The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF AUGUST-SEPTEMBER GOLD STANDARD
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2018
STATUARY AGAINST SEXISM HISTORY With the She Built NYC campaign, New York City continues to address historical injustice through public monuments BY OSCAR KIM BAUMAN
Community Board 8, officials say. Residents first noticed the pouring of cement for the project on July 30, followed by installation of electricity on Aug. 1 — and the “sudden plopping down of the newsstand” at 435 East 79th Street on Aug. 6, said Sandra Lerner, who lives next door at 425 East 79th Street. “It was exactly one week from start to finish, and my feeling is that this was done very rapidly to get it in before it could be stopped,” she said. It wasn’t immediately clear when the sidewalk newsstand will open.
New York City is dotted with statues, so it would be easy for a casual observer to miss the startling lack of monuments to women. However, according to a recent count by Gothamist, there are only five statues honoring female figures out of the over 1,000 across the five boroughs. To alleviate the problem, NYC first lady Chirlane McCray announced the She Built NYC project in June, to “more accurately show the diversity in the people who helped make New York City so great.” While there are only five statues honoring specific historic women throughout the city, they do not represent the totality of statues representing women. Central Park features many depictions of women in statue form, though none are named. The statues in the park instead represent fictional characters, such as Alice in Wonderland, or are nameless angels and nymphs. Another Manhattan statue of an unnamed woman is more famous: “Fearless Girl,” which was installed facing Wall Street’s iconic “Charging Bull” statue in March 2017 and was moved near the New York Stock Exchange in April 2018. Though Fearless Girl’s installation was opposed by Charging Bull artist Arturo Di Modica, among others, who argued that the newcomer twisted Charging Bull’s original intent, Fearless Girl was praised by Mayor Bill De Blasio, who said, “Men
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The metal gates are still rolled down on the soon-to-open newsstand on East 79th Street – but the mountains of litter that already flank it are one of the reasons the community is opposed to its presence. Photo: Sandra Lerner
NIX NEWSSTAND, EAST SIDERS DEMAND SIDEWALKS Can you just “plop down” a major piece of street furniture without telling your neighbors? Apparently, the answer is yes
It’s already very crowded with all the strollers there.” Sandra Lerner, 79th Street resident
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
The newsstand on the north side of the quiet residential block on East 79th Street between York and First Avenues hasn’t even opened yet — and already the community is up in arms. It’s exactly the wrong location, mere steps away from the Hopscotch Montessori School, and it will occupy space in an area where two large apartment buildings pile their trash, neighbors say. Adding insult to injury, the two city agencies with regulatory authority over newsstand siting did not issue any public notice, and the operator was not required to appear before
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The Harriet Tubman Memorial in Harlem. Photo: denisbin, via flickr
[She Built NYC aims to] more accurately show the diversity in the people who helped make New York City so great.” First lady Chirlane McCray
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AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
TETHERED TO THEIR PHONES CONNECTING New study shows many teens — and parents — are concerned about time spent in front of screens
Photo: Tia Leggio, via flickr
Parents lament their teenagers’ noses constantly in their phones, but they might want to take stock of their own screen time habits. A study out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center found that twothirds of parents are concerned about the amount of time their teenage children spend in front of screens, while more than a third expressed concern about their own screen time. Meanwhile, more than half of teens said they often or sometimes find their parents or caregivers to be distracted when the teens are trying to have a conversation with them. The study calls teens’ relationship with their phones at times “hyperconnected” and notes that nearly threefourths check messages or notifications as soon as they wake up. Parents do the same, but at a lower if still substantial rate — 57 percent. Big tech companies face a growing
Photo: Tia Leggio, via flickr backlash against the addictive nature of their gadgets and apps, the endless notifications and other features created to keep people tethered to their screens. Many teens are trying to do something about it: 52 percent said they have cut back on the time they spend on their phones and 57 percent did the same with social media. Experts say parents have a big role in their kids’ screen habits and setting a good example is a big part of it. “Kids don’t always do what we say
but they do as we do,” said Donald Shifrin, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who was not involved in the Pew study. “Parents are the door that kids will walk through on their way to the world.” The study surveyed 743 U.S. teens and 1,058 U.S. parents of teens from March 7 to April 10. The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points. —The Associated Press
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 19th district for the week ending Aug 19 Week to Date
Photo by Tony Webster, via Flickr
Year to Date
2018 2017
% Change
2018
2017
% Change
Murder
0
0
n/a
1
0
n/a
Rape
1
0
n/a
10
7
42.9
Robbery
4
1
300.0
98
73
34.2
Felony Assault
6
2
200.0
96
82
17.1
Burglary
5
3
66.7
142
132
7.6
Grand Larceny
28
30
-6.7
905 873 3.7
Grand Larceny Auto
2
6
-66.7
46
WOMAN SCAMMED
MIDDAY MUGGING
BIKERS BRAWL
HACK ATTACK
Police again urge the public to check with friends or relatives before you are asked to send money if you get a phone call saying they need financial assistance. At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 15, a 73-year-old York Avenue resident received a phone call from an unknown person saying her grandson had been arrested and needed her to post his bail. She wound up sending $11,784.50 via FedEx to an address in North Carolina before learning she had been scammed.
A man was mugged in a violent lunchtime assault recently. At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, August 13, a 30-yearold man was walking northbound on Lexington Avenue at East 60th Street when he was punched from behind by an unknown man. While he was laying on the pavement, where he was repeatedly kicked and punch, other men reached into his pocket and took his cellphone and wallet, which held a debit card, driver’s license and $10.
Apparently, road rage isn’t confined to drivers of four-wheeled vehicles. At 2:10 p.m. on Thursday, August 16, a 36-year-old man riding his bicycle southbound on Second Avenue at East 71st Street when another man riding an electric bike told the man to move out of the way. The 36-year-old ignored the request, and the other man punched him in the face, causing bruising and swelling.
A female motorist ran afoul of a particularly crabby cabbie, police said. At 11:20 p.m. on Tuesday, August 21, a 29-year-old woman was driving northbound on First Avenue when a yellow cab cut her off at the northeast corner of East 75th Street to pick up flaggers. The woman told police she averted a collision with the careening cab only by driving onto the sidewalk. The two argued, with the cabbie getting out of his vehicle and kicking her car’s driver’s-side door.
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NEWSSTAND CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “It’s not the right place for it,” said Betty Cooper Wallerstein, the civic activist who has been president of the East 79th Street Neighborhood Association for the past 34 years. “Newsstands are usually on corners,” she added. “They don’t block the entrance to a residential building. They don’t block the entrance to a school with little children. They don’t take up space where garbage is placed. How does something like this happen and the community isn’t told?” Astonishingly, the law allows it.
