Precinct who died in the line of duty that he felt was unsuitable, he acted to improve it. Nuccio, 34, explains, “When I got to the precinct [in late 2014], I saw there were a few plaques on a wall, but through extensive research, I learned there were more officers who died on duty; seven in total.”

Nuccio, a fine arts major early in his college days, helped redesign a new memorial made with wood, molding, and highgloss lacquer. The hard work cumulated with a rededication ceremony in October, 2016, and included family members from Ireland, Florida, New Hampshire and New York. Also in attendance was then-newly installed Police Commissioner, James P. O’Neill.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Nuccio recalls. “The biggest thing was bringing families thought to be forgotten back to the precinct to be remembered and honored.”

Nuccio was born in New York City, but grew up in Florida.

His life was forever affected by the events of September 11,

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The biggest thing was bringing families thought to be forgotten back to the precinct to be remembered and honored.”

Anthony Nuccio

2001. “I started to take more criminal justice courses and knew I wanted to move back to New York and join the NYPD. I could’ve become a police officer anywhere, but the only place I wanted to be was New York.”

Nuccio deferred entering the police academy until he graduated from John Jay College in 2008 with a degree in criminal justice.

From 2008 until 2014, Nuccio worked in Flatbush and then Sunset Park, Brooklyn before joining the Upper East Side’s 19th precinct in 2014 as a crime prevention officer.

The crime prevention unit’s responsibilities include keeping the community informed of current crime patterns, scams, and how best to keep safe. Nuccio does lectures and presentations at senior centers, co-op and condo meetings, along with block associations, as well as meeting with crime victims.

“The main focus is outreach and education. It’s the heart of

what we do and I feel comfortable knowing that the work we do has helped a lot of people,” Nuccio says.

Kathy Jolowicz, vice president and founding member of the 19th precinct Community Council, often works on events with Nuccio. “We enjoy working with him as he’s reliable and caring and we consider ourselves lucky having him aboard,” she says.

Nuccio, who co-runs the precinct’s Twitter account, lives in Brooklyn. He enjoys the Upper East Side, especially the Mount Vernon Hotel & Museum, which he calls “my favorite hidden and almost forgotten place …

It really transports you back to early New York City.”

“Knowing the history of the NYPD and the patrolmen who came before me makes wearing my shield one of the greatest honors I have ever received,” says Nuccio. “I wouldn’t have it any other way nor would I want to work anywhere else.”

Nuccio (right) with Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill. Photo courtesy of Anthony Nuccio

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

Congratulations

To Our Friends Barry & Judy Schneider And all the OTTY Honorees

www.EastMidtown.org

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

congratulates

Leonard Litwin our Founder and Chairman and

all the 2017 â&#x20AC;&#x153;OTTYâ&#x20AC;? Honorees Jan Hus Presbyterian Church

Beverly Dempsey

Jody Scopa Goldman & Lula Mae Phillips

East 60s Neighborhood Association

Susan Fales-Hill

New York-Presbyterian Hospital & Weill Cornell Medicine

Commander Richard Tarello

Arts Activist & Author

David Getz

FDNY - Engine 22

Mohamed Murci Islamic Cultural Center of NY

East Side Middle School

Zil Goldstein

Barry and Judy Schneider

Nach Waxman Kitchen Arts & Letters

OfďŹ cer Anthony Nuccio NYPD - 19th Precinct

Mount Sinai

GLENWOOD BUILDER, OWNER & MANAGER OF MANHATTANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FINEST LUXURY RENTALS

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS

BONJOUR, MISS MADELEINE!

MAR 15 - 21 , 2017 The following listings were collected from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website and include the most recent inspection and grade reports listed. We have included every restaurant listed during this time within the zip codes of our neighborhoods. Some reports list numbers with their explanations; these are the number of violation points a restaurant has received. To see more information on restaurant grades, visit www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/services/restaurant-inspection.shtml.

