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NYPRESS.COM • THE LARGEST PAPER ON THE EAST SIDE • AUGUST 8, 2013
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How NYC’s Restaurants Give Back East Side’s most charitable restaurants as defined by City Harvest
Manhattan chefs regularly donate food, time and money to City Harvest and food pantries By Joanna Fantozzi
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ity Harvest keeps a list of the most charitable restaurants throughout the city, or the restaurants who give the most to City Harvest, where over 90 percent of the proceeds go directly to feed New York’s hungry. Local, popular restaurants like DBGBs and DirtCandy downtown, as well as Daniel and Fishtail on the Upper East Side, and Shake Shack and Telepan on the Upper West Side top the list. But perhaps no one knows more about helping New York’s needy than local restaurateur and winner of the WESTY award restaurateur of the year, Marc Murphy, owner and chef at Landmarc and Ditch Plains on the Upper West Side. Murphy is the restaurant co-chair of the City Harvest Board, and believes that chefs should do whatever they can to give back to the community. “The chef and restaurant community helps fight
hunger in the city, but it’s also a nationwide thing,” said Murphy. “Whenever there’s a problem, the restaurant community comes together to help.” But what about every day neighborhood restaurants that aren’t headed by celebrity chefs, or haven’t received a Michelin star? Naomi Downey, the director of special events at City Harvest, said that there are lots of ways that smaller restaurants can help give back. “The essential part of City Harvest is through food rescue,” said Downey. “We’re not asking them to create extra food, just for us to pick it up. We aren’t asking them to overextend, because small restaurants don’t have financial capacity to do that. For Danny Mena, the owner of Hecho en Dumbo, the popular Mexican restaurant on Bowery and East 4th Street, one of his favorite ways of giving back is through City Harvest’s mobile markets program, the open-air bi-monthly free farmer’s markets, where chefs and restaurants donate their fresh produce, as well as simple recipes for those in need across the city, in places like the Bronx, Inwood and Bed Stuy. “One week it was torrential rain and we were all struggling to get there on time, but there was still a huge line of people 600 people waiting for
us,” said Mena. “We have a recipe and we try to do something with ingredients that are simple and you can get at the market. Everybody needs to eat and feel the satisfaction of being satisfied and that’s what we do.” As Naomi Downey explained, even donating a few eggplants and providing a simple, healthy recipe with those eggplants can make a difference. One does not have to be a Food Network chef and attend star-studded functions to make a difference, she said. Although many chefs donate their time to City Harvest, they can also participate in their communities. Many food pantries in local churches accept donations from restaurants. Danny Mena has said that he has also worked with The Bowery Kitchen before in his neighborhood. And on the Upper West Side, The West Side Campaign Against Hunger is constantly collaborating with neighborhood restaurants. Stewart Desmond, a representative from WSCAH, said that Jacob from Jacob’s Pickles helped kick start their herb garden for their hungry and homeless guests. He also said that many local
The Transformation of the Whitney The Whitney Museum is half way through the big move from its Upper East Side home to a new facility downtown By Katya Johns
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he Whitney Museum has been house-hunting for years. After almost five decades in its current home, the Marcel Breuer-designed building on the Upper East Side’s Madison Avenue, the famed modern and contemporary art museum is preparing to pack up and move downtown. The move is an answer to some of the problems that have beset the current facility – difficulties expanding or renovating such a unique space combined with resistance from the quiet community and budgetary issues –
and will give the Whitney a chance to spread its artistic wings and start a brand new life cycle. But what’s to become of the Breuer building uptown? And why is the Whitney fleeing its longtime home, in a neighborhood well known for arts patronage? One of the biggest reasons for the move is to get more space for the Whitney’s vast collections. As a spokesperson for the Museum said, “The decision to move was very simple…the building was built in 1966 for a 2,000-piece collection, which has since grown to 20,000.” After years of searching for other places uptown, the Whitney finally decided to go back to its roots in Greenwich Village, where Gertrude Whitney Vanderbilt founded her studio in 1930. The new building will be located in the Meatpacking District, situated Continued on page 13
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Whitney Museum