BUREAUCRACY IN ACTION Newsstand oversight falls under the purview of both the city’s Dept. of Consumer Affairs and its Dept. of Transportation. And although the siting criteria for a new newsstand is quite stringent, the requirements of the two agencies for the relocation of an existing newsstand has First Amendment protections and is far less rigorous. The newsstand in question, which had originally been located on the northeast corner of 79th Street at First Avenue, was forced to move from its ap-
proved location because of an Extell Development Co. project at the site. Under those circumstances, the city gives the licensee three options, according to Will Brightbill, district manager of CB8, who was briefed on the matter by DCA on Aug. 15. An operator can relocate to any other sidewalk newsstand that is currently unoccupied, apply for a new application and go through the full approval process anew — or else relocate to a spot within 500 feet of the previously approved location in either direction that meets all established DOT and DCA criteria. The licensee chose that third option, which doesn’t require a new application. Since the new spot is roughly 440 to 465 feet away from the original location, the normal process of public notice and informing the community board is waived. But just because the lack of notice is permitted under regulations, doesn’t mean it’s the appropriate thing to do, Brightbill said. “While we respect and appreciate the newsstand operator’s situation, and their contribution to our city streets, we are disappointed in what appears to be an obvious omission of public notice in the newsstand relocation process,” he said. “As with the original appli-
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Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com cation, the public deserves a chance to comment on the newsstand that will physically occupy a place on their street and in their life,” Brightbill added. And he called on the City Council and DCA to “proactively address this oversight, and apply the same procedure, with ample public notice as is required for new applications, to these relocations.” In the meantime, if the newsstand opens up next to the Montessori nursery school, the students, aged 2 to 6, and their nannies, will be subjected to increased litter from Lotto cards and candy wrappers, secondhand smoke and other unhealthy conditions, Lerner says. “It’s already very crowded with all the strollers there — and unless this is stopped, it’s going to get a lot worse,” she added. Is there any way to stop the newsstand? The odds are long. But in an Aug. 23 email to Lerner, a constituent service staffer for East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos held out a small ray of hope: “Our office is still trying to see if there is any way DOT would consider moving the newsstand to another location that is less crowded,” he wrote. invreporter@strausnews.com
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A recent photo of an office tower on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. The ordinary-looking 1920 building masks its colorful history as the hub of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fur District for more than half-a-century. Photo: Google Street View
FURRIERS, FISTICUFFS AND A FOND FAREWELL STREETSCAPES At first blush, the building seems unremarkable â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but amid the hubbub of Seventh Avenue, its storied history and bloody past have been hiding in plain sight BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Two years from now, a littlenoticed, 21-story office building in Chelsea will mark its 100th anniversary. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect any fanfare: The old industrial loft at 333 Seventh Ave. generates no buzz, houses no galleries, attracts no tourists â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and possesses zero pizzazz. It is humble, stolid, unsung, architecturally uninspiring. And every day, New Yorkers pass it by without a thought or a skyward glance. Big mistake. The mass of stone and brick on the full block between 28th and 29th Streets was once one of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great mercantile buildings. Built in 1920 as the historic hub of the Fur District, it housed the largest assemblage of fur manufacturers under a single roof in the nation. In any other town, it would be a treasured landmark. But in Midtown South, the 248-foottall structure is all too easy to take for granted. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s peel back the layers and examine its extraordinary his-
Knives, scissors, clubs, fists, fingernails and sticks were employed early yesterday in an industrial misunderstanding.â&#x20AC;? New York Times article, March 15, 1930
tory and the secrets it harbored and the pitched battles that were fought on its turf. But ďŹ rst, a disclosure. For 5.5 years, the newspaper you are holding in your hands, or reading online, was published at 333 Seventh Ave. Decades earlier, the bulky loft spaces had been converted, the showrooms broken up, the storage vaults and refrigeration equipment yanked out. That opened the door to a new tenant class â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nonproďŹ ts like Doctors Without Borders, small apparel and legal ďŹ rms, colleges like the Fashion Institute of Technology, and media companies like Straus News, which publishes Our Town, The West Side Spirit, The ChelseaClinton News and Our Town Downtown. From early 2013, when Straus News bought the publications, until Aug. 15, when we moved a
few blocks to 505 Eighth Ave. at 35th Street, this was our home. Now, that we have settled into new quarters, it seems a ďŹ tting farewell to plumb the saga of the legacy building we left behind. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We used to say that one out of every two furs in the United States passed through 333 Seventh Ave.,â&#x20AC;? said Jed Kaplan, who worked in a 10th-ďŹ&#x201A;oor loft for Kaplan & Sons Furrier, his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rm, from around 1955 to the late-1970s. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was really the master fur market for the world because, back then, more furs were bought, sold, manufactured and worn out of 333 than in London, Russia and Montreal put together,â&#x20AC;? he said. Spiritual needs were also addressed: At least two on-site synagogues were maintained for workers and customers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; mostly traders, trappers, shippers, graders, jobbers, fabricators, processors, ďŹ&#x201A;oor boys, mink-cutters and pelt brokers, Kaplan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was really an era in which business needs, religious needs and family needs went hand in hand,â&#x20AC;? he added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all over now â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like most of the Fur District itself. But it was a remarkable place.â&#x20AC;? Indeed, it was said that no mayor, senator or governor would ever turn down an invitation to its politically inďŹ&#x201A;uential Fur Merchants Club.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 15
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
STATUARY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl.” The five city statues depicting named women are all located in Manhattan. Anna Hyatts’ statue of Joan of Arc, the French historical hero, rests in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, and “represents the symbol of French-American goodwill,” according to the Parks Department. Also in Riverside Park is the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument. The statue, designed by Bruce Kelly and David Varnell and sculpted by Penelope Jencks, honors the former First Lady and activist. Also in Upper Manhattan is the Harriet Tubman Memorial, installed 19 years ago in Harlem at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and Fred-
Wall Street’s “Fearless Girl.” Photo: Nathan Hughes Hamilton, via flickr
erick Douglass Boulevard. The monument to the famed abolitionist was designed by Alison Saar. The design of the statue, as well as the remodeling of the surrounding traffic island, now dubbed Harriet Tubman Triangle, received the 2004 Public Design Commission Award for Excellence in Design. The last two statues of women are in Midtown. A bust of Golda Meir, the former Israeli prime minister, designed by Beatrice Goldfine, may be found in the aptly named Golda Meir Square on Broadway and 39th Street. And a statue of the novelist Gertrude Stein designed by Jo Davidson sits in Bryant Park, near the main branch of the New York Public Library. The placement is intentional, and is meant to honor Stein’s ““significant literary contributions,” according to the Parks Department. She Built NYC’s deadline to nominate women to be featured in new statues passed on August 1. With an announcement promised in the fall, New Yorkers are waiting to learn which women will join the select group of those featured in public monuments. The city’s Department of Cultural Affairs has committed $10 million to She Built NYC’s efforts. In 2020, the first statue in Central Park to depict real women will be installed, honoring suffragists the statue Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Designed by Meredith Bergman, the statue was not part of the She Built NYC campaign; instead, it was funded and announced by The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund, which began its campaign in 2017 using the hashtag #Monu-
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Statue of novelist Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park. Photo: Catherine Cronin, via flickr NOTICE OF A JOINT PUBLIC HEARING of the Franchise and Concession Review Committee and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to be held on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 at 2 Lafayette Street, 14th Floor Auditorium, Borough of Manhattan, commencing at 2:30 p.m. relative to:
Joan of Arc in Riverside Park. Photo via Wikimedia Commons mentalWomen to call attention to the lack of statues of women in Central Park. The She Built NYC and #MonumentalWomen campaigns are the latest to attempt to address historical injustices through the medium of New York’s public statues. Last year, amid national discourse surrounding the issue of Confederate monuments and other depictions of racist or otherwise offensive historical figures, Mayor de Blasio created a commission to consider removing or altering any insensitive statues. Ultimately, most statues were left
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in place, with those of figures including Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt getting additional plaques to add historical “detail and nuance,” according to the mayor. Ultimately, only one statue was removed from its place. The statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th century surgeon who invented techniques for gynecological surgery through experimentation on unanesthetized, non-consenting enslaved black women, was relocated to Green-Wood Cemetery, where Sims is buried.