Cafe Maggio

1750 York Avenue

A

Luigi Pizzeria & Ristorante

1701 1 Avenue

A

Rathbones Pub

1702 2 Avenue

A

Corner Cafe & Bakery

1246 Madison Avenue

A A

A newly opened bakery on the Upper East Side is bringing French flavor to the neighborhood.

Miss Madeleine, owned and run by husband and wife Gerald and Peggy Huteau, features goods you might find in any Parisian corner boulangerie: baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, macarons and, of course, madeleines. The shop, on East 82 Street, just east of First Avenue, is open Mondays through Fridays from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Cascalote Latin Bistro

2126 2Nd Avenue

A

New Fa Shing Chinese Restaurant

2107 3Rd Ave

A

Little Caesars

1936 3Rd Ave

A

Tasty Mug Cafe

1798 3Rd Ave

A

Pasteles Capy

242 E 116Th St

Not Yet Graded (28) No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment.

5 Star Cheese Steak And Pizza

2039 1St Ave

A

La Shuk

1569 Lexington Ave

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Nocciola Pizzeria

123 E 110Th St

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Aloaf Cafe

170 E 110Th St

Grade Pending (23) Food not cooked to required minimum temperature. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

Domino’s

153 East 116 Street

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El Barrio Restaurant

158 East 116 Street

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Le Pain Quotidien

1131 Madison Avenue

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Starbucks

1631 1 Avenue

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China Taste

1570 2Nd Ave

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THE GENIUS NEXT DOOR EXHIBITIONS In her portraits of people of color, Alice Neel looked beyond the faces into the spark that animated them

BY MARY GREGORY

Every so often, a local gallery gives us an exhibition that belongs in a museum. Alice Neel, Uptown at David Zwirner’s two spaces in Chelsea, is such a show. Neel, largely overlooked by art historians in her lifetime, has been called one of the most important portraitists of the 20th century, but I’d have to go further back than that to find an equivalent. Her deeply felt, passionately painted, psychologically insightful portraits of intellectuals, housewives and neighborhood kids recall Van Gogh’s painting of Dr. Gachet or the late portraiture of Rem-

IF YOU GO What: Alice Neel, Uptown Where: David Zwirner, 525 & 533 West 19th Street When: Tues.-Sat. 10:00 am 6:00 pm Through April 22

brandt, when he painted the denizens of his largely Jewish neighborhood.

Like those painters, Neel looked beyond the faces of her sitters, into the spark that animated them. And like them, she painted with skill and bravado, but above all, heart. “Like Chekhov,” Neel once wrote, “I am a collector of souls.”

Two dozen of the souls she portrayed are on display at David Zwirner (525 & 533 West 19th Street) through April 22nd. The exhibition is curated by Hilton Als, a noted theater critic, frequent writer on art and culture, and occasional curator. Als confessed a long-time admiration and affection for Neel’s work. “From the start,” Als writes, “Alice Neel’s artistry made life different for me, or not so much different as more enlightened. I grew up in Brooklyn, East New York, and Crown Heights during the 1970s when Neel, after years of obscurity, was finally

Alice Childress, 1950. Oil on canvas. 30 1/8 x 20 1/8 inches (76.5 x 51.1 cm) Collection of Art Berliner. © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/ London and Victoria Miro, London

Two Puerto Rican Boys, 1956. Oil on canvas. 32 x 28 inches (81.3 x 71.1 cm) Jeff and Mei Sze Greene Collection. © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London and Victoria Miro, London

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

getting her due. I recall first seeing her work in a book, and what shocked me more than her outrageous and accurate sense of color and form — did we really look like that? We did! — was the realization that her subject was my humanity.”

He continues, “What fascinated her was the breadth of humanity that she encountered in her studio, on canvas … Alice Neel, Uptown, the first comprehensive look at Neel’s portraits of people of color, is an attempt to honor not only what Neel saw, but the generosity behind her seeing.”

