The local paper for the Upper er East Side A RECORDSETTER AT CARNEGIE HALL < Q&A, P.21
M.T.S. RAMP PLAN COULD GET BOOST Stringer may back plan to move MTS ramp to 92nd Street BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
The office of city Comptroller Scott Stringer is considering backing a request by several community groups on the Upper East Side to move the access ramp to the marine transfer station a block north to 92nd Street. It’s all but certain that the controversial MTS will be built at 91st Street on the East River, across FDR Drive from Asphalt Green. But the city’s current proposal involves building an access ramp
that will run through the athletic complex and be used by some 150 dump trucks making daily trips to and from the MTS. Community groups, including Asphalt Green and Pledge 2 Protect, have turned their attention from stopping the MTS outright to mitigating its impact on the community. In a series of high-profile ads in The New York Times and elsewhere, they’re asking Mayor Bill deBlasio to move the access ramp one block north. The plan entails taking the en-
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NEW YORK CITY’S CHRISTMAS ROOTS HISTORY Museum explores Christmas in the city going back to the 1800s BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
Christmas, for some, is all about traditions. About favorite foods and holiday films, peppermint bark and “It’s a Wonderful Life” on television. For me, it’s pancake breakfasts and Italian anisette cookies. For my husband, no Christmas Eve is complete without watching George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. While such traditions have their origins in childhood or generations earlier, the celebration of Christmas as we know it now took root in New York centuries earlier, during an era celebrated by the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden. “People develop ideas over time,” said Natalia Sokolova, curator of education at the museum who recently led a talk about Christmas in 1830. “The roots of a lot of
25-31 2014
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In Brief FINANCIAL SUCCESS AT SUCCESS ACADEMY The Success Academy charter school network took in a whopping $34.6 million for the financial year ended June 2013, according to tax documents reviewed by the Daily News. That’s up nearly $18 million from $16.7 million in the prior year. The booming growth resulted in sharply higher pay for Success founder Eva Moskowitz, who took home $567,500. That’s more than twice the salary of city schools boss Carmen Farina, who earns $212,614 to oversee the city’s system of roughly 1,800 schools. Success Academy has found itself in periodic fights with Mayor Bill deBlasio over the network’s growth, and city Comptroller Scott Stringer has announced he is auditing the school’s finances. Results from that inquiry are expected in 2015.
NEW LAW LIMITS LIGHTING ON STATE BUILDINGS Let there be (not so much) light. A suburban New York lawmaker is trumpeting legislation signed this week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to curtail light pollution from state-owned buildings. Sen. Carl Marcellino says his bill requires the use of shielded lights on the exterior of state buildings, directing lighting downward onto streets, walkways and public spaces. Marcellino says unshielded lighting causes something called sky glow. That obscures night sky views and creates road glare. He says excessive outdoor lighting causes over 100 million bird fatalities across the United States annually.
things lie in the past.” Nestled between a parking garage and a medical research building on the easternmost stretch of East 61st Street, the stone structure, with white wooden shutters and trimmed hedges, was built in 1799 as a carriage house. It was converted into a country retreat in 1826 for middle class city-dwellers looking to escape the urban bustle, which at the time was mostly contained below 14th Street—upper Manhattan was still mostly countryside. Now an educational history museum decorated with furniture of the era, such as a paw-footed writing desk with gold filigree and a French barrel organ that plays “Yankee Doodle,” the museum offers holiday programming, including concerts and candlelit tours, and is decked out for a 1830s Christmas. Pine cones and branches adorn the windowsills. Crab apple garlands hang from the doorways, and gingerbread cookies and figgy pudding—all remarkably
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WEEK OF DECEMBER
The parlor at the Mount Vernon Hotel Musem and Garden, decorated for the holidays.
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candle every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday December 26 - 4:17 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com.