INTENT TO AWARD as a concession for the renovation, operation and maintenance of a golf driving range, miniature golf course, sports clubhouse and ancillary facilities at Randall’s Island Park, Manhattan for an eighteen (18) year term, to Drive Shack Randall’s Island LLC. Compensation will be as follows: for each Interim Operating Year (as defined in the concession agreement), Drive Shack Randall’s Island LLC shall pay a fee consisting of the higher of (i) a minimum annual fee (Interim Operating Year (as defined in the concession agreement) 1: $425,000; Interim Operating Year 2: $450,000; Interim Operating Year 3: $475,000) vs. (ii) the sum of 40% of Annual Range Ball Gross Receipts + 15% of Annual Miniature Golf and Batting Cage Gross Receipts + 10% of Annual Other Gross Receipts); and for each Post-Construction Operating Year (as defined in the concession agreement) shall pay a fee consisting of the higher of (i) a minimum annual fee for the Post-Construction Operating Years (Year 1: $850,000; Year 2: $850,000; Year 3: $850,000; Year 4: $850,000; Year 5: $850,000; Year 6: $1,062,500; Year 7: $1,062,500; Year 8: $1,062,500; Year 9: $1,062,500; Year 10: $1,062,500; Year 11: $1,328,125; Year 12: $1,328,125; Year 13: $1,328,125; Year 14: $1,328,125; Year 15: $1,328,125; Year 16*: $1,660,156.25; Year 17*: $1,660,156.25; Year 18*: $1,660,156.25) vs. (ii) 4.5% of Gross Receipts. *The Term (as defined in the concession agreement) of the concession shall be no more than 18 years. Post-Construction Operating Year 16 applies only if the Interim Operating Period (as defined in the concession agreement) is less than three years. Post-Construction Operating Year 17 applies only if the Interim Operation Period is less than two years. Post-Construction Operating Year 18 applies only if the Interim Operating Period is less than one year. A draft copy of the agreement may be reviewed or obtained at no cost, commencing Friday, August 31, 2018 through Tuesday, September 11, 2018, between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm, excluding weekends and holidays, at the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, located at 830 Fifth Avenue, Room 313, New York, NY 10065. This location is accessible to individuals using wheelchairs or other mobility devices. For further information on accessibility or to make a request for accommodations, such as sign language interpretation services, please contact the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services (MOCS) via e-mail at DisabilityAffairs@mocs.nyc.gov or via phone at (212) 788-0010. Any person requiring reasonable accommodation for the public hearing should contact MOCS at least three (3) business days in advance of the hearing to ensure availability. TELECOMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR THE DEAF (TDD) 212-504-4115
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Voices
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SPEAK UP! BY BETTE DEWING
See something, say something — on the spot. And we salute a New Yorker who did just that. This is about everyday city threats that really stress us out. Patricia Dale wrote a letter to the editor of this paper which reminds me not to give up trying to quell what are euphemistically called “qualityof-life lawbreakers.” Patricia is a third-generation New Yorker who is now distressed that the city is no longer a great walking city. She notes the countless cellphone users unaware
of those around them and she speaks out on the spot. She’s also concerned about bikes on the sidewalk and she told a mother of a little boy who was racing by that’s “it’s illegal to use the sidewalk.” The mother replied “Why don’t you stop being a grumpy old lady as my son is learning to ride his bike.” And she spoke to a young girl walking backward on a crowded sidewalk barely missing Patricia’s post-surgical knee. The mother chastised her, saying “Don’t speak to my daughter.” Also one Sunday morning, she told a truck driver who was blaring his radio, “Just remember its Sunday morning and people are resting.” To which he replied: “Pay me some money and I’ll turn down the sound.” Sometimes it’s risky to speak out,
and most of us stay silent. If enough of us did say something, things would change. But we need to be encouraged to speak out at civic meetings and I remember some years ago at a 79th Street Association meeting, two officers from the 19th precinct urged us to remember that the “squeaky wheel gets the grease.” And of course, bring these stressful concerns to the paper as Patricia did. And at those same meetings, a bicyclist, Roger Herz, had a seven-point message to curb the heedless bicyclists. The only one I remember has to do with speaking out. If you see a red light running bicyclist, yell “Red light.” If you see a wrong-way bicyclist, shout “Wrong way.” And if you see a sidewalk bicyclist, yell “Off the
sidewalk.” And some of us did and still do but only a few. Of course we use also yell at motorists failing to yield to pedestrians ... the most dangerous traffic infraction, howl “Yield.” Of course you could be nice and smile while you yell. We really need to speak up to set an example even if people look at you strangely. It is they who are dangerously remiss. And do check out the Useful Contacts found in this paper to call elected officials and community boards about lawlessness and lack of consideration. And now some city councilman is urging legislation to legalize electric scooters. State Senator Liz Krueger is one official very concerned about the issue. Somehow the city is only looking out for travel
modes but not about how bike lanes are hurting small businesses. The primary duty of government is to protect public welfare and doesn’t that mean looking out for the common good. Perhaps we’ve gone rather off topic of “speaking out on the spot” but remember bicyclist Roger Herz urged us to do just that. And Patricia Dale is such a model New Yorker for doing just that and also for bringing her concerns to this paper. If more of us did this and spoke out, this could be a great safe walking city again. We need a real movement to speak out ... to not be silent and bring it to the elected officials and to this paper. It can be done if enough of us try. dewingbetter@aol.com
RELIVING THE JAZZ AGE BY LORRAINE DUFFY MERKL
After spending last Saturday in 1922, I returned to 2018 on the Upper East Side. I always believed I was born too late. My favorite decade is the roaring twenties, which I fell in love with when I was nine and saw the movie “Thoroughly Modern Millie” with Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore. How I wished women still dressed and accessorized as they did. When I was old enough and realized the styles could be gotten if one looked hard enough, I got into vintage jewelry and bought myself a cloche. Over the years, my favorite works of fiction became the classics by F. Scott Fitzgerald, with “Rules of Civility” by Amor Towles at the top of my list of modern fiction. My non-fiction favorite (one of many) is Calvin Tomkins’s “Living Well is the Best Revenge,” about when the Mark Cross heir Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara hosted the Fitzgeralds, Cole Porter, Picasso, Hemingway and other expats in Antibes. I’ve also seen the movie “Mrs. Parker and Her Vicious Circle” more times than anyone should be allowed to re-watch a film. So, it’s about time that I forked over the clams to attend the Jazz Age Lawn Party — now in its 13th year — on Gov-