Neel was born in 1900, on the precipice of the modern world. She came from Merion Square, Pennsylvania,

filled with ideas and a personality far too expansive for a small town. She graduated high school, found work, and started taking art classes. In 1924, she met Carlos Enríquez, a Cuban artist, and, in 1925, they married.

Domestic bliss wasn’t in Neel’s cards.

She had and lost children, went to and returned from Cuba, separated, was hospitalized, and attempted suicide.

But, through it all, she never stopped painting.

Though she was loosely aligned with the Ashcan style of social realism, Neel eschewed isms. She preferred Harlem to Greenwich Village (which she thought was too hoity-toity), and focused on portraiture when Abstrac-

tion was the in thing. Neel painted for the WPA, was broke more often than not, and, as Als pointed out, finally received significant recognition only in the 1970s and ‘80s.

A profound sense of personhood comes through in her portraits. The exhibition spaces paintings widely and wisely. Rather than glance across a sea of faces, visitors must approach, stepping up to each subject, as if to be introduced. We don’t so much stand before paintings, but enter the presence of another.

In a portrait of Harold Cruse, an intellectual, educator and writer, his crooked jaw, outlined in black, is offset by thoughtful eyes, and the sheen of his skin is captured by two masterful brushstrokes, one across his brow, and the other running down his hand.

They move the eye and enliven the painting.

Ron Kajiwara’s 1971 life-sized portrait seems to bring the young Japanese-American designer fully present.

With his carefully-tended long, black hair, crisp jeans tucked into natty boots, and relaxed gaze, you’d recognize him in an instant, if you passed him on the street. Though Kajiwara died of AIDS in 1990, his presence is still palpable.

In “Two Puerto Rican Boys,” their personalities jump off the canvas.

They’re tough even while they’re achingly tender. They were so anxious to be painted, they came and asked Neel if she’d do their portrait. And she did.

Thirty years before Beyoncé’s headline-grabbing pregnancy photos, there was Annie Leibovitz’s nude photo of pregnant Demi Moore in the late 1980s. But decades before that, Alice Neel painted nude, unabashed, “Pregnant Maria,” in 1964, paving the way for generations of artists by having the genius to see the profound truth and remarkable beauty in the faces all around her. Alice Neel died in 1984, just four years after painting her own first self-portrait, nude and vulnerable, brave and brilliant. It’s not included in the Zwirner exhibition, but it’s a treasure of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

SELECT BUS SERVICE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 asked, if these procedures had been used elsewhere to hasten the traffic, may I see where they’ve been used and how successful they were.”

Bronzaft said she was not given an answer. According to a DOT spokesperson, roughly $2.5 million will be spent on signage and construction before the launch of the M79 SBS. “I find that coming to a meeting and allowing people to just say this will work without demonstrating any proof to the potential success, other than the word ‘hopeful,’ I find lacking in responsibility,” Bronzaft said.

Roadway construction and signage implementation is set to begin in April.

First and Second Avenues, which have run the M15 select bus service line since 2010, have designated bus lanes, with exceptions between 58th and 61st Street on First Avenue and 68th and 100th Street on Second Avenue. East 79th Street has no bus lanes.

For Betty Cooper Wallerstein, president of the 79th Street Neighborhood Association, this is a problem.

“We have to have designated bus lanes,” she said. “If the goal of the city is that we want to have less people in cars then you have to make the bus

HATE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 more years than the minimum had the act not been prosecuted as a hate crime.

Days later, Vance’s office added charges of murder in the first and second degrees as an act of terrorism to Jackson’s indictment. “James Jackson wanted to kill black men, planned to kill black men, and then did kill a black man,” Vance said in a statement announcing the terrorism charges.

“We are in the midst of what can only be considered a crime wave,” City Council Member Mark Levine said, referring to an “epidemic of hatred.”

