The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF MAY LAURIE ANDERSON RIFFS ◄ P.12
17-23 2018
A SEPHARDIC BOOM ON THE UES RELIGION Syrian Jews relocate from Brooklyn to the East Side — and a major new communal institution rises up to accommodate them BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
“They gave you an insight into the length and breadth of the city,” he said. “When I got into the parks, I got an expansion of the mind.” Idled by a pressmen’s strike in August of that year, Gorton and seven of his Times colleagues were hired, by an initially wary Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis, to record life in the city’s parks. The eight photographers — Gorton, Neal Boenzi and the paper’s
A 14-story, $65 million building now wrapping up construction on East 82nd Street between Lexington and Park Avenues reflects a sea change in Jewish life on the Upper East Side — and the arrival and maturity of a new and deeply religious populace. When the Moise Safra Community Center opens its doors this fall, it will quickly become the premier social, spiritual, educational, recreational, cultural and culinary center for the fast-growing Sephardic set pouring into Manhattan. Designed to cater largely to Orthodox Jews of Syrian ancestry, the Safra Center — in its programming, ambition and vision, if not its budget — will inevitably be likened to the 92nd Street Y. Or at least a more religious version of the historically Ashkenazi institution that now serves people of all faiths on its Lexington Avenue campus just 10 blocks to the north. The 169-foot-tall, 73,000-square-foot structure will operate as a vertical campus packed with two synagogues, three kosher cafes, a swimming pool, library, fitness center, wellness center and two sprawling outdoor terraces, plans filed with the city’s Department of Buildings show. Shoehorned into a tight urban space that once housed three adjoining townhouses, the center will become one of the busiest buildings in town: It boasts study rooms, lecture rooms, prayer rooms, ballrooms, a dining
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“Tender Vittles, Cats on Parade,” Central Park, 1978. D. Gorton, NYC Parks Photo Archive
THE SUMMER OF ‘78, IN LIVING COLOR PARKS
Then and now: See the full slideshow at OURTOWNNY.COM
For a few tumultuous weeks, New York Times photographers shot the city’s parks and people. The images have just seen the light of day BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
The parks were a sanctuary for his subjects. During the turbulent summer and fall of 1978, the city’s open spaces would be a revelation for D. Gorton. “The parks more than anything I went through illustrated how big Gotham was,” Gorton, a photojournalist with The New York Times from the early 1970s into the 1980s, said last week.
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The Moise Safra Community Center on East 82nd Street, set to open this fall, will become the central community hub for the Sephardic Jewish population of the Upper East Side. Photo: Douglas Feiden
Now, we have the school, the shul and the pool.” Rebecca Harary, community activist, politician and ex-Brooklynite
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat and the Holiday candles. Friday, May 18 - 7:51 pm Shavuot Saturday night, May 19 - after 8:57 pm from a pre-existing flame Sunday, May 20 - after 8:58 pm from a pre-existing flame. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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