The local paper for the Upper er East Side
OURTOWNNY.COM
MARCH-APRIL
26-1 2015
A MANHATTAN TRIO TAKES BROADWAY Q&A, P.18
UPPER EAST SIDE SCHOOL PLANS CROSSTOWN MOVE
In Brief LIBRARIES IN NEED OF $1 BILLION IN FIXES
Manhattan Country Day School negotiating with Upper West Side community on relocation BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Manhattan Country Day School’s plan to expand and move into a building on the Upper West Side ran up against Community Board 7’s land use committee, which wants the project’s architect to reduce the visual impact of a proposed vertical extension on the former home of the Mannes School of Music on West 85th Street. About 200 students attend the school, which is now on East 96th Street near Central Park. The impetus behind the crosstown move is school leadership’s wish to double the student body and, in turn, increase teacher salaries, which are among the lowest for private schools in New York. The school wants to build out portions of two existing floors as well as construct a rooftop play area and add an elevator bulkhead to the roof. To do that school officials need a variance from the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals because the building already exceeds zoning restrictions. The proposal calls for carving out the middle of the building – to provide light and air into the lower classrooms - and adding an equivalent area, about 5,000 square feet, to the roof. The building was originally 26,300 square feet but has since grown to 30,000 square feet. If built, the school’s proposal would exceed zoning limits by more than 8,000 square feet. Page Cowley, chair of CB7’s land use committee, said the board is supportive of the school but is grappling with the idea of filling out the two top floors, which will increase the building’s height profile from the front by about 12 feet. “The neighbors feel that that additional height is injurious to their light
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
OurTownEastSide @OurTownNYC
Illustration by John S. Winkleman
CRAFTING A CUSTOM ON THE EAST SIDE Schaller & Weber continues to carve tradition in Germantown BY PANYIN CONDUAH
Every week for the rest of the year, Our Town will celebrate its 45th anniversary by profiling a neighborhood business that has been around longer than we have. Know of a local business that should be on our list? Email us at news@strausnews.com. Ferdinand Schaller was a man that took the craft of meat seriously. So much that with only $10 in his pocket and an apprenticeship as a butcher and sausage maker in his native Germany, he immigrated to the U.S. In time, he opened what’s now the oldest German butcher shop, on Second Avenue near 86th Street, Schaller & Weber. Both Schaller and his partner Antonio Weber opened the shop in 1937. Nearly 80 years have passed and the family continues to take their craft seriously — it’s one of the last German butcher shops in the Yorkville neighborhood. Current owner Jeremy Schaller is the third-generation family mem-
ber running the business. He took up that responsibility in August. At a young age, Jeremy knew he would continue the family’s legacy. “My grandfather when I was a kid told me this is what you’re going to do in life,” he said. “So it was pretty much straightforward from the start.” Prior to taking over, Jeremy worked behind the scenes, doing marketing and sales for eight years. With younger eyes now on the front lines, Jeremy works to keep the business relevant. “We’re always keeping it kind of old-school, keeping the heritage alive but kind of making it a little up to speed,” he said. Although his goal is to introduce a younger clientele to the delights of the traditional German products, he’s also stocking curry ketchup and bacon peanut brittle among the smoked sausage links that dangle above the showcase. One of the challenges Jeremy said he faces is keeping his older clients satisfied. Since those regulars are familiar with the shop’s traditional ways, Jeremy faces “a juggling
act” when it comes to introducing changes, he said. He hopes that by introducing German beers and having a chef in-house will get a more of mixed crowd to stop in. The shop stands out by specializing in pork but also sells poultry and sweets. Yorkville has changed a lot since the butcher shop opened, with many staples treasured by the German community having disappeared. The amount of Germans who have immigrated to America and settled in Yorkville is high. Catering to their tastes keeps them close to their heritage. “They need something that reminds them of home,” Jeremy said. Groups of people who take tours of the German-tinged Yorkville always stop by the butcher shop. It’s one of the very few spots with a German heritage, and Jeremy said he’s proud of maintaining that aspect. In fact, he hopes to expand to other neighborhoods. “We’re the last remnants of old New Yorkville,” Jeremy said, “and we have to be here.”
The state of the city’s 207 public libraries is dismal. Broken heating and air conditioning systems. Leaking roofs. Book stacks in disrepair. The situation has become so untenable that the presidents of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens library systems took the unusual step of holding a news conference outside City Hall to highlight what they call a “maintenance crisis” in the libraries and to beg City Hall for cash. Their appeal was accompanied by a report estimating that it will take $1 billion to fix the problem - this at a time when the private sector in the city is booming, and more glamorous arts and cultural institutions are brimming with cash. Not so our local libraries. Last year, the Center for an Urban Future found that libraries for years have been starved for cash, causing the maintenance crisis the city now faces. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeatedly cut library budgets, leading to decreased staffing and facilities spending. “Despite public libraries’ ever more important role in keeping neighborhoods strong, city funding for libraries has not kept up, particularly for capital needs,” the report reads. Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio kept library spending flat, which is a sort of progress, given recent cutbacks. As for next year, according to The Wall Street Journal, the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget’s capital plan includes $566.1 million for libraries, including an increase in library capital funding for fiscal 2015 to $229 million from $205 million. Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candle every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday March 27 – 6:57 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com.
2 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
WHAT’S MAKING NEWS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD TAXI RIDER WISE TO SCAM Don’t be fooled by the familiar yellow exterior of a taxicab — some cabs have been reported to have fake drivers responsible for scamming customers’ of their credit cards. Gothamist reports that at least one customer was scammed after seeing a driver swipe his card through two different machines. The card machine in the back of the car was supposedly not working so the victim instinctively gave his card to the driver, who swiped it twice. The
second scanner is believed to be a card skimmer, a machine that copies card information from the original. The victim also noticed two missing medallions from the exterior of the cab and saw a regular license plate instead of the ones cab drivers possess. The Taxi and Limousine Commission is investigating.
DE BLASIO SIGNS VETERAN SERVICE BILLS Mayor Bill De Blasio recently signed several pieces of
legislation to help increase transparency of veterans’ services and to bolster the size of the Veterans’ Advisory Board. The bills will increase the amount of veteran representatives to work with the mayor and council to better detail local veterans’ needs. “New York City’s veterans gave selessly to protect our nation—and we must provide these dedicated men and women transparent and simple access to the services they need,â€? said De Blasio. The bills were approved by the City Council on February 26.
“The Veterans Advisory Board does great work and strengthens the lines of communication between city government and local vets,� Councilman Eric Ulrich, chair of the council’s Veterans Committee, said. “This legislation will allow for greater public input that will only enhance the ability of the Board to meet the challenges facing veterans and their families in our city.�
WABC’S LISA COLAGROSSI DIES A taxi rider was alert enough to detect a potential creditcard scam while paying his fare to what he later realized was a fake cabbie. Photo: Pete Bellis, via Flickr
SUDDENLY Lisa Colagrossi, a reporter for WABC/Channel 7, last week while on assignment for the station after suffering a brain aneurysm, the Daily News reported. Colagrossi, 49, suffered the aneurysm after having reported from the scene of a four-alarm ďŹ re in Woodhaven, Queens. She was taken to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center’s neurological ICU, where she was placed on life support. Colagrossi, a mother of two, never regained consciousness, the paper reported. WABC/Channel 7general manager Dave Davis said that Colagrossi “embodied the Eyewitness News spirit—a straightforward reporter who told the truth, empathetic to the everyday citizens of the New York area, and demanding of those in power.â€?