According to the NYPD data covering Jan. 1 to Feb. 26, reported hate crimes were up 55 percent in 2017 compared to the same period last year. Thirty-five reported antiSemitic crimes made up the largest share of the 68 total incidents, including a series of bomb threats to Jewish community centers and institutions. The statistics do not cover early March, when swastikas were carved in the front door of the Fourth Universalist Society, an Upper West Side church. Mayor Bill de Blasio has connected the rise in hate crimes to the campaign rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

At the community forum, Public Advocate Letitia James called for a moment of silence in memory of

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com service work.”

Wallerstein says she takes the bus three to four times daily and is familiar with the bumper-to-bumper traffic that often happens in the morning. At the March 16 East 79th Street Neighborhood Association meeting, community members voted in favor of creating a designated bus lane.

“That will now go to Community Board 8’s transportation committee to hopefully bring to DOT and MTA,” Kallos said. “I think dedicated bus lanes are a good thing when they are supported by the community. If the community wants it, I work for the community.”

While bus ridership is decreasing overall in New York City, SBS routes have seen roughly a 10 percent increase in ridership, according to an email from an MTA representative.

Despite Kallos’s support of select bus service, he does not necessarily see this as the future of bus travel.

“Other jurisdictions have tap-andgo, allowing people to board at all doors even without off-board payment, and Long Island at Nassau, people can pay with an app and just flash their phone to the driver as they’re getting on and off, so all of those are items I have sent letters to the MTA about on multiple occasions,” Kallos said. “If you can use your phone to pay at Duane Reade, why can’t you use it to pay to get on and off a bus?”

Caughman. “Those are isolated incidents,” James said of recent hate crimes. “And there are more of us than there are of them.”

Jeanne Olivo, the assistant district attorney in charge of the office’s hate crime unit, said that though there was a spike in hate crimes in the period from after Election Day to the end of 2016 and hate crimes are up citywide in the early part of 2017, the number of incidents in the borough of Manhattan in recent weeks been about the same as last year. “It’s been a little bit quieter in the last month or so, so I’m hoping that that can continue,” she said, adding that “one hate crime is one too many.”

The district attorney’s office maintains a hate crime hotline at (212) 335-3100. Prosecutors urged members of the public to call the number to report potential hate crimes even if they are unsure of whether a specific incident constitutes a hate crime. “Don’t be afraid to report,” Oliva said. “If you report something and it’s not a hate crime, we won’t be shy in telling you, but we will try to steer you in the right direction.”

Olivo stressed that the immigration status of a victim has no bearing on whether an offense can be prosecuted a hate crime, and that victims should not hesitate to report crimes if they are undocumented.

“The law does not say that you can commit a crime against someone who is not here lawfully,” she said.

“That’s just silly.”

At a press conference in Brooklyn last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Vision Zero projects throughout the five boroughs.

Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

SPRING BRINGS NEW VISION ZERO CONSTRUCTION SAFETY With traffic fatalities declining, Mayor de Blasio embarks on new safety projects

BY MADELEINE THOMPSON

Compared to this time last year, traffic fatalities have declined by 20 percent, and 2016 saw the fewest such incidents in the city’s history. To continue the apparent success of his Vision Zero safety plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that construction will begin anew on several road improvement projects now that warmer weather has arrived.

“We’re now in the second day of spring and that means construction can begin,” the mayor said at a press conference in Brooklyn. “We’re beginning work on dozens of new Vision Zero projects right now. It’s part of a $1.6 billion investment in safety and infrastructure improvements over the

next five years.”

In Manhattan, the areas undergoing construction in the near future are Fifth Avenue from 23rd Street to Washington Square Park, which will be getting protected bike lanes, and Broadway from West 155th to 170th Streets, which will be redesigned for traffic calming and safer crossings.

Connections to the Brooklyn Bridge will be improved and a two-way protected bike lane will be installed in front of City Hall.

According to an accompanying statement, the month of March has been busy for those collaborating to achieve Vision Zero. A citywide “pedestrian safety initiative” was conducted during the second week of the month, during which time the NYPD issued nearly 2,000 summonses for failure to yield along with more than 12,000 other Vision Zero-related summonses.