ernors Island. Every summer I read about it after the fact and said, “Next year.” This season, I made a point to be one of the people who everyone else was reading about. Hosted and conceived by musician/ crooner/bandleader/impresario, Michael Arenella, the event started as a small gathering of fans and friends who, like him, wanted to revel in the raucous, party-loving decade, when the world had just emerged from the grip of World War I, and everyone was ready to have a good time. This period in history became known as the “Jazz Age,” a term that many believe was coined by F. Scott, but he just made it popular and familiar by using it in his books. My husband Neil and I took the 6 train to Bowling Green and then the ferry to Governors Island. Once there, we followed some flappers showing off their gams in fringed dresses and dapper dandies in straw hats and suspenders. Neil and I weren’t mistaken for a couple of swells — we didn’t dress up. I figured most people, even though embracing the spirit of the event, would show up in regular clothes, with a handful dressed in costume. Boy, was I wrong. A lot of people came in modern day designs created to look like antique fashions and styled up so there’d be no
Dressed up for a dance contest on Governors Island. Photo: Lorraine Duffy Merkl doubt they were bobbed haired jazz babies. Many though took the opportunity to appear as though they had time traveled to join the well-curated event in actual wardrobe from the era. Although there were picnic tables and food trucks (and hooch for those old enough to drink), those in the know brought blankets and picnic baskets, so they could relax on the lawn while listening to the musical stylings of the aforementioned Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra featuring Caravella’s Canarsie Wobblers and The Dreamland Follies, virtuoso piano-man and crooner Peter Mintun,
as well as Queen Esther and her Hot Five. Indeed, the joint was jumpin’ on the make-shift dance floor. There was a Charleston Dance Contest and plenty of tents selling archetypal everything. A croquet game was ongoing and the planners made sure to offer a variety of ways to remember one’s visit via a photo taken in a Model T or under the word “Bootlegger,” which had more of a mug shot quality. There was even a tintype camera/ developing system for a photo that would have you mistaken for a greatgreat grandparent. With the caricature option, the artist supplied the ep-
och outfit, in case, as Neil and myself did, you left your speakeasy glad rags at home. At the end of our Prohibition erainspired, Tin Pan Alley-filled day, we started the first leg of our journey home by taking the ferry back to Bowling Green. My only regret was that I hadn’t dressed for the occasion. “Next year,” said Neil. I’ve already begun planning my outfit. Trust me, it’ll be the bee’s knees. Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novels “Fat Chick” and “Back to Work She Goes.”
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Crowd at the New Plaza Cinema’s tribute to Philip Roth at the Marlene Meyerson JCC. Photo courtesy of New Plaza Cinema
AT SYMPHONY SPACE, A BELOVED THEATER GETS A SECOND LIFE FILM Upper West Side residents mourning the closure of Lincoln Plaza Cinema couldn’t let the theater die. Their persistence paid off. BY ALIZAH SALARIO
When Lincoln Plaza Cinema shuttered its doors last December, it was, for many loyal patrons of the beloved art house theater, almost like a death in the family. Nine months later, the theater has been resurrected, at least in spirit: New Plaza Cinema, which began as a volunteer coalition of devoted fans who dedicated themselves to saving Lincoln Plaza in one incarnation or another, is partnering with Symphony Space and the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater, where they’ll feature independent and foreign films in the same vein. “There was just a sense that we could not let this theater die ... lots of people stepped up to the plate to help,” says Norma Levy, a founding member of the New Plaza Cinema coalition and an Upper West Side resident for over four decades. “I felt strongly that there was a need, there was a market, and I wanted to do it.” Starting last week, New Plaza Cinema launched at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space with matinee screenings of the coming-of-age
That theater should not be lost to the world, it’s too important to the community in which I live, and to our lives, and it’s too important to the industry as well.” Norma Levy, New Plaza Cinema drama “Madeline Madeline” featuring Miranda July, Molly Parker and newcomer Helena Howard, and the documentary “RBG,” chronicling the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With the blessing and full support of Toby Talbot, the former co-owner of Lincoln Plaza Cinema, New Plaza is slated for a yet-to-be-announced run through October, and possibly beyond. Talbot and her late husband Dan had a long history with the Thalia Theatre, which was born in 1931 and once served as a go-to art house theater for college students and movie buffs before its closure in 1987. For Levy and her fellow volunteers, finding a home was a process. In late June, the group put together the “New Plaza Cinema” film series at the Marlene Meyerson JCC, which received a tremendous response from
the community. “It was extremely gratifying, we had very big crowds, we had a big tribute and a champagne toast to Lincoln Plaza Cinema,” says Levy. “Our summer run with New Plaza Cinema very much helped get them established and position them so they would be able to do this run with Symphony Space,” says Isaac Zablocki of the JCC. In the meantime, Lev y reached out to the Thalia. Symphony Space executive director Kathy Landau saw a potential partnership as “a beautiful outgrowing of something that had a sad ending.” “This idea of a shared experience is more important than ever, when there is so much opportunity to be alone and staring at our own devices,” says Landau. In the coming months, New Plaza Cinema is planning to apply for nonprofit status, and set up a board and a formal organization. For Levy, it’s a labor of love that paid off in spades. “That theater should not be lost to the world, it’s too important to the community in which I live, and to our lives, and it’s too important to the industry as well,” she said. “Independent cinema is just an extraordinary educational and cultural institution...it’s a qualitatively different event when you watch [a film] at home on your television screen....it just can’t be duplicated in any other way.”
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JOHN KRASINSKI IN CONVERSATION WITH STEPHEN COLBERT The 92Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. 8 p.m. $40 212-415-550. 92Y.org These two will leave you rolling in the aisles. Actor John Krasinski will discuss his hit movie â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Quiet Place,â&#x20AC;? along with his creative process, new projects â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including the new Amazon series Tom Clancyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jack Ryanâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; his years in â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Officeâ&#x20AC;? and more.
