The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF NOVEMBER A MANNERIST MASTER AT THE MORGAN ◄ P.12
1-7 2018
SYNAGOGUES, SECURITY AND SOLIDARITY COMMUNITY After the mass murder of Jews in Pittsburgh, New York’s shuls start thinking about the unthinkable — and they’re confronting horror and hate with soul-searching and hope City Council Member Mark Levine stands at the West 125th Street Pier on the Hudson River. Photo: Office of the Council Member
THE RIVER OF NO RESPECT TRANSPORTATION As city ferryboats ply the East River, the Hudson by comparison is becoming a transit backwater — but a nice berth is available near Columbia’s new uptown campus
They forgot half of Manhattan.” West Side City Council Member Mark Levine
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
East Siders have quickly embraced the city’s fast-growing ferry system to speed to jobs in midtown and downtown as waterborne commuters. West Siders have had no such luck. The daily descent into a Dantesque subway system remains their inescapable ticket to jobs and paychecks. It’s a tale of two rivers: The East River boasts six NYC Ferry routes with five stops. The Hudson River hosts zero routes and zero stops. East River landings from 90th Street to Wall Street provide connections to Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, linking all 21 stops in a
city system that spans 60 nautical miles. None of those stops can be accessed from the Hudson. Now, City Council Member Mark Levine, who represents a swath of the West Side, is urging the city to launch a new ferry route from a landing at the West 125th Street Pier in Harlem. The underutilized berth, which juts into the river opposite the uptown Fairway in the West Harlem Piers Park, could be used to establish both north-south service, linking midtown and downtown, and an
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BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Moorish and Medieval. Romanesque and Byzantine. Gothic and Deco. Brutalist and Expressionist. Every architectural style under the sun was employed in the golden age of Manhattan synagogue construction. It started after the Civil War and lasted into the 1960s, and hundreds of houses of worship came to life in that century of faith. They had two things in common: In culture, design and physical plant, most were open and inviting and welcoming. And they were never built as fortress redoubts to ward off guntoting domestic terrorists. Now, their potential vulnerability to catastrophic attack is on display — despite years of hardening infrastructure and seeking protection with bollards, stone blocks, squad cars, private security and off-duty cops. The hate-fueled massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life Congregation on a Sabbath morning in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27 by an antiSemitic, anti-immigrant killer shouting “All Jews must die” has shaken the faith community to its core. Security protocols are being changed. Extra metal detectors installed. Cameras purchased. Eblast injunctions to carry ID cards dispatched
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Police increased security at Park East Synagogue on East 67th Street following the Oct. 27 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office en masse. But more fundamentally, a communal soul-searching about the rise of a venomous anti-Semitism in America is underway. And even as interfaith prayer vigils are held at Central Synagogue, Sutton Place Synagogue and Congregation Ansche Chesed, and candlelight vigils take place in Union Square, and a more religious vigil was held at Yeshiva University, and Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials offered consolation at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue, rabbis and congregants alike were asking the same urgent questions: Can it happen here? Is there a gunman like Robert Bowers, who opened fire during a baby-naming ceremony, felling victims who ranged in age from
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We live the exact values the assailant repudiated. And we have no intention of ever backing down from them.” Rabbi Robert Levine, Congregation Rodeph Sholom
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, November 2 – 5:33 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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