“We’re all pedestrians at some point, so smart redesigns that make streets work better for everyone who walks, rides a bike, takes transit, or drives is

the right thing to do,” Nick Sifuentes, deputy director of the Riders Alliance, said in the statement.

But lingering concern over funding for infrastructure projects like Vision Zero put a dark cloud over the generally good news. The mayor told attendees at his press conference that, since 2014, the federal government has supported Vision Zero projects with a total of $100 million. But President Donald Trump’s budget would cut money from such programs, despite a stated interest in boosting infrastructure spending. According to the mayor, the exact amount that would be lost is unknown, but he mentioned that the next phase of the Second Avenue subway as a project that would suffer.

“That money we are losing from Washington — if the President’s budget goes through — that money means that fewer lives will be saved,” de Blasio said. “It is as simple as that.”

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

Business

THE PEOPLE’S AUCTION EVENTS With a ritual’s revival, treasures large and small abound on West 25th Street

BY GENIA GOULD

The auctioneer’s chant, the bidders’ paddles spasmodically airborne, the clack of the auctioneer’s gavel, the need for focus lest one miss an item, offers drama and entertainment. But live auctions are a dying breed, quickly shifting to the internet.

But the founders of Showplace Antique + Design Center decided to buck that trend, and returned the ritual, to a NoMad location on 25th Street with down-to-earth New York panache, twice-monthly estate auctions, with bagels and champagne. (Less frequently, in summer months.)

Launched in the spring of 2015, the

Photo: Tom Arena

ON THE SIDE STREETS OF NEW YORK NOBLE GRAINS - 313 EAST 95TH STREET While living on 96th Street and working as a line cook at a restaurant in New Jersey, Bora Yoon found herself imagining what it would be like to have a beer shop in her neighborhood. When a Laundromat closed on 95th Street, Bora decided to take over the space and solve her own problem. She read countless books about beer and practiced home brewing in order to educate herself. As a store in a city where small apartments proliferate, people do not usually buy beer in bulk. Instead, Bora sees a loyal stream of customers come to visit often three times a week to grab a few bottles. “New Yorkers want immediate gratification.”

To read more, visit Manhattan Sideways (sideways.nyc), created by Betsy Bober Polivy.

and people in the trade. The large building with four floors features dozens of vendors, a burst of antique chandeliers — and coffee tables and sofas and lamps and sculptures and paintings and jewelry. The items span recent centuries, but most are art nouveau, art deco, mid-century modern or postmodern pieces.

Amos Balaish, Showplace’s founder, was originally a gift and toy manufacturer, as well as a collector of art nouveau and mid-century modern objects before he decided to open an antiques shop. He started Showplace as a weekend market nearly a quarter of a century ago. Before long, he was open seven days a week, with added galleries and a room setting, as well as a designer and decorator floor.

The auctions are a throwback, to a once-upon-a-time when they were big social gatherings, hubs of activity, Andrea Baker, the auctions manager, said.

“We’re about reviving the community feel, and redefining it, making it very easy for people to participate,” she said. Most items open at $50 to $100.

Some Showplace customers have been known to decorate their entire homes w it h objects

A hand-crafted chair, made from parts of various musical instrument parts, sold for $225, a bargain, according to some. Photo courtesy Showplace Antique + Design

pending on the audience they expect, p and a hundreds of antique treasures, selected from several estates. They s include Tiffany lamps, Pop posters, i English silverware and, at least on E one o recent occasion, a Picasso ceramic. i The objects remain on view behind the t auctioneer but are also shown, enlarged, on a projector screen. A e bank of administrators off to the side, b similar to those at high-end auctions, s take bids via phone and the internet t from around the country and beyond. f At a recent auction, the sale of a folk art chair, comprised of musical f instruments, was expected to sell at auci $1,000 or more, and went for $225. tions Baker surmises that a dealer got that have grown one, and if that’s the case, she said, from 150 lots to o they are going to make a lot of money over 300 at each t on auction, creating a o it.