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TELLS PARENTS TO CONTRIBUTE MONEY AND SERVICES, VIOLATING DOE RULES Prospective parents
attending P.S. 212 open house were told they were expected to raise money, volunteer as chaperones among other services for six hours of service a year. The parents at the meeting were given a form for their potential Pre-K to kindergarten children where they were asked to check off boxes of areas where they would possibly help out with. Department of Education officials reported that collecting this type of information from parents is not allowed. P.S. 212, also known as Midtown West, is not responsible for selecting their students into their school, instead applications go through the DOE algorithm and students are selected by lottery. DNAinfo reports that parents being involved with the school’s community is “central to the mission and success of our school.� It was also reported that the school’s PTA raises $225,000 a year. Principal of P.S. 212 Ryan Bourke and the school’s parent coordinator did not respond to DNAinfo’s requests for comments. The school’s 360 students come from several of the city’s neighborhoods, including the Upper East Side, TriBeCa, and Chelsea, the site said.
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#MakeThatCall to Prevent, Treat and Survive the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States Dr. Michael B. Brown, Senior Minister 1 West 29th St. NYC, NY 10001 (212) 686-2770 www.MarbleChurch.org
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 3
CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG
HOT PLATE BECOMES FOCUS OF TRAGIC HOUSE FIRE An ultra-Orthodox Jewish community shattered by the deaths of seven siblings in a house ďŹ re carried out their funerals Sunday, a day after a hot plate left on for the Sabbath is believed to have sparked the ďŹ re that killed them. The tragedy had some Jews reconsidering the practice of keeping hot plates on for the Sabbath, a common modern method of obeying tradition prohibiting use of fire on the holy day. The bodies of the children from the Sassoon family, ages 5 to 16, were to be own to Israel after the funeral for a prompt burial. Flames engulfed their two-story, brick-and-wood home in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood early Saturday, likely after a hot plate left on a kitchen counter set off the ďŹ re that trapped the children and badly injured their mother and another sibling, investigators said. The service at the Shomrei Hadas funeral home began with prayers in Hebrew, accompanied by the wailing voices of mourners. They could be heard through speakers that broadcast the rite to hundreds of people gathered outside on the streets in traditional black robes and at-brimmed hats. The blaze killed three girls and four boys _ all members of the neighborhood’s tightknit
community of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Authorities identified the victims as girls Eliane, 16; Rivkah, 11; and Sara, 6; and boys David, 12; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; and Yaakob, 5. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, who broke down at one point as he spoke about the blaze, said it was the city’s worst in recent memory. The hot plate was left on for the Sabbath, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Many religious Jews use one to keep food warm, obeying the traditional prohibition on use of ďŹ re on the holy day as well as work in all forms, including turning on appliances. The Sassoons’ hot plate apparently malfunctioned, setting off ames that tore up the stairs, trapping the children in their second-oor bedrooms as they slept, investigators said. Firefighters arrived in less than four minutes and discovered the badly burned and distraught mother pleading for help, officials said. When they broke in the door, they encountered a raging ďŹ re that had spread through the kitchen, dining room, common hall, stairway leading upstairs and the rear bedrooms. City officials trying to prevent other such disasters have set up four locations in the area to hand out leaets warning residents to make sure they have smoke detectors _ and that they check the batteries. Free batteries were being handed out. AP
RAPID TRANSGRESSION
One thief wasted no time making unauthorized charges on a stolen credit card. On the afternoon of March 17, a 35-year-old woman was shopping in an Upper East Side store when someone approached and told her that someone had removed her wallet from the purse hanging over her shoulder. The woman checked and sure enough, her wallet was missing, along with credit cards and $300 in cash. Within 10 minutes, unauthorized charges appeared, with the total amount stolen coming to $550.
DOUBLE TROUBLE One bar patron asked for trouble in two different ways recently. At 9:30 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day, a 37-year-old woman left her purse on the back of her chair in a Second Avenue bar. That was strike one. Then, strike two, she went to use the restroom, leaving her bag unattended. When she returned, she found that her purse was open and her wallet, containing $1,000 in cash, was missing.
COURIER CRIME At 3 p.m. on Friday, March 20, a man entered a luxury retailer on Madison Avenue, claiming to be a courier. He then took a garment bag containing $15,560 worth of merchandise and left the premises before store personnel realized that he was not a legitimate courier. Police said an investigation is ongoing.
A BREAK IN A CASE
Week to Date
Year to Date
2015 2014 % Change
2015
2014 % Change
Murder
0
0
n/a
0
0
n/a
Rape
1
1
0
2
2
0
Robbery
3
4
-25
20
19
5.3
Felony Assault
1
0
n/a
24
20
20
Burglary
2
2
0
27
53
-49.1
Grand Larceny
16
32
-50
238
255
-6.7
Grand Larceny Auto
0
2
-100
5
12
-58.3
A store’s wall was apparently no deterrent to a determined jewelry thief. Sometime overnight between March 19 and the 20th, a 47-yearold man broke through the rear wall of a jewelry store on Third Avenue and made off with $150,000 worth of
merchandise. Fortunately, police managed to identify the perpetrator and arrested him on March 21, charging him with burglary.
CHINESE TAKEOUT A woman returned home on
March 21 after spending two weeks in China to discover that some $24,270 worth of purchases had been charged to her checking account. The victim still had her debit card in her possession, and police said they were investigating the matter.
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4 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Useful Contacts POLICE NYPD 19th Precinct
153 E. 67th St.
212-452-0600
FDNY 22 Ladder Co 13
159 E. 85th St.
311
FDNY Engine 39/Ladder 16
157 E. 67th St.
311
FDNY Engine 53/Ladder 43
1836 Second Ave.
311
FDNY Engine 44
221 E. 75th St.
311
FIRE
CITY COUNCIL Councilmember Daniel Garodnick
211 E. 43rd St. #1205
212-818-0580
Councilmember Ben Kallos
244 E. 93rd St.
212-860-1950
SCHOOL PLANS
STATE LEGISLATORS State Sen. Jose M. Serrano
1916 Park Ave. #202
212-828-5829
State Senator Liz Krueger
1850 Second Ave.
212-490-9535
Assembly Member Dan Quart
360 E. 57th St.
212-605-0937
Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright
1365 First Ave.
212-288-4607
COMMUNITY BOARD 8
505 Park Ave. #620
212-758-4340
LIBRARIES Yorkville
222 E. 79th St.
212-744-5824
96th Street
112 E. 96th St.
212-289-0908
67th Street
328 E. 67th St.
212-734-1717
Webster Library
1465 York Ave.
212-288-5049
100 E. 77th St.
212-434-2000
HOSPITALS Lenox Hill
Fred Becker, an attorney representing Manhattan Country Day School, presenting the expansion proposal to Community Board 7’s land use committee and the public. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons.