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YORKVILLE 1491 3rd Ave @ 84th St Ă&#x201C;ÂŁĂ&#x201C;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x201C;nÂ&#x2122;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x17D;ää
1** , Ć&#x201A;-/ - nnn iĂ?Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;}Ă&#x152;Â&#x153;Â&#x2DC; Ć&#x201A;Ă&#x203A;i J Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2026; -Ă&#x152; Ă&#x201C;ÂŁĂ&#x201C;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x2021;Ă&#x2021;Ă&#x201C;Â&#x2021;ÂŁ{ää
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Czech Center 321 East 73rd St. 7 p.m. $12-$15 Harold Lloyd is a small-town bumpkin trying to make it in the big city, where he works as a lowly department-store clerk. Then he comes up with a wild publicity stunt to draw attention to the store. Come for the classic ďŹ lm â&#x20AC;&#x153;Safety Last,â&#x20AC;? stay for live music from Czech bass player Michael KrĂĄsnĂ˝. 646-422-3399 new-york.czechcentres.cz
URBAN EPISTLES ART EXHIBIT The Riverside Church 490 Riverside Dr. Noon, Free Artist Steve Prince considers his work in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Urban Epistlesâ&#x20AC;? an open letter to the nation, reminding us of our his history and exhorting America to dismantle racism, challenge damaging representations in popular culture, look introspectively at the foundation of faith in society, and so much more. 212-870-6700 trcnyc.org
Frederick Douglass Playground Amsterdam Avenue between West 100th and West 102nd Streets 7:30 p.m. Free After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to ďŹ nd him in Ava DuVernayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magical ďŹ lm â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Wrinkle in Time,â&#x20AC;? based on the beloved childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book. nycgovparks.org
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
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▲ EXHIBITION: THE CREATIVE SPIRIT OF NEW YORK CITY KIDS
SUMMER HD FESTIVAL: ‘MADAMA BUTTERFLY’
FILM: ‘THE CAKEMAKER’
The Met Opera 30 Lincoln Center Plaza 8 p.m. Free In Anthony Minghella’s striking production of this timeless Puccini classic, soprano Kristine Opolais stars as the tragic title geisha, opposite tenor Roberto Alagna as her unfaithful American lover. Part of the Met Opera’s HD Festival running from Aug. 24 through Sept. 3; approximately 2,800 seats will be set up in front of the opera house each night. metopera.org
Manhattan JCC 334 Amsterdam Ave. 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. $15 From director Ofir Raul Graizer comes “The Cakemaker,” a film about a young German baker having an affair with a married Israeli man who frequently visits Berlin. When his lover Oren dies in a car crash, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers regarding his death. Before long, he connects with Anat, Oren’s newly widowed wife. Additional screenings Aug. 5-6. 646-505-4444 jccmanhattan.org
The Met 1000 Fifth Ave. 10 a.m. Free with museum admission This annual celebration of budding artists in New York City public schools showcases the paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, mixed-media works and collages of talented young artists in prekindergarten through grade twelve. This uplifting show runs through Oct. 21. 212-535-7710 themet.org
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ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND
thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY
Wed 5 ◄ OPENING NIGHT: HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN 59E59 Theaters 59 East 59th St. 7 p.m. $25-$70 Hershey Felder brings great American songwriter Irving Berlin to life in this production chronicling the composer’s remarkable journey from child immigrant to beloved and prolific songwriter. The show features some of the composer’s most enduring songs, including “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Always,” “Blue Skies” and “God Bless America.” Through Oct. 28. 646-892-7999 59e59.org Irving Berlin
John Krasinski in Conversation with Stephen Colbert
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH, 8PM 92nd Street Y | 1395 Lexington Ave. | 212-415-5500 | 92y.org Actor/director John Krasinski talks about his Office days, his new film A Quiet Place, called by Esquire “The scariest and most innovative movie of 2018,” and forthcoming projects, including the new Amazon series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan ($40).
LIVE From the NYPL | Wolfgang Tillmans with Paul Holdengräber: Art and Political Action
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 7PM NYPL Schwarzman Building | 476 Fifth Ave. | 917-275-6975 | nypl.org Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, the first non-British artist to receive the Tate’s Turner Prize, talks about his creative process and using his art as a platform to further democracy ($40).
Just Announced | TimesTalks: Matthew McConaughey
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 8PM Tribeca Perf. Arts Center | 199 Chambers St. | 212-220-8000 | timestalks.com Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey speaks about White Boy Rick. McConaughey’s new film tells the story of Richard Wershe Jr., the youngest FBI informant in American history (he began at 14), who served 30 years in prison after being discarded by his handlers ($50).
For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,
sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.
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GOLD STANDARD A spectacular mummy coffin debuts at the Met Fifth Avenue BY MARY GREGORY
In the Met Fifth Avenue’s exhibition, “Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin,” a door opens into a darkened space. A golden figure stands, life-sized, as if to welcome visitors. The coffin bears a likeness of the priest Nedjemankh, who lived in Egypt in about 150-50 BC. It’s burnished by spotlights, covered in precious metals and holds the viewer with a piercing gaze. After 2000 years, it’s as though not a day has passed since it was made. The Coffin of the Priest of Heryshef, Nedjemankh, was purchased by the museum in 2017. Who was Nedjemankh? What does his coffin reveal about an ancient culture?
How does it still speak so engagingly to us? Diana Craig Patch, Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge of the Egyptian Art Department at the Met, talked with us about the exhibition, which is designed to highlight some 70 seldom-seen works, present a remarkable civilization and introduce a new star to museum audiences. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Who was Nedjemankh and how did this piece survive? He was a priest of Heryshef of Herakleopolis Magna ... I don’t think he was just in the ground. I think he must have been in a tomb ... He does have some water damage, but given the fact that he’s made of linen and glue and plaster it’s pretty amazing he survived ... What’s particularly impressive about the coffin in terms of manufac-
ture is the raised declaration, the volume of it. It doesn’t generally cover the entire coffin. That’s what’s quite amazing. And it’s been done quite carefully and with a lot of detail. There’s a whole series of vignettes with whole scenes, not just simple rosettes or decorative elements. Anubis embalming, the deceased being judged before Osiris — things you see in papyri is being done here in raised decoration, not just ink ... But it’s the hymn at the bottom that really makes it. It’s about gold and silver ... and the flesh and the bones of the gods. What he has done is covered the outside of the coffin in gold and the inside of the coffin in silver. So he’s actually taken the hymn and translated it into the materiality of the coffin.
Is it known who the artist was? No. The Egyptians never documented that. When I say “he,” Nedjemankh commissioned it. I assume he told the overseers of the workshops, which were quite often attached to the temples, what he wanted.
Most pharaohs we’re familiar with are buff and chiseled and looked down imperiously. He’s a bit pudgy and softly smiling. If you look at the Ptolemaic kings, they all have little bellies and the women have large round breasts which you don’t see in earlier pharaonic kings and queens. The Ptolemaic period is soft and pudgy. Sorry. They’re just softer and rounder.
The gesture of covering the head or face, as seen in the female figure here, said Patch, signifies mourning. Photo: Adel Gorgy
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
IF YOU GO WHAT: Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin WHERE: The Met Fifth Avenue WHEN: Through April 21, 2019 very different, actually worried about the same things that we all worry about. What they did is to try to cope with that worry in their way, just as we cope with it in ours, and often those ways overlap.