A highly patinated bronze lamp, revenue stream for ca. the company and atc 1935, in the shape of a crocus and designed and signed by the Ameritracting a new clientele d bought at auctions, Baker said. These can – the general public. c illustrator and designer McClelBarclay, was given an estimated are highly desirable objects which land Showplace’s primary l of $200-400, but created a bidcould otherwise reach into the high value business is large volv war, with 22 bids at mostly $50 hundreds or even thousands of dol- ding ume retail that caters d jumps.

With a slam of the gavel, it filars in a retail location, she added. mostly to designers j sold for $650.

The auctions take place in an inti- nally n The next Showplace estate auction mate space. Several vendor spots are cleared out in the is i April 2 with 334 lots. One item of interest, Baker said, is back of the building, at particular p street level, to pack in 50 a vintage Breitling Swiss chronowatch with an estimated value fold-out chairs or more, de- graph g of $2,000-3,000. “It’s like the rolls Royce of watches,” said another Bronzed “Crocus” lamp, ca. 1935, by the American illustrator and designer McClelland salesman on the floor.

Barclay, was given an estimated value of $200-400 but created a bidding war, finally Will the buyer walk away with a selling for $650 at a recent Showplace Antique + Design auction on West 25th steal?

Street. Photo courtesy Showplace Antique + Design

MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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

YOUR 15 MINUTES

TUNING UP ON THE WEST SIDE Bloomingdale School of Music’s executive director on the longstanding nonprofit

BY ANGELA BARBUTI

“As you walk up the stairs, at every level, there’s a different instrument playing or a different person singing,” said Erika Floreska when she was asked to describe the atmosphere of the Bloomingdale School of Music, where she serves as executive director. “Sometimes you hear beginners like kids just starting out, and sometimes you have some really highly advanced students going nuts on the piano. Music is all around you.”

Floreska, who started as Bloomingdale’s executive director in the summer of 2014, said there is no typical day for her as she builds enrollment and profile for the school, which was founded in 1964 in the basement of the West End Presbyterian Church.

Lessons at the time cost 50 cents and a dollar. In 1972, the school moved to accommodate its staggering growth to a landmarked brownstone on 108th Street, where it welcomes 650 students for lessons and classes.

Floreska always dreamed of settling in New York City “because if you’re in music or arts, that’s where you want to be.” Her first position here was at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where she worked for 14 years, eventually earning the rank of director of education.

You were involved in community music school growing up in Minnesota. Did you always know you wanted to work in music?

No, I was kind of funny because I went to college at a liberal arts school

that had a good music program because I didn’t want to major in music, but I wanted to keep playing because I loved playing. But while I was there, I decided I did want to pursue music, at least more seriously. And I actually got a master’s degree in flute at the University of Michigan. I guess I ended up saying, “What is it I want to spend a lot of time on?” And it was music, because music had always been there. I moved a lot when I was growing up and was always able to find friends and a connection and a community through music each time I moved. None of my friends were surprised when I became a music major, it just took me realizing that. But I did my graduate degree in performance and made a really conscious decision that, while I loved to perform, I’m not that committed performer-freelance musician that it takes to be successful. And that’s when I learned about the whole field of arts administration and realized, “Oh, there are people behind the scenes who work around music and music education and that I would love.” So as a grad student, I knew I wanted to be in arts administration, so that’s always been the focus of my career.

What are some initiatives you worked on at Jazz at Lincoln Center that you’re most proud of?

There’s a middle school jazz academy that we created once the building was built to provide under resourced middle school students access to a great jazz education. We had up to 20 New York City kids who came every Saturday to have an intensive jazz experience. I did the research for that program, designed, launched and led it for the first five years and it just had

Bloomingdale School of Music students. Photo: Chen Chu for BSM

its 10-year anniversary recently. “Essentially Ellington,” which is a high school national jazz band festival, is my heart. I met my husband through that. I was called “Essentially Erika” when I was there. When I first started running it, it was just 26 states east of the Mississippi that were eligible.