NY-Presbyterian / Weill Cornell
525 E. 68th St.
212-746-5454
Mount Sinai
E. 99th St. & Madison Ave.
212-241-6500
NYU Langone
550 First Ave.
212-263-7300
CON EDISON
4 Irving Place
212-460-4600
POST OFFICES US Post Office
1283 First Ave.
212-517-8361
US Post Office
1617 Third Ave.
212-369-2747
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 and air, and they’re right,” said Cowley. “[Manhattan Country Day School] needs to respect the context of that streetscape and not infringe on their neighbors.” Nevertheless, Cowley praised the project’s architect, Andrew Bartle, and said she is confident he’ll come up with a solution that satisfies all parties. “Hopefully he’ll be able to do some fine tuning,” said Cowley, who works as a preservation architect. The plan must be approved by the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals before the expansion can begin. Before the BSA rules on the application, however, the community board needs to review the plan and issue a recommendation. The board’s land use committee drafted a conditional approval of the project, providing that Manhattan Country Day School, in their revised request for a variance to the BSA, reduce the building’s proposed height profile from the front and provide the same information on the variance revision to the community board before their next full board meeting. CB7’s full board will be voting on the resolution April 7. The community board’s concerns dovetail with those raised by local residents, most notably through a joint effort by the 85-86 Neighbor Alliance and the West 85th Street Association. The overarching complaint with the proposal
is that the building is already overbuilt and adding to its height would be inappropriate for the district. T h e p r e -k i n d e r g a r t e n through eighth-grade school is known for being unconventional. Tuition is based on a limited percentage of a student’s family income. Lunch is taken in the classroom as opposed to in a cafeteria as a way to foster community. Older students navigate floors via a fire escape. And the school partners with a 180-acre farm in the Catskills to teach students agriculture skills. The move and expansion also has a critic in an important alumnus of the school. Mary Trowbridge, whose parents founded Manhattan Country Day School in the 1960s, told the Wall Street Journal she fears the plan will threaten the school’s hallmark sense of intimacy. “There are a lot of risks involved with the move,” Trowbridge told the paper. Those concerns didn’t stop about 20 supporters of the school’s move from showing up at CB7’s land use meeting, roughly equal to those who came to oppose the plan. Michele Sola, the school’s director, refuted the idea that Manhattan Country would lose its hallmark sense of intimacy. She said the expansion is a way to serve more students and is in keeping with the school’s mission of inclusion. According to the Journal, the school received 164 applications for 24 pre-k spots last year.
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Around three dozen people came to Community Board 7’s land use committee to support or oppose, in equal measure, an expansion of the former Mannes School of Music building on West 85th Street, which the Manhattan Country Day School is seeking to move into. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons.
Fred Becker, an attorney representing Manhattan Country Day School, presenting the expansion proposal to Community Board 7’s land use committee and the public. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons.
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MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 5
Central Park
THIS WEEK IN CENTRAL PARK BIKING AND WALKING TOURS OF CENTRAL PARK Experience the lesser known and often missed parts of Central Park! Daily guided tours www.centralpark.com/guide/tours
ELECTRONICS RECYCLING Safely and Properly Dispose Your eWaste
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CENTRAL PARK The snow is ďŹ nally starting to melt and spring is just around the corner! Send us your best â€˜ďŹ rst signs of spring’ photos in the coming weeks and we’ll post our favorites here and on www.facebook.com/centralpark. Stop by the Central Park Zoo to watch the penguin feedings, say hello to Betty and Veronica the grizzly bears, catch a show at the 4-D theater and more. More info on www. centralpark.com. The weather is perfect for a birding walk with Birding Bob on Saturday & Sunday mornings. More info and signup at www.birdingbob.com.
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WHERE IN CENTRAL PARK? Do you know where in Central Park this photo was taken? To submit your answer, go to centralpark.com/ where-in-centralpark. The answers and names of the people who guessed right will appear in next week’s paper and online.
LAST WEEK’S ANSWER Carl M. Loeb opened the new, red brick and limestone Boathouse in 1954. In addition to its traditional functions, the new Boathouse is also the site of the Boathouse Restaurant. Congratulations to Bill Ferrarini, Peter DeNicola, Gregory Holman and Robyn Roth-Moise for answering correctly!
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6 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Scrapbook KALLOS IN STUDENT VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE
RUTGERS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, a loving, diverse and inclusive congregation, rejoices in the Presbyterians’ overwhelming approval of marriage equality.
HALLELUJAH AT LAST!
Councilmember Ben Kallos brought Student Voter Registration Day to Eleanor Roosevelt High School, discussing with students the importance of civic engagement. This was a citywide event and many schools across the five boroughs participated.
NEW HUNTER MEDICAL LAB
On March 17th the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved the new definition of Christian marriage, which now includes same-gender couples.
Hunter College’s new 21,000-square-foot laboratory and research space on the 4th floor of Weill Cornell Medical College’s Belfer Research Building opened on 69th Street between First and York avenues. Under the partnership, Hunter purchased the 4th floor of the new Belfer Research Building to collaborate with WCMC on cutting-edge research and training the next generation of scientists. The building is devoted to research targeting cancer, cardiovascular disease, children’s health, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and global health and infectious diseases. Pictured, left to right, are Diane Volk (Hunter College Foundation Trustee), Judy Zankel (Hunter College Foundation Trustee), Gale Brewer (Manhattan Borough President), Jennifer J. Raab (Hunter College, President), Helen Appel (Hunter College Foundation Trustee), Laurie Glimcher (Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College), Vita Rabinowitz (Hunter College, Provost), Mark Hauber (Hunter College, Acting Associate Provost for Research)
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 7
OP-ED
THIS IS HOW YOU KILL A CITY BY JEREMIAH MOSS
Wherever the towers of big development rise, the rents rise with them. And as the rents hit nosebleed heights, New York vanishes. Neighborhood by neighborhood, borough by borough, this is how you kill a city. From the glitzy corridor of the High Line in Manhattan, to the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood around the Barclays Center to Long Island City in Queens, where Mayor de Blasio’s buddy Rob Speyer is hoisting three extravagant slabs of glass into the sky, our city is dying. It is a victim of its own so-called success. People want to come to New York. Taylor Swift urges them in, singing, “It’s been waiting for you,” as if the city had nothing better to do but anticipate the arrival of newcomers. Bloomberg filled the whole town with tourists until we were bursting at the seams. Global oligarchs come to stash their dirty money in empty penthouses atop sky-high splinters, giving us nothing in return but long, dark shadows. Meanwhile, New Yorkers hurry from job to job, hustling to make enough to cover the rent. Median rent for vacant apartments is nearly 60% of median income, by one measure. If you make $100,000, a solidly middle-class sum in most places, you might qualify for low-income housing, but you’ll have to enter through a metaphorical poor door. In between all this hustling, God forbid we should need our shoes repaired or shirts cleaned. Small businesses are being decimated. Every month, we lose another thousand mom-and-pops . They’re not closing because business is bad. They’re closing because the landlords are doubling, tripling, even octupling the rents — or simply denying lease renewals. With no penalties to stop them, landlords leave the spaces vacant for months or years, waiting for a national chain, a bank or a high-end business to pay the asking price of $40,000, $60,000, $80,000 a month. Apparently, New York’s been waiting for you Starbucks, Olive Garden and Applebee’s. And for you Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors. Small businesses in New York City have no rights. You’ve been here 50 years and provide an important service? Tough luck — your space now belongs to Dunkin’ Donuts. You own a beloved, fourth-generation, century-old business? Get out — your landlord’s putting in a combination Chuck E. Cheese and Juicy Couture. And despite de Blasio’s rhetorical fears about gentrification, his progressive pro-development push may well only hasten the trend. That’s why I started the #SaveNYC campaign. We’re