The local paper for the Upper er East Side FALL PREVIEW: A LOOK AHEAD AT ARTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, N
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
11
< P. 12
2014
OURTOWNNY.COM
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GOING IT ALONE IN A ONE-PARTY TOWN POLITICS David Garland is running as a Republican in a GOP no man’s land BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
UPPER EAST SIDE “The Republican Party is dying in New York City and nobody
them fondly when compared to their current condition. Right now, there’s not a single Republican in the Assembly representing Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx. Just two Republicans represent districts in Staten Island. David Garland was a paperboy the year of Schanberg’s
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THE CENTRAL PARK BALLERINA How hopes for a career in dance turned into posing for tourists on a box in the park BY STEVEN MAGINNIS
Therisa Barber-Shaw came to New York from England hoping to make it big on Broadway. Instead, she’s become a hit on a small plastic box in Central Park. The classically trained dancer performs in the park as a living ballet statue on the box, dancing momentarily when someone drops money in her collection bucket. “You don’t always get to plan your life,” she explains. “Sometimes you give things a shot, and it sends you in a different direction.” Growing up in Kent, England, BarberShaw became interested in dance at age five, when her mother took her to the Royal Ballet in London. She instantly fell in love with the art, and she started taking lessons
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, and State Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein announced the expanded installation of speed cameras citywide near schools last week, as part of the city’s Vision Zero plan. Speeding drivers kill more New Yorkers than drunk drivers and drivers distracted by cell phones combined. Nearly one in three people killed in New York City traffic is killed by a speeding driver.
OFFICIALS CALL FOR REAUTHORIZATION OF 9/11 HEALTHCARE LAW New York lawmakers – Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Peter King – gathered at Ground Zero along with Mayor Bill de Blasio, 9/11 first responders, community survivors and union leaders to push to reauthorize the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which originally passed in 2010. Lawmakers plan to introduce measures to extend the bill’s two programs, providing medical treatment and compensation for 9/11 victims and first responders, for 25 more years, through 2041.
almost immediately. “There was a point,” she says, “where I almost gave up, but my mum knew me better than I knew myself, and she made me stick at it.” Barber-Shaw spent two years studying dance at the esteemed London Studio Centre, appeared in a royal gala performance at London’s Royalty Theatre, then worked as a dancer and choreographer on cruise ships. By the year 2000, Barber-Shaw was in New York, but things didn’t work out so well. Despite an affiliation with Geoffrey Doig-Marx’s Mantis Project Dance Company and a stint as a teacher’s assistant at the Broadway Dance Center, she was unable to get sponsorship or broaden her professional experience. After four years as a waitress, she sold calendars for a statue mime performing at Columbus Circle, which bored her. The mime suggested that she use her
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MORE SPEED CAMERAS FOR SCHOOL AREAS
Therisa Barber-Shaw posing in Central Park, where she performs for tips.
Jewish women and girls light Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunse Friday September 12 – 6:51pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com.
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David Garland campaigning on the Upper East Side. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons
seems to care.” So wrote Sydney Schanberg in the pages of the New York Times over 30 years ago, after watching a political debate on public access television when he noticed that not a single Republican was present. However lean their party was in those days, Republicans in New York might remember
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