And I took it from there to go to all 50 states, to Canada. We did an exchange in Australia, London. It distributed Duke Ellington’s music to bands all over the country.

How did your job at BSM come about?

When I left Jazz at Lincoln Center, I went and ran a theater company. I had been interested in being an executive director and getting into the leadership and fundraising component after doing all that education programming. And the theater was fascinating and I learned so much from my time there. But I also found I really missed music and music education, so I had started to think about how I could get back into that part of the field. And Bloomingdale had lost their executive director. My predecessor died suddenly. He was sick for two weeks and then passed away. It was really tragic.

He had been there for 22 years. So the board started a search, and the chair of that search committee talked to some of the faculty and one of our faculty members, a guitar player named Matt Butterman, was my intern at Lincoln Center. I hired him and he is still on the staff at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

He said, “Erika is great. I don’t know if she would want to leave her theater company.” I also heard it about it two other ways. So I looked into it and immediately it was like homecoming because when I first moved to New York,

Erika Floreska, Bloomingdale School of Music’s executive director. Photo: Roger Floreska I lived at 105th and Columbus, that’s one block from where the school was founded.

Tell us about the school’s history.

I just did a speech on the history of the school that was really well received. In the ‘60s, it was a time where people wanted to make their community great and took it into their own hands. So, the organist at the church, West End Presbyterian, saw kids in the streets hanging out, and said, “I’m going to teach them music.” Our opening poster that we found a copy of in our archives, is translated into Spanish because the community was Spanish at the time. And it was based on this real philosophy that music is for everybody and music brings us together. It’s a very inclusive spirit that anybody should be able to study who wants to. If you can’t afford it, we’ll help you pay for it. And that access to music can help individuals with their study and can help improve communities by bringing people together. David Greer was our founder. And it was like this engine that could. There was 75 kids the first year, and within two years, there was over 200 kids going to the church on Saturday mornings to study music. The school had a 35-year history of partnerships with the New York City public schools. We were the first community music school to partner with the schools in the ‘70s, after all the music teachers were fired. And at one point, there were 1,000 kids a

week coming to the school to take music classes from their public school and then going back to school. This went on for 30 years.

How can you describe its atmosphere and student demographic?

It’s very warm, welcoming and supportive. It’s a very diverse community, pretty much representing the Upper West Side and up the 1 [train] line into the Bronx. I would say half our students are students of color. And people comment on that; that it’s very mixed racially, ethnically and socioeconomically. And they love that about it. And it’s also fairly informal, from an institutional standpoint. Ten percent of students are early childhood so that’s zero to five and their parents. And 10 percent are adults, so we have a pretty strong community with adults, some of whom are coming back to an instrument after having studied when they were a kid. But we also have introductory classes in guitar and piano for adults. There’s no audition barrier.

We really believe music is for everyone and are committed to teaching to each individual student’s interest. www.bsmny.org

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Words can go horizontally, vertically and diagonally in all eight directions.

Bathroom Cabinet Carpet Ceiling Curtain Desks Granite High Lamps Light Mirror Painted Paleyellow Space Tiles

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WORD SEARCH by Myles Mellor

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Each Sudoku puzzle consists of a 9X9 grid that has been subdivided into nine smaller grids of 3X3 squares. To solve the puzzle each row, column and box must contain each of the numbers 1 to 9. Puzzles come in three grades: easy, medium and difficult.

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SUDOKU by Myles Mellor and Susan Flanagan

by Myles Mellor

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

CLASSIFIEDS HELP WANTED

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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

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

POLICY NOTICE: We make every eďŹ&#x20AC;ort to avoid mistakes in your classiďŹ ed ads. Check your ad the ďŹ rst week it runs. The publication will only accept responsibility for the ďŹ rst incorrect insertion. The publication assumes no ďŹ nancial responsibility for errors or omissions. We reserve the right to edit, reject, or re-classify any ad. Contact your sales rep directly for any copy changes. All classiďŹ ed ads are pre-paid.