collecting video testimonials from New Yorkers and out-of-towners, celebrities and small business owners, asking City Hall to preserve the cultural fabric of the greatest city on earth. First, we must pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. This bill, languishing for decades and quashed by Christine Quinn when she was City Council speaker, would give small businesses a fair chance to negotiate lease renewals and reasonable rent increases. It would keep our neighborhoods cohesive, helping to slow the tsunami of chain stores and put an end to landlord warehousing of empty, blighted spaces. It is our best hope. Imagine a city filled with empty super-condos, money vaults in the sky. Our streetscapes will be sleek windows on the dead space of bank branches and real-estate offices. There will be no more bookstores, no more theaters, no more places for live music. No more places to sit on a stool and drink a beer with regular folks. When that day comes, and in some ways it is already here, what city will this be? It will be a hollow city for hollow men. In a poem, John Updike warned: “The essence of superrich is absence. They like to demonstrate they can afford to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in. Their riches form a kind of poverty.” He was right. It is late, but it’s not too late. Moss, who writes under a pseudonym, blogs at vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com. He runs #savenyc.nyc. This article originally appeared in The New York Daily News. It is reprinted here with permission Copyright Daily News L.P. (New York)
8 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Voices
Write to us: To share your thoughts and comments go to ourtownny.com and click on submit a letter to the editor. Letter IN SUPPORT OF FAMILY CAREGIVERS To the Editor: It might surprise our state legislators to learn that family caregivers provide the bulk of the support that keeps their older loved ones living independently, at home, and out of costly, taxpayer-supported institutional care. As such, legislators should do everything they can to support the services family caregivers provide. The CARE Act (S676/A1323), a bill the State Senate is supporting for inclusion in the new state budget, would be a good start. There is currently no law in New York State requiring hospitals to demonstrate aftercare to family caregivers to make sure they know what they will need to do once they and their loved ones get home. The CARE Act would fix this by ensuring that hospitals offer designated family caregivers demonstrations of these types of tasks, such as changing bandages correctly or providing the right dose of medicine. This instruction could mean the difference between a full recovery and a trip back the hospital for your loved one. All of our legislators and the Governor should make sure the CARE Act is part of this year’s final state budget! Sincerely, Chris Widelo, Associate State Director AARP New York
MY STORY
East End, Second Avenue, and Beyond BY BETTE DEWING alter Cronkite, famous around the world, once bemoaned the fact that his beloved pharmacy on East End Avenue was shut down. Cronkite, who lived nearby on E. 84th Street, was upset, he said, “because, maybe the owners needed help and just didn’t ask … This unique little East End Avenue village needs its own newsletter and civic group.” Incidentally, the Cronkites also brought their block’s vandalism problems to the 19th Precinct Community Council meeting to solve. Ah, if only more celebs were so civicminded. But Cronkite’s long ago activism is now recalled because my March 4 “Rescue Needed on East End” column about saving #40 East End with its rent-regulated homes and longtime Gristedes supermarket and East End Kitchen from becom-
W
ing another luxury high rise apartment house, said this East End enclave needed its own group and one working towards a Historic District designtion. (Unlike West End, it still has small stores, although their numbers dwindle down to a precious few.) This doesn’t mean I don’t think the East 79th Street Block Association wasn’t involved in saving # 40, didn’t mean it hasn’t been active on East End over the years, including getting a long overdue stop and go light at 81st and East End. Included, too, were zoning-related efforts to help limit new building heights. Its president, Betty Cooper Wallerstein, must remind us of others. But the association’s 44-block catchment area does limit the time allotted to individual places and concerns. Ideally, every block or two should have its own group of actively concerned residents who would bring their particular problems and insights to established groups like the E. 79th Street Neighborhood Association, The East Sixties Neighborhood Association and community boards. And don’t forget elected officials and media – this newspaper. But, oh, how small businesses have needed to organize, especially, not only for commercial rent controls but against the government which
did so little to protect them from the endless Second Avenue Subway construction chaos. And now those who somehow survived, fear being driven out by skyrocketing real estate values. Affordable homes will also be lost. So will the mixed income neighborhoods which meet everyday needs. Our Town’s March 19-25th “Affordable Housing Plans Questioned” story importantly included Community board housing chair Ed Hartzog’s concern “about the Second Avenue development boom along the nascent Second Avenue corridor as work on the subway wraps up and what’s going to happen to the commercial shops that survived the subway construction? How many of the existing tenements are going to be bought and consolidated is a big concern people have.” An understatement, for not only small businesses but affordable homes. But please, please consider that in a just society, citizens getting another public transit option would not mean the destruction of the bordering communities. Indeed, they would get all-out protection and support! Ah, and Roman Catholic churches also need rescuing from mergers or closings, and more will be said about this five-borough concern after St.
Stephen of Hungary’s Town Meeting to “Save our church” occurs. But I’ve long felt that faith groups, in general, must minister more to the needs of their own congregations, and that the “love one another/ love thy neighbor” creed, should begin and be most evident within these congregations, with more intergenerational exchange and programs. Of course, here’s to more outreach to the immediate neighborhood and faith group visitors should always be aknowleged. And the “saving the world” major goal of some churches has got to go. And these critiques go public because I care deeply about faith group survival, and because privately, critiques are rather defensively dismissed, Biblical teaching does advise speaking the truths on a pubic level, but again, in love, not like the tsunami of hate-motivated rebukes found in cyberspace. That may be because we haven’t been taught how to constructively give or receive criticism in person, and, above all, that both speaking and receiving hard truths (in love) can be exceedingly redemptive – and not only at Easter and Passover time. And shouldn’t that be a faith group teaching priority! dewingbetter@aol.com
STRAUS MEDIA-MANHATTAN President, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com Vice President/CFO Otilia Bertolotti Vice President/CRO Vincent A. Gardino advertising@strausnews.com
Associate Publishers, Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Sr. Account Executive, Tania Cade
Account Executive Fred Almonte, Susan Wynn Director of Partnership Development Barry Lewis
Editor In Chief, Kyle Pope editor.ot@strausnews.com Deputy Editor, Richard Khavkine editor.dt@strausnews.com
Staff Reporters, Gabrielle Alfiero, Daniel Fitzsimmons
Block Mayors, Ann Morris, Upper West Side Jennifer Peterson, Upper East Side Gail Dubov, Upper West Side Edith Marks, Upper West Side
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 9
SENIORS
MEDICARE PLAN TAKING SHAPE BY ALAN FRAM
something
have
Do
you You’d
us to
like
A budding bipartisan deal to shelter physicians from Medicare cuts, championed by the House’s two top leaders, is drawing powerful allies including the American Medical Association and a rainbow of conservative and liberal groups. Citing the plan’s increased Medicare premiums for high earners and other increased costs for beneficiaries, AARP -the senior citizens’ lobby -- said the package “is not a balanced deal for older Americans.” With most of the measure financed with deeper federal deficits, the conservative Club for Growth urged lawmakers to vote “no” because it “falls woefully short” of being paid for. At its core, the plan would block a 21 percent cut in doctors’ Medicare fees looming April 1. It would replace a 1997 law that has threatened similar reductions for years -which Congress has repeatedly blocked -- with a new formula aimed at prodding doctors to charge Medicare patients for the quality, not quantity, of care. In a first hint of some of the measure’s fine print, Friday’s summary said it would let the government withhold 100 percent of any delinquent taxes providers owe from their Medicare reimbursements. As for winners, the agreement would prolong federal payments to hospitals that treat low-income people through 2025. It would also help major producers of durable medical goods and prosthetic devices by penalizing low-ball bidders for Medicare business. That provision comes from a Housepassed bill sponsored by Rep.
Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, whose state is home to Invacare Corp., one of the country’s largest makers of home medical devices like wheelchairs. The one-page document provides no price tags and few specifics. But as lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists have said for days, it would cost roughly $210 billion over a decade, with around $140 billion financed by adding to federal deficits, aides said Friday. The remaining $70 billion would be split about evenly between Medicare providers and beneficiaries. According to the summary and aides familiar with details: * About 2 percent of the country’s highest-earning Medicare recipients would face higher premiums for doctor and prescription drug coverage. The higher premiums would apply to individuals earning between $134,000 and $214,000 and couples earning between $267,000 and $428,000. * Starting in 2020, some people buying Medigap plans _ they insure expenses Medicare does not cover _ would pay higher out-of-pocket costs up to the Medicare deductible for doctors’ coverage, currently $147 annually. * A 3.2 percent increase in Medicare payments to hospitals in 2018 would instead be phased in over six years. * Nursing homes, hospices and home health providers would be held to a 1 percent Medicare increase in 2018. * Scheduled cuts in payments to states for hospitals treating poor patients would be delayed a year to 2018 but also extended through 2025. * Programs that help poor seniors pay Medicare deductibles and help some families keep Medicaid coverage as they move from welfare to jobs would become permanent.
look
Email us at news@strausnews.com
into
Proposed deal draws fire from AARP
?
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10 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Out & About More Events. Add Your Own: Go to ourtownny.com
26
Art historian Alexander Nemerov will discuss Cervantes’s novel as well as the documentary “Lost in La Mancha” to elaborate on Terry Gilliam’s “ill-fated” attempt to WRITERS AND ARTISTS make “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” RESPOND (212)288-0700, www.frick. org/calendar#/?i=1 Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave, at 92nd Street 6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m Free with “IT’S JUST DANCE” A pay-what-you-wish admission; DANCE CONCERT RSVP recommended Artist Nicole Eisenman Talent Unlimited High School speaks with Joanna Montoya of the Performing Arts, JREC Robotham, Neubauer Family Auditorium, 317 E. 67th St. Foundation Assistant Curator, 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., $12/ about Seder (2010), the latest door, $10/advance featured work in the museum’s The dance studio’s annual Masterpieces & Curiosities spring event where the dancers exhibition series. perform choreography, including 212.423.3200, info@thejm. some by the teaching staff in org classical ballet, modern and jazz
Now Get Real Time Bus, Subway & Alternate Side Parking Information Here
92nd Street Y,, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, classroom 6:30, from $24 Dr. Michael Kluger, MD, MPH, answers your questions and explains the risks and benefits of alcohol at every age. http://www.92y.org/
27 Your Neighborhood News
Robert H. Smith Auditorium, the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West 9 a.m., $44 Historian John H. Maurer explores Churchill’s complex relationship with American presidents, from Theodore to Franklin Roosevelt. 212-485-9268, http://www. nyhistory.org/programs
COMPUTER TUTORING 67th Street Library, 328 E. 67th St., between First and Second Avenues 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., Free, registration required Morning or afternoon sessions of one-on-one tutoring sessions on with everything from learning how to use a mouse, formatting a resume, setting up an email address, posting photos on the internet, starting a blog, using Microsoft Office and more. 212-734-1717
29 I LIKE TO HAVE A DRINK, SO WHAT?
www.ourtownny.com
PRESIDENTS: FROM ROOSEVELT TO ROOSEVELT
“GRANDIOSITY AND FAILURE: LOST IN LA MANCHA” The Frick Museum, 1 East 70th St., between Madison and 5th Ave. 6 p.m.-7:30pm $40, $35 members
formats. 212-737-1530
28 WINSTON CHURCHILL AND AMERICAN
PASSOVER ART AND DANCE PARTY FOR FAMILIES The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave. and 92nd Street Noon-4 p.m., Free with Admission Families can celebrate Passover early during the Freedom Jam. Children can enjoy arts and crafts story time and learn how Passover plays a part in the Jewish faith. 212-423-3200, www. thejewishmuseum.org/calendar/ day/2015/03/29/
NEW YORK ROADRUNNERS CLINIC PS 59, Beekman Hill International School, 233 E. 56th St. 1 p.m.-4 p.m., Free NYRR holds a clinic for kindergarteners through sixth graders and their parents and guardians on how to get kids moving and eating healthfully. RSVP Online: www.
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 11
surveymonkey.com/r/ HealthFitnessClinic, 212-7887393
through modern times. 212-535-7710
31 RICHIE FURAY HAND IN HAND CD RELEASE Barnes and Noble, 150 E. 86th St. and Lexington Ave. 7pm, priority seating with purchase of CD Singer and guitarist Richie Furay new album brings both new tunes and updated versions of original songs. 212-369-2180, www.storelocator.barnesandnoble.com/ event/86500
30 ALPHIE MCCOURT AND MALACHY MCCOURT Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Ave., at 84th Street 7 p.m., Free Alphie McCourt and Malachy McCourt, will speak and sign copies of “A Long Stone’s Throw” and “The Soulswimmer: A Collection of Stories, Verses and Songs.” 212-517-7292
FASHION IN ART Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., at 82nd Street 1 p.m.-2 p.m. This innovative tour offers insights into the landmarks of costume history and examines the different materials used from the sixth century b.c.
THE CRUSADES OF CESAR CHAVEZ 92nd Street Y,, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, Noon, $24 Pulitzer prize-winning editor Miriam Pawel shares her research into the documents, audiotapes and interviews she reviewed as she traces the dramatic rise and devolution of Chavez’s iconic life. http://www.92y.org/
1 KILL YOUR TV READING GROUP 1575 York Ave., between 83rd and 84th Streets. 7 p.m., Free If you enjoy Harper Lee’s classic “To Kill a MockingBird” then kill your television for an
evening of discussion with the KYTV group. 212-316-6024, http:// www.logosbookstorenyc.com/ Calendar.html
“FROM SEVILLE TO MANHATTAN: MURILLO’S SELFPORTRAIT,” XAVIER F. SALOMON, THE FRICK COLLECTION Frick Museum, 1 East 70th St, at Fifth Avenue, Music Room 6 p.m.–7 p.m., Free, but seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Webcast is available. Xavier F. Salomon explores the history of the collection’s recently acquired masterpiece by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, one of only two known selfportraits by the Spanish artist. http://www.frick.org/calendar
12 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin Attributs du peintre (Attributes of the Painter), c. 1725–27 Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
IN THE STUDIO: PAINTINGS AT GAGOSIAN Glimpses of the Private World of Artists BY MARY GREGORY
The artist’s studio can be many things: refuge, incubator, a place for imagination and experimentation, and, as seen in the extraordinary exhibition In the Studio: Paintings at Gagosian Gallery, a metaphor for the mind. Artists keep close, pinned on walls, stacked in corners, propped up against their canvases the things that occupy their thoughts and inspire their vision. It’s both where they work and where they work things out. What the artist harbors in the studio reflects what harbors in the artist’s mind. John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, has pulled together an intriguing and occasionally astonishing collection of works that paint a picture of their own. We often look at paintings and see schools and styles, centuries and names.