What’s the magic in ancient Egyptian culture that so mesmerizes us still? Yeah [laughs]. There are a number of things ... It’s a very early civilization so that’s very fascinating. I think there are certain things that people find interesting; mummification is one of them. The Egyptians dealt with death openly, in what seems like a very tangible way. I also think people just love the architecture, the pyramids, huge temples. They’re visible. They’re still there. In many ancient cultures what’s left is not that big. I think the mixture of animals and religion people find fascinating — the animalheaded gods.
Art from many ancient societies is a little bit scary. Egyptian art is elegant. Everyone looks like a supermodel. The Egyptians didn’t do realism. The way they did their art was they communicated information very stylistically ... I think that makes it easier, especially for children, to like it and get attached to it.
What would you like audiences to remember when they leave the show?
The major takeaway for me from the show was not how distant and foreign all of this seems, but how familiar to our own lives it is. It’s a long time ago, a very different culture, lots of gold and shiny things in a language we can’t read, but it’s really about laying out people that you care for with great dignity and love. Tucking little things that may mean something to you or to them into the burial, when they go.
I would love to have the audience realize that the Egyptians were people just like us with the same worries, the same cares, the same desires in life that we all have. They just got to it in different ways and those are interesting ways to understand.
You got it. That’s what we try to do, is help people see that this culture, although visually
I think he’d say don’t forget me, because that’s what all Egyptians wanted.
If Nedjemankh could whisper to each visitor, which he looks like he’s about to do, what you think he’d say? Gilded coffin of the priest Nedjemankh, late Ptolemaic period (150-50 B.C.). Cartonnage, gold, silver, resin, glass, wood. Photo: Adel Gorgy
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
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86 A one-man show reflecting Irving Berlin’s remarkable journey from child immigrant to America’s most beloved songwriter.
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RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS AUG 15 - 21, 2018 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. Zucchero E Pomodori
1435 2nd Ave
A
Nespresso
935 Madison Ave
A
Effy’s Kitchen
1393B 2nd Ave
Not Yet Graded (50) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or nonfood areas. Food contact surface improperly constructed or located. Unacceptable material used. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Cafe Sabarsky
1048 5 Avenue
A
Hutch & Waldo Coffee
247 E 81st St
A
Casa Pizza
1427 3rd Ave
A
Paola’s
1295 Madison Avenue A
crime news, real estate prices - all about your part of town
Gina La Fornarina
26 East 91 Street
A
Subway
1434 Lexington Ave
A
Dunkin’ Donuts / Baskin Robbins
1392 Lexington Ave
A
Cultural Events
Genesis Bar & Restaurant
1708 2 Avenue
A
in and around where you live (not Brooklyn, not Westchester)
Chinatown Restaurant
1650 3rd Ave
Not Yet Graded (16) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, crosscontaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.
Cuchifrito
168 East 116 Street
A
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NEIGHBORHOOD’S BEST
FAREWELL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 A simple geographical calculation led to the building’s siting. As the industry boomed after World War I, the Fur District’s boundaries were said to be around Sixth Avenue on the east, Eighth Avenue to the west, 26th Street to the south and 30th Street to the north. According to industry lore, Albert Herskovitz, a fur buyer and trader who doubled as a promoter and developer, drew an “X” through a grid map and picked the corner of Seventh Avenue and 28th Street because it was equidistant to the fur manufacturers on the perimeter of the district. It didn’t hurt that the IRTSeventh Avenue line had come to the same intersection in 1917, in part to serve the fur marts. It was there that he built “The House of Herskovitz,” as it was initially dubbed in the early 1920s. Over the passing decades, it’s been variously called the Fur Trade Center Building, the Furriers’ Building, the Fur Merchants Club Building and the Fur Manufacturers Building, among others. Today, far more prosaically, its name is its address. Herskovitz and his son Max, who followed his father into A. Herskovitz & Sons, the family fur business, were ambitious and expansion-minded. And they didn’t only want to corner the fur trade in Manhattan: To sate market demand, and secure new supplies of sable, ermine and mink to ship to midtown, they looked to Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. And so it was that the Herskovitz clan — partnering with other tenants in the building and under the auspices of the Northern Whaling & Trading Co. — established trading posts and settlements in coastal communities across the Pacific Northwest.
FIGHTING THE “RED MENACE” Meanwhile, the trade union wars of the 1920s and 1930s were raging outside the front door. The heavily unionized industry was divided between militant pro-Communist and moderate anti-Communist locals — and they often fought bloody battles in the upstairs workplaces and on the streets and picket lines outside 333. “Expel the Reds,” was the slogan of one local. “It’s time to rid our organization for all times of Communist wreckers and disrupters,” a resolution passed in 1927 proclaimed. It wasn’t that easy. After one
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A 1923 photo of an office tower on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, built just three years earlier, that for over half-a-century served as the hub of the city’s Fur District. Photo: New York Public Library Digital Collection / via OldNYC violent clash at the street-level fur establishment of Benjamin Axel at 333, the NYPD’s “radical squad” announced mass arrests and multiple injuries. The New York Times reported the news on March 15, 1930: “Knives, scissors, clubs, fists, fingernails and sticks were employed early yesterday morning in an industrial misunderstanding between right-wing and left-wing members of furriers’ union,” the paper wrote. In 1938, some 15,000 fur workers went out on strike, pelting the cars of non-union scabs with jars of petroleum jelly used in the manufacturing process. In another incident, strikers abducted the night watchman at 333, drew a chain through the door handles and locked the building as “strong-arm men” kept workers and cops at bay, The Times reported. Things had calmed down by World War II, Communistdominated locals began to wither, and in 1948, the Herskovitz family sold the building for $2.7 million. By 1973, it traded for around $4.5 million, and today, it has a market value
of $91.7 million, according to data from PropertyShark, the real estate website. In the meantime, the Fur District went into eclipse. A growing animal-rights movement had targeted the industry, and it came into maturity with the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in 1980. Amid the outraged anti-fur protests of the 1980s — and the cry, “Kick the Fur District out of NYC!” — dozens of businesses at 333 shuttered or moved out, though some retail shops, in retreat from Madison Avenue and elsewhere, moved into its upstairs showrooms. Still, the die was cast, and eventually, 333 lost most of its furriers. The Fur District itself, like the Flower District with which it overlapped, began to implode, and the building was converted from light industrial to office use. “I suppose it was inevitable,” Kaplan said. “But it’s still incredibly sad for those of us who loved it.” invreporter@strausnews.com
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Business
Photo courtesy of Bombas
MIXING COMMERCE AND CHARITY NY-based online socks seller Bombas got its start to help the homeless with their most-requested clothing item BY ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
David Heath co-founded online socks company Bombas not because of an overwhelming desire to make a comfortable sock, but after realizing that they were the No. 1 clothing item requested by the homeless. Heath, the CEO, and his partner Randy Goldberg spent two years developing socks with features like blister tabs and arch support. Then they teamed up with shelters and nonprofit groups, and the company donates a pair for every pair it sells. Those socks focus on darker colors, and get reinforced seams and an anti-microbial treatment. Incorporating charity into the business from the get-go has turned out to be successful. So far, the New Yorkbased company has sold almost 9 million pairs, and they’re not cheap. A 12-pack of women’s ankle socks sell for $130. Bombas, started in 2013, had its first profit in 2016 and generated
nearly $50 million in sales last year. Bombas, derived from the Latin for bumble bee, is one of several startups based on a business model pioneered by Toms Shoes in 2006. Tom’s started out donating a pair of shoes for every pair it sells, and has expanded to Tshirts and sunglasses. Warby Parker, launched in 2010, does the same for eyewear. Heath says he’s looking at branching out to basic clothing items, embracing the same model. Bombas recently began selling to select Nordstrom and Dick’s Sporting Goods stores. Heath spoke with The Associated Press about the inspiration for Bombas, how he looks at competition and his future growth plans. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Q. How did you come up with the (socks) idea? A. The lightbulb moment was, I saw this quote — “Socks were the most requested (clothing) item for the homeless.” And then I saw what Toms was doing and Warby Parker just launched. This one-for-one thing is super-interesting and people seem to really reso-
nate with it. I thought maybe we can do this for socks, donating socks as part of the business. But in order to donate our socks, we have to sell a lot of socks, so what is going to be our edge? We looked at the landscape. And took a business school mentality to figuring out where the opportunity was.