PUBLIC NOTICES

PUBLIC NOTICES

REAL ESTATE - RENT

MASSAGE

NOTICE TO PERSONS WHO MAY HAVE SUFFERED FROM INADEQUATE ACCESSIBILITY AT THE VERDESIAN, THE VANGUARD CHELSEA AND THE SOLAIRE On February 13, 2017, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a consent decree resolving a lawsuit brought by the United States Department of Justice against certain builders and developers alleging that they failed to include certain accessible features for persons with disabilities required by the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(c), in the design and construction of The Verdesian, The Vanguard Chelsea, and The Solaire.

Under this consent decree, a person may be entitled to receive monetary relief if he or she: â&#x20AC;˘ WAS DISCOURAGED FROM LIVING AT THIS PROPERTY BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF ACCESSIBLE FEATURES;

Directory of Business & Services To advertise in this directory Call #BSSZ (212)-868-0190 ext.4 CBSSZ MFXJT@strausnews.com

Antiques Wanted TOP PRICES PAID t 1SFDJPVT $PTUVNF +FXFMSZ (PME t 4JMWFS 1BJOUJOHT t .PEFSO t &UD Entire Estates Purchased

212.751.0009 Antique, Flea & Farmers Market SINCE 1979

â&#x20AC;˘ HAS BEEN HURT IN ANYWAY BY THE LACK OF ACCESSIBLE FEATURES AT THIS PROPERTY;

East 67th Street Market

â&#x20AC;˘ PAID TO HAVE AN APARTMENT AT THIS PROPERTY MADE MORE ACCESSIBLE TO PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES; OR

Open EVERY Saturday 6am-5pm Rain or Shine

â&#x20AC;˘ WAS OTHERWISE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ON THE BASIS OF DISABILITY AT THIS PROPERTY AS A RESULT OF THE INACESSIBLE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION.

Indoor & Outdoor FREE Admission Questions? Bob 718.897.5992

If you wish to make a claim for discrimination on the basis of disability, or if you have any information about persons who may have such a claim, please contact the United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York at 212-637-2800.

You may also fax us at 212-637-2702 or write to:

United States Attorney's Office Southern District of New York Attn: Civil Rights Unit 86 Chambers Street New York, New York 10007 NOTE: You must call or write no later than February 13, 2020.

(between First & York Avenues)

OFFICE SPACE

AVAILABLE IN MANHATTAN

300 to 20,000 square feet

Elliot Forest, Licensed RE. Broker

212 -447-5400 abfebf@aol.com

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Proceeds BeneďŹ t PS 183

SOHO LT MFG

462 Broadway MFG No Retail/Food +/- 9,000 SF Ground Floor - $90 psf +/- 16,000 SF Cellar - $75 psf Divisible Call David @ Meringoff Properties 212-645-7575

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MARCH 30-APRIL 5,2017

COME HOME TO GLENWOOD MANHATTANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FINEST LUXURY RENTALS

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UPPER EAST SIDE 1 BEDROOMS FROM $2,995 2 BEDROOMS FROM $4,395 3 BEDROOMS FROM $5,995

MIDTOWN & UPPER WEST SIDE 1 BEDROOMS FROM $3,295 2 BEDROOMS FROM $5,395 3 BEDROOMS FROM $6,495

TRIBECA & FINANCIAL DISTRICT 1 BEDROOMS FROM $3,795 2 BEDROOMS FROM $5,895 3 BEDROOMS FROM $8,195

UPTOWN LEASING OFFICE 212-535-0500 DOWNTOWN LEASING OFFICE 212-430-5900 ! " " All the units include features for persons with disabilities required by the FHA.

Equal Housing Opportunity

GLENWOOD BUILDER OWNER MANAGER

GLENWOODNYC.COM