One of the delights of In the Studio: Painting, though, is actually looking at what’s in the pictures. There we find artists’ tools, artists’ props, artists’ models, artists’ walls, artists’ dreams. We also see the more day-to-day aspects of the studio—cups of coffee, half-eaten meals, dirty brushes, the kitchen sink, and lots and lots of paintings. Drawings, paintings and assemblages spanning the 16th century to the late 20th offer a glimpse of what goes into the making of art. The primary impetus is vision, and Elderfield skillfully opens with pure abstraction in the first gallery. Two extraordinary Picassos, never shown together before in the United States, share the room with a complex, self-referential Jasper Johns, In the Studio, from 1982. Johns’ painting-slash-collage depicts pictures of his own pictures and a three-dimensional stuffed arm dangling in front of a painted an arm blurs the division be-
tween the picture plane and the viewer’s space. Adjacent to it, a compelling Robert Motherwell in primary colors, “The Studio,” from 1987, is saturated with vibrant red. It has to be arresting to stand out in a room with two Picassos and a Jasper Johns. It is. From that introductory wallop, we enter a quieter space, a darker gallery, filled with small masterpieces that must be approached closely and with a different sensitivity. There’s an exquisite pen and ink drawing from the school of Breughel the Elder, Honoré Daumier’s “The Painter at his Easel,” a visual pun in a Hogarth painting of Hogarth painting his muse, and classically elegant works by Jean-Léon Gérôme and Thomas Eakins. Here, the focus is on the painter painting and how things work in the studio — how models pose, how easels are turned, how light is captured. An intriguing question is posed in Matisse’s “Studio
Under the Eaves,” where a dark, dingy little garret opens into a tiny window filled with a patch of riotous colors — a Matisse in waiting. One wonders what point Matisse was making about what it takes to make the journey from the reality of the studio to the realization of the vision. The exhibition broadens to include a focus on artists and their tools, with two beautiful stilllife paintings by no less than Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin depicting the tools of the trade: palettes, brushes, pots, paper, books and rulers. Later, we find the props artists use, with a glimpse into Diego Rivera’s studio and his mindset. Papiermâché models of fantastical figures and a voluptuous reclining woman crowd the space, while at the center, the model of a dove, which Elderfield explains is a reference to Rivera’s recently deceased wife, Frida Kahlo, offers a point of stillness and light.
We also learn that a lot of what fills artists’ studios is art, much of it by other artists. In Larry Rivers’ “The Wall,” we find an upside-down signature of Matisse. Roy Lichtenstein references a head by Fernand Leger and Matisse’s green bottle filled with nasturtium leaves in two paintings. Some artists are tidy and organized, others, less so. The controlled chaos in Rauschenberg’s “Small Rebus” is chock-full of imagery, stamps, shreds of paper and other bits of the material of life. Yet, he arranges them into a masterful composition. Helen Frankenthaler’s “21st Street Studio,” painted in 1950, is filled with the same vibrant reds, blues and yellows touched with black and white that show up in Motherwell’s 1987 painting from earlier in the exhibition. The two were married from 1958 until 1971. Who, we wonder, looking at the dates of the paintings, influenced whom?
Frankenthaler’s work brings up another question. It’s difficult to quibble with an exhibition of this magnitude, with works of this caliber and a curator of Elderfield’s skill and renown. But with close to 40 artists presented, only two women have been included in the show — Frankenthaler and Lygia Clark. Really? Only two? Art is a potent means of communication. What is being communicated when we are shown works that span close to 500 years and three continents, and only 5 percent of the artists represented are women? Still, the show is extraordinary. There are gorgeous works that New Yorkers might have never seen before. Elderfield’s curatorial vision and execution provide a fascinating insight into the mind and world of the artist. In the Studio: Paintings at Gagosian Gallery also offers a glimpse at what a world of knowledge, a lifetime of experience, a gallery with clout and dedication — a kind of curatorial dream team — can achieve. It’s a superb, elucidating exhibition that will leave visitors with a greater understanding of art. You can’t ask for much more than that.
5 TOP
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 13
FOR THE WEEK BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO OUR ARTS EDITOR
DANCE
“ON THE NATURE OF THINGS” Choreographer Karole Armitage created the site-specific “On the Nature of Things,” which confronts climate change, for performance in front of the American Museum of Natural History’s dioramas. The piece was influenced by the work of biologist Paul Ehrlich, who acts as the program’s narrator. “On the Nature of Things” March 25-27 American Museum of Natural History Milstein Hall of Ocean Life Entrance at 79th Street and Central Park West 8 p.m. Tickets $25-$35 To purchase tickets, visit http://www.amnh.org/calendar or call 212-769-5250
FILM
MUSIC
“LISTEN TO ME MARLON”
SWEET PLANTAIN QUARTET
In “Listen to Me Marlon,” director Stevan Riley explores the life and persona of Marlon Brando. Riley, whose past documentary work includes “Everything or Nothing” about the enduring James Bond franchise, plumbed personal audio recordings made by Brando himself, including the actor’s self-hypnosis tapes, to assemble a story, in the actor’s own words, of one of Hollywood’s most inscrutable stars. “Listen to Me Marlon” March 27-28 Film Society of Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater (March 27), 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, near Amsterdam Avenue MoMA Titus 1 Theater (March 28), 11 W. 53 St., between Fifth and Sixth Avenues 6:30 p.m. (March 27) and 1 p.m. (March 28) Tickets $16 To purchase tickets, visit http://www. newdirectors.org/film/listen-to-me-marlon or call the box office at 212-875-5668
With members from the Bronx, Venezuela and Buenos Aires, Sweet Plantain Quartet fuses traditional chamber music with jazz, hip-hop and Latin techniques, making their original compositions fresh, surprising and percussive. Sweet Plantain March 27-28 Metropolitan Museum of Art Balcony Bar 1000 Fifth Ave., at 82nd Street 5 p.m. FREE with museum admission
“ELLE L’ADORE” Director Jeanne Herry’s debut film follows Muriel, played by Sandrine Kiberlain, a hairdresser and zealous fan of French pop singer Vincent Lacroix. Though she’s long worshipped the star from a distance, she’s shocked to find him outside her door one evening. The 7:30 p.m. screening is followed by an after-party and a Q&A with Herry and Kiberlain. “Elle l’adore” Tuesday, March 31 French Institute Alliance Française 22 E. 60th St., between Park and Madison Avenues 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets $13 (4 p.m.) and $55 (7:30 p.m.) To purchase tickets, visit http://fiaf.org/ events/winter2015/2015-03-31-focus-onfrench-cinema.shtml or call 800-982-2787
GALLERIES “MEGALITHS BY MOONLIGHT” Stonehenge, though certainly the most wellknown, is not the world’s only free-standing prehistoric stone structure, nor its oldest. For ten years, photographer Barbara Yoshida traveled to far-flung sites that all predate Stonehenge, starting with the Ring of Brodgar in Scotland, and photographed the stones at night. The extended exposures give the black and white images a haunting appearance, and show the skies streaked with starlight, evidence of the earth’s rotation. “Megaliths by Moonlight” April 2-25 Umbrella Arts 317 E. 9th St. #2, between First and Second Avenues Gallery hours: 1 p.m.-6 p.m., ThursdaySaturday FREE For more information, visit http://www. umbrellaarts.com/ To be included in the Top 5 go to ourtownny.com and click on submit a press release or announcement.
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14 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS MAR 9 - 20, 2015
Hotel Carlyle
35 East 76 Street
Grade Pending (25) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewageassociated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Two Lizards Mexican Restaurant
1365 1 Avenue
A
Green Life Juice Bar
311 E 76Th St
Not Graded Yet (10) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations.