Q. What sort of opportunity did you see? A. There was a massive gap between the commodity bulk buying and then there was the sub-category of ultrapremium individual pairs. You got a running sock for $15 ... a hiking sock ... a basketball sock. Socks that were marketed toward endemic categories. We started buying all these socks. What separates an $18 sock from a $2 sock?
Q. So, what’s the difference? A. There was a ton of innovation happening. Seamless toes, arch supports, incredible fabric designs. Conformed fits. And so the next “aha” moment? Why don’t we take all the technology ... and bring it to the mass market? And not just market to runners but market to anybody who is on their feet all day?
Q. How do you view competition? A. We look at other her companies that are all digital brands. ds. We stick together. We are very close se with the people at Warby. We are very close to the people at Bonobos.. We share insights with Casper per on our marketing. We e try to collaborate. We are all trying to dissrupt against the big ig main players in the e industry.
Q. What’s next? A. We’re launching other product categories. We just launched at wholesa le. On the roadmap for 2020: small footprint stores.
Bombas CEO David Heath. Photo: Andrew Wernerr
AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
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AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
Our Town|Eastsider ourtownny.com
THE RISE OF CELEBRITY BOOK CLUBS READING New Yorkers Jimmy Fallon and Sarah Jessica Parker are among the stars who help lift sales BY ALICIA RANCILIO
Jimmy Fallon remembers a summer a few years back when it seemed everybody was reading “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn. “Everyone had that book. If we had people over, or went on vacation poolside, people had that book wrinkled and curled up. I read it with my wife and we read every chapter together and we’d be like, ‘(Gasps) This is great!’ It was the world’s smallest book club,” he laughed. This summer, Fallon decided to expand his book club of two to include his late-night audience. In June, he launched “Tonight Show Summer Reads.” Fallon presented five book options on his show and instructed viewers to go online and vote for their favorite. The results exceeded his expectations with 140,000 votes. The winner was “Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi. “Any way to engage the audience and
to do stuff with them is always more fun,” said Fallon. He also enthusiastically tracked how the books performed on Amazon after a mention on his show. The company confirms he had an impact. “When a celebrity decides to get behind a book, we generally see a lift in sales,” said Chris Schluep, an editor at Amazon. “For instance, ‘Children of Blood and Bone’ has been selling well this year. But the week after Jimmy Fallon selected it as the first ‘Tonight Show’ book club selection, it sold nearly three times the number of print, Kindle and Audible books that it had sold in the previous week at Amazon.” Fallon isn’t the only celebrity to follow in Oprah Winfrey’s footsteps with a book club. Reese Witherspoon has made such a success of her monthly literary picks that publishers are now putting Reese stickers on her selections. “It’s fantastic and we have a great experience,” said Witherspoon, who has bought the rights to many of her picks to adapt for film or television. One of her selections, “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng will be a limited series on Hulu starring Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. The Oscar winner has also partnered with the audio producer-distributor
Audible on audio recordings of her selections. Emma Roberts has turned her lifelong love of reading into a pet project she calls Belletrist. A website and social media for Belletrist celebrate all things books. Each month they feature a new book to read and even an independent book store to check out. “Belletrist is my baby,” said Roberts, who runs the site with her partner, Karah Preiss. She says there is “no criteria” for books she features because her personal taste is so varied, but she does tend to learn toward highlighting female authors. She wants to create a community for Belletrist followers to share thoughts and ideas about what they read. Sarah Jessica Parker is so committed to reading that she’s partnered with the American Library Association to share her own suggestions. The goal, she says, is to not only get people to read but to also support their own local libraries. When Parker was approached by publishing house Hogarth to start her own imprint, her respect for writing initially made her think it wasn’t a good idea. “I didn’t think I had the experi-
Tomi Adeyemi, author of “Children of Blood and Bone,” the first selection of “Tonight Show Summer Reads,” with host Jimmy Fallon on July 24. Photo: Andrew Lipovsky/NBC ence and had too much respect for people who’ve been in publishing for a long time,” she said. But Parker then thought it could be a way to help champion works in the literary fiction space which isn’t always as commercial. The first novel printed by SJP for Hogarth, “A Place for Us” by Fatima Farheen Mirza, is a New York Times best-seller. Parker said she also enjoys posting about books on social media because it’s a safe topic. Books are the “one thing I can talk about on Instagram that’s not controversial,” she said. “Everybody wants to talk about their favorite books or their feelings about books and share title recommendations. I mean, it’s a huge exchange of information and enthusiasm and it’s really the easiest
part of my relationship with social media certainly.” Like Witherspoon, Roberts and Parker are open to the idea of giving a book they recommend the Hollywood treatment. “One of the most exciting things about reading is thinking about how to bring it to life. I’m always imagining the show or the movie. We’re in an exciting time,” said Roberts. Parker stresses her goal first and foremost is to help the author. “I’m in it really for the genuinely purest of intentions — to introduce new authors to readers. And if the opportunity exists for there to be a discussion about any television or film rights, I would certainly enter in to those conversations. But that isn’t in any way my incentive.”