Caffe Bacio
1223 3 Avenue
A
Eats
1055 Lexington Avenue
A
Food Mart Deli
1321 York Avenue
Grade Pending (23) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Alex Cafe & Deli
1018 Lexington Avenue
A
China Taste
1570 2 Avenue
Grade Pending (33) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewageassociated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution. A
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. Gina La Fornarina
26 East 91 Street
A
Azure
1668 3 Avenue
Grade Pending (24) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Hand washing facility not provided in or near food preparation area and toilet room. Hot and cold running water at adequate pressure to enable cleanliness of employees not provided at facility. Soap and an acceptable hand-drying device not provided.
Tenzan Japanese Cuisine
1714 2 Avenue
A
Eli’s Essentials
26 E 91St St
A
Libertador
1725 2 Avenue
A
Osha Thai Kitchen
1711 2 Avenue
A
Sweet Stop Caffe
141 E 96Th St
A
Cavatappo Grill
1712 First Avenue
A
Cafe D’alsace
1695 2 Avenue
A
El Chevere Cuchifritos
2000 3 Avenue
A
Jalapeno Deli
1629 Lexington Avenue
A
The Jaguar Restaurant
1735 Lexington Avenue
Grade Pending (26) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
The Lexington Social
1634 Lexington Avenue
A
Milk Burger Express
2051 2 Avenue
A
Danny & Eddies
1643 1 Avenue
Grace Wok Chinese
2014 2 Avenue
Grade Pending (27) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
Vosges Chocolate
1100 Madison Avenue A
Bailey’s Corner Pub
1607 York Avenue
A
Gina La Fornarina
1575 2 Avenue
A
Capri Bakery
186 East 116 Street
A
Gotham Pizza
1667 1 Avenue
A
Taco Mix USA
234 East 116 Street
Grade Pending (21) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.
Burgerfi
240 East 82 Street
A
Tal Bagel
333 East 86 Street
A
Gracie-Mews Restaurant
1550 1 Avenue
A
Rizzos Pizza
1426 Lexington Avenue
A
H & H Midtown Bagels East
1551 2 Avenue
A
Hummus Kitchen
1613 2 Avenue
Grade Pending (47) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Personal cleanliness inadequate. Outer garment soiled with possible contaminant. Effective hair restraint not worn in an area where food is prepared.
Abaleh
1611 2 Avenue
A
Tre Otto
1410 Madison Ave
A
Lexington Pizza Parlor
1590 Lexington Ave
A
567 Chinese Asian Express
2033 1St Ave
Not Graded Yet (21) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
Falafel Express II
1406 Madison Ave
A
Seattle Cafe
1411 Madison Avenue
Grade Pending (17) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 15
SPORTS < A.G. ACADEMY SOCCER IN LEAGUE PLAY The Asphalt Green U8 Academy soccer team participated in their first league this winter, competing at Armonk Indoor in Westchester. The team compiled a 5-3-0 record, scoring 52 goals in eight games, and finished in the top five of the league. They won their final four games and look to carry that momentum into their first spring season game at Asphalt Green as they play in their inaugural Five Boroughs League match.
More neighborhood news? neighborhood milestones? neighborhood events? neighborhood celebrations? neighborhood opinions? neighborhood ideas? neighborhood feedback? neighborhood concerns?
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16 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
Business
< CON ED: COLD WINTER DIDN’T MEAN HIGHER BILLS Lower cost attributed to cheaper natural gas Despite an unusually frigid winter, Con Edison said winter bills were lower and demand for natural gas was higher than during last year’s winter heating season. The average monthly gas-heating residential bill was $216, or 23 percent lower than the $279 during the winter of 2013-14.
In Brief MANHATTAN GIRL SCOUT BROWNIE AMONG TOP COOKIE SELLERS The results are in: New York City’s top three Girl Scout Cookie sellers hail from three different boroughs, and Stuyvesant Town’s own Maddie Noveck is the city’s third top seller of Girl Scout Cookies. Noveck, an 8-year-old Brownie, sold 1,728 boxes - up from 1,403 last year. Reigning cookie-selling champion, eighth-grader Najah Lorde, of Queens, held on to top spot, selling 1,816 boxes of cookies this year. Last year, 10-year-old Danielle Bioh from Brooklyn sold 70 boxes. This year, she sold 1,782 boxes, coming in second. Noveck said she bases her cookie sales strategy on the understanding that “cookies make people smile.” The competition this year was fierce, and a total of 18 girls managed to reach the 1,000-box-mark or go beyond - five more than last year. This year’s roundup also included a surprising number of very young cookie sale champions: of the 18 top sellers, 12 were under age 9. It was the first time in the nearly 100-year history of the Girl Scout Cookie Program that Girl Scouts got to sell cookies online, through their own digital stores, in addition to the traditional person-to-person and booth sale activities girls have always relied on for sales. And early adopters made the program work for them: the three top sellers all had considerably higher-than-average digital cookie sales. Last year, New York City Girl Scouts sold a total of 998,580 boxes of cookies; this year, they sold 1,084,526 boxes, with some of the increase attributable to the Girl Scouts’ new online sales tools. Samoas edged out Thin Mints in popularity in the city this year, chosen by 24.1 percent of customers over 22.7 percent for Thin Mints.
The average monthly electric bill from November through February for a New York City residence using 300 kilowatt hours was $95.42, compared with $102.95 during the same period last winter. That’s a decline of 7 percent. The good news for customers was due to natural gas prices being lower this winter. Gas prices spiked last winter when the Polar Vortex
put the freeze on the Northeast. Con Edison also provided record amounts of natural gas to its customers this winter. The company sent out 1.68 million dekatherms, an all-time high for one day, on Jan. 13. The seven highest days in company history occurred this winter. The company set a monthly record in January, providing 44.29 million dekatherms, beating a record set in February 2014. All that gas went to customers and toward the generation of electricity and steam.
IN SEARCH OF A SMALL BUSINESS SOLUTION NEWS Gale Brewer is proposing legislation to delay evictions BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is seeking to introduce legislation that would prevent small businesses from being summarily evicted after a rent hike from landlords. According to Brewer’s office, landlords would be required to give small business tenants in storefront spaces notice of their intentions 180 days in advance of the end of a lease, followed by a negotiation period in which either party can request nonbinding mediation to assist with negotiations. The legislation would also provide the option of a oneyear lease extension with no more than a 15 percent rent increase to give businesses the opportunity to transition to new space smoothly when necessary. “The law would state you have to sit down with a mediator, and if there was no possibility of coming to terms, our proposal would be that you as a small business would have a year and you wouldn’t have to leave right away,” Brewer said in an interview. She’s partnering on the legislation with City Councilmember Robert Cornegy, chair of the council’s committee on small business. Brewer said she’s not anticipating pushback from the
real estate industry, which has traditionally resisted any initiative aimed at beefing up negotiating powers for commercial tenants. “When we called around to the chambers of commerce, business improvement districts and the Real Estate Board of New York, they wanted to talk, they’re not opposed to it,” said Brewer. “I think they want to see small businesses survive, they live in New York, too. We didn’t get a lot of pushback.” So what’s in it for landlords? “The incentive to negotiate down from the rent increase is that you’re going to have to work with this person for
another year,” said Brewer, of the legislation’s rule that if an agreement could not be reached, a business could stay in a given location for another 12 months and pay no more than 15 percent of the rent they were paying prior to their lease’s expiration. Brewer also said that the 15 percent rule could be negotiated. “We can play with that number, but that’s what we’re thinking,” she said. Brewer’s office will be convening a series of roundtable discussions around Manhattan to discuss her small business proposals with neighborhood business owners and residents. The first is
slated for May 6, during National Small Business Week. Other pillars of her small business survival initiative include modernizing policies governing street vending, helping small businesses buy their space as a commercial condominium, and the creation of “low-intensity commercial districts.” “In certain neighborhoods experiencing rapid storefront rent increases, creation of new low-intensity commercial districts on quieter streets can act as a safety valve, reducing competition for rental space on hightraffic commercial streets,” said Brewer’s office in a press release.
Details on the initiative are set to be released in an upcoming report on saving small business by the borough president’s office. “Whether it’s taking some of the pressure out of lease renewals or facilitating the training or microcredit assistance a vendor needs to take the next big step, our city government needs to get creative to help small businesses survive and thrive,” said Brewer. “Small storefront businesses and vendors create jobs and add value, vibrancy, and diversity to our neighborhoods – New York would not be New York without them.”
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 17
Real Estate Sales Neighborhd Address
Price
Bed Bath Agent
Beekman
415 E 52 St.
$1,500,000 2
2
Beekman
860 United Nations Plaza
$985,000
1
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21 E 61St St.
$9,320,237
3
3
Extell Development Company
Halstead Property
Lenox Hill
21 E 61St St.
$4,585,375
2
2
Extell Development Company
Douglas Elliman
Lenox Hill
200 E 66Th St.
$1,998,000 1
1
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
181 E 65 St.
$6,500,000
Carnegie Hill 1115 5 Ave.
$12,700,000 3
4
Brown Harris Stevens
Lenox Hill
1175 York Ave.
$1,935,000
3
3
Douglas Elliman
Carnegie Hill 1065 Park Ave.
$725,000
1
1
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Lenox Hill
333 E 66 St.
$525,000
1
1
Douglas Elliman
Lenox Hill
15 E 69 St.
$7,600,000 3
3
Brown Harris Stevens
Lenox Hill
150 E 69 St.
$2,575,000 2
2
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
300 E 62 St.
$3,550,000
Lenox Hill
166 E 61 St.
$586,106
Lenox Hill
304 E 65 St.
$1,050,000 1
1
Keller Williams Nyc
Lenox Hill
129 E 69 St.
$2,195,000
2
2
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
301 E 63 St.
$170,000
0
1
Keller Williams Nyc
Lenox Hill
200 E 66Th St.
$4,800,000
Lenox Hill
21 E 61St St.
$8,505,637 3
2
Extell Development Company
Lenox Hill
200-210 E 65 St.
$1,700,000
1
1
Brown Harris Stevens
Lenox Hill
21 E 61St St.
$10,083,925 3
3
Extell Development Company
Midtown
641 5 Ave.
$2,995,000 2
2
Sotheby's
Lenox Hill
21 E 61St St.
$9,233,686
Midtown E
225 E 57 St.
$600,000
1
1
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
315 E 69 St.
$1,404,000 2
2
Douglas Elliman
Midtown E
325 Lexington Ave.
$916,425
Lenox Hill
315 E 69 St.
$307,500
Midtown E
325 Lexington Ave.
$804,417
1
1
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
333 E 66 St.
$400,000
0
1
Corcoran
Murray Hill
152 E 35 St.
$375,180
0
1
Coldwell Banker Bellmarc
Lenox Hill
200-210 E 65 St.
$6,300,000 3
3
Brown Harris Stevens
Murray Hill
77 Park Ave.
$1,090,000 1
1
Corcoran
Lenox Hill
55 E 65 St.
$695,000
1
1
Level Group
Murray Hill
225 E 34 St.
$2,815,000 3
3
Douglas Elliman
Lenox Hill
420 E 72 St.
$610,000
1
1
Oxford Property Group
Murray Hill
330 E 38 St.
$2,285,000
Lenox Hill
215 E 61 St.
$5,900,000
0
Douglas Elliman
Murray Hill
200 E 36 St.
$340,000
0
1
Level Group
Lenox Hill
901 Lexington Ave.
$3,000,000 3
3
Stribling
Murray Hill
250 E 40 St.
$947,500
1
1
Douglas Elliman
Lenox Hill
21 E 61St St.
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80 Park Ave.
$582,000
0.5 1
Town Residential
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Ensconced in the landmark neighborhood of the Upper East Side, Residents continue to enjoy the heart and soul of this incomparable city they have always loved.
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80th Street Residents in Central Park with the Essex House Hotel peeking from behind.
430 East 80th Street, New York, NY 10075 Tel. 212-717-8888 www.80thstreetresidence.com
18 Our Town MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015
YOUR 15 MINUTES
To read about other people who have had their “15 Minutes” go to ourtownny.com/15 minutes
A TALENTED TRIO TAKES THE 20TH CENTURY We sat down with three of the ensemble actors in On the Twentieth Century to get a glimpse into the show and their journeys to Broadway BY ANGELA BARBUTI
In On the Twentieth Century, the cast takes us aboard a train headed to New York City where anything can happen and we are all along for the ride. Kristin Chenoweth, who plays a dramatic, but lovable actress, and Pete Gallagher, who is her debonair ex-director, dazzle as the leads, but the show also has an ensemble of talented actors who keep us entertained by lending their voices and kicking their feet to the upbeat musical numbers. “The show is really great in that every single person has little stand-out moments here and there, so everyone gets their time to shine,” said ensemble member Justin Bowen. After a matinee, Bowen, Ben Crawford and Andy Taylor met
at the American Airlines Theater, where the show is running until July, to talk about the comedy and their start as actors. The men, who are all Upper West Siders now, each came to New York to pursue his dream of being on Broadway. They recall standing in line in the cold for auditions that ultimately led them to such memorable experiences as transforming into Shrek, dancing the role of Charlie Chaplin and reciting jokes with Carol Burnett.
What’s the atmosphere like on set? Andy: It was good all along and then we got all these rave reviews this weekend, so we know we’re in something that’s worth watching, which helps. But it was always a good group of people. I think we always felt like, if this show was going to work, we’re gonna have a good shot at it because we had great people. We had Kristin, Scott
Crawford Ellis [director], Warren Carlyle [choreographer] and everybody. I think the atmosphere is really loose, fun and pretty cool. Justin: It’s great. It’s really close quarters back there. The show is really big for the space that it’s in, so we’re pretty tight-knit backstage. There’s a lot of respect among the cast members for every person because everyone gets to do something special or something that they’re good at. It’s a really great environment; I don’t think anyone feels underrepresented in the show. I think it helps that the show is a madcap comedy too; it’s not dark and heavy, so it lends itself to us having a good time doing it, on stage and off. Ben: Yeah, I would totally agree with these guys. I think
Taylor it’s a great atmosphere backstage and at rehearsals. Even from the beginning, we’ve just been laughing every day and having a great time. I think if we didn’t have such a great time with each other, it would probably be a little nuts back there, because it’s so cramped. But everyone has a great time, so it works out really well.
How did you all train as dancers? Ben: I think Justin is the most danciest of the three of us. Justin: There are four really dance-heavy roles in the show. I also cover those roles as well. I’ve been doing theater since I was six and went to a high school with a strong performing arts program. Then I went to college and majored in musical theater with a lot of musical training.
Bowen Andy: The stuff that I do is story choreography; it’s movement. I remember when I first came to New York, people were like, “I don’t sing” or “I don’t do soap operas.” And 20 years ago, I was like, “That’s 90 percent of all the work in New York.” I kept dancing after college