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YOUR 15 MINUTES
To read about other people who have had their “15 Minutes” go to ourtownny.com/15 minutes
A BETTY FOR ALL SEASONS In an incisive new comedy, playwright Jen Silverman explores identity and transformation via five women with the same name BY ALIZAH SALARIO
Jen Silverman doesn’t expect you to remember the full 47-word title of her latest play. A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant and the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, among other honors, Silverman sees titles as an entry point: think of them as the first line of an invitation sent to the audience, she says. “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” is the shorthand title, and it captures the provocative, playful nature of the show. Boasting an all-star cast (Dana Delany, Lea DeLaria, Adina Verson, Ana Villafañe and Chaunté Wayans), “Collective Rage” premiered at the MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre earlier this month. (For the record, the full title is “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; In Essence, a Queer and Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do You Remember When You Were In Middle School and You Read About Shackleton and How He Explored the Antarctic? Imagine the Antarctic as a P____ and It’s Sort of Like That.”) We sat down with Silverman to discuss her globe-trotting childhood, New York City’s brimming creative energy, and what Betty Boop reveals about the performance of gender.
How did you come up with the idea for a show with five leads all named Betty? The play in a nutshell is about five women named Betty, and each is very different from one another. They come from different backgrounds, they have different gender presentations, different experiences of class and race in the world. They all meet, and essentially in the form of a provocative comedy, they challenge each other to step outside of the boxes that they have been put in by the world, and also the boxes that they put each other in. The play for me is sort of an invitation to those characters, but also to us, to reimagine what we are capable of, and also what the people around us are capable of ... In my work in general, I’m really interested in cutting beneath the surface and seeing what’s underneath.
Looking at your past work, it seems like you’re really interested in questions of what’s socially constructed,
IF YOU GO WHERE: MCC Theater at The Lucille Lortel Theatre 121 Christopher St. WHEN: Tue-Wed 7 p.m., Thu-Fri 8 p.m., Sat 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sun 3 p.m. Runs through Sept. 23. COST: $30+ CONTACT: mcctheater.org. 212-727-7722 and what’s instinctual. Can you tell me a little more about that? I was born in the U.S., in New England, and then at 15-months-old, my folks moved to Tokyo and I grew up in a bunch of different countries. I was in and out of the States, but I was also living in Europe and Asia and Scandinavia. And I think for me, that question of instinct versus what is instilled in you by society, I think that comes from — I mean, my guess — is it comes from being an outsider all the time, in so many places, including the country I was born in and came back to. If you are never really of a place, you’re always watching to see what people are doing, and why they’re doing it, and what are the rules here versus what they were in that last place, and also
how much of it is instinct, and how much is people responding to the dictates of a particular culture — which of course in my case, that culture was constantly shifting. Even now that I’ve been in the States for a long time, I really find myself questioning how much of our cultural and national ideas of ourselves — the prizing of independence, manifest destiny, entitlement — like those things, are they instinctual, or were we raised [with] that cultural milieu from the earliest stages?
Speaking of culture, do feel like a bona fide New Yorker, and a New York artist? It certainly looks that way from the outside. In the past few years, I’ve been able to say I wasn’t born in New York, but I’m from New York. And part of that, to me, is that this is a city where there’s an energy here for artists that there isn’t anywhere else, or that I have not found elsewhere, let me say that. Everyone here is trying to make something, or do something, or be something or find something, and I include people who aren’t artists in this. It’s a city, to me, that feels like a tireless striving towards something — for artist and writers, it’s particularly fueling. Yes, it can be exhausting and overwhelming as we all know, especially when the subway is broken, but there’s constant low level hum of energy that I imagine feeds me ... there’s a way in which, when I’m in New York, I can really plug into an artistic community that has really been formative for me.
You live way up in Washington Heights. Do you hang out with Lin-Manuel Miranda?
Photo courtesy of MCC Theater
[Laughs] I wish! I love it here. When I first moved to New York I lived in Astoria, and then I moved to Wash Heights, and I’ve been really happy here. I’m at the upper end of it. My stop is 181, so I’m a little closer to Fort Tryron. I love going to the park, I love that there’s a lot of
Playwright Jen Silverman. Photo courtesy of MCC Theater little restaurants on 181 — I love going to Cafe Buunni. There’s trees up here!
I have to ask: Is Betty slang for something, in the way that a “Becky” is shorthand for a clueless white girl? That’s a great question ... to my knowledge it’s not. When I was writing the first draft of the play, I was thinking about the character of Betty Boop. Not because the play is in any way tied to the cartoon, or even a commentary on the cartoon, but simply because Betty Boop is such iconic Americana in a way, and she’s a performance of a certain kind of femininity. That was something, when I was thinking about what it is to trouble an archetype, or to break through the surface of an image to what’s underneath it, Betty Boop was on my mind. But then of course the characters became Betties.
It’s interesting because we’re in this moment where the construction and fluidity of gender is being called into question, even for those of us may have considered it fixed. Did you intend for
this play to be provocative? I don’t know that with this particular play that’s the main thrust of it. For me, what’s being questioned is, if we see each other on the street, and we read each other’s race, class, gender presentation, that trio of things combines to give us an image of that person, [and] actually, so many of those images are false images. That’s not the whole story. Or we decide that we could never actually be friends with that person — but we could. So the play, on that front, is questioning those images ... to me, the question that’s really important is how much of gender is a performance, and how much power does that give us over ourselves when we know that.
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1 6
7 A B R N U Z C W P U S R Y W A
4
7 4
5 2
8 D S Q R E L F Z R H U A C O S
I F X J X L G F C U R R E N T
9 O J D J Y M I R U D D E R W W
O W M V H E L M S M A N Z C B
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. Level: Medium
6
9
8 9
2 1
5
1 6
4 2
7 3
4
Charts Current Heading Helmsman Mast Oars Radar Radio Rope Rudder Sails Skiff Surf Swell Yards
8
4
6
The puzzle contains the following words. They may be diagonal, across, or up and down in the grid in any direction.
1 5
3
5
O W M V H E L M S M A N Z C B
9
6
O J D J Y M I R U D D E R W W
5 6
6
I F X J X L G F C U R R E N T
2
8
D S Q R E L F Z R H U A C O S
3 7
1
A B R N U Z C W P U S R Y W A
1
2 1
1
R M G A T B R B M W S W S U M
2 1
5
Y C K N O L Q A C H A R T S P
7
4
N X F P I X B R N F X H M A Y
8 7
2
E R C J D D A A F F T F Y M Q
5 9
9
O P O T K D A C Q I H Q B B P
2 1
7 8
G B O S A M O E P K J Q L S A
1 6
8 7
N L F R Q M K I H S W E L L Z
7 3
5
L J N D S H E V Y J M L B I O
4 2
6
Q O M E D K N C H N Z O Z A C
3 4
9
1
D Z K R B V O A I R A E Z S E
ANSWERS
by Myles Mellor
9 8
2
WORD SEARCH
6 5
SUDOKU by Myles Mellor and Susan Flanagan
COLOR THE EAST SIDE by Jake Rose Guggenheim Museum In 1943, Solomon Guggenheim hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for the Museum of Non-Objective Painting’s art collection.
Scan or take a picture of your work and send it to molly. colgan@strausnews.com. We’ll publish some of them. To purchase a coloring book of Upper East Side venues, go to colorourtown.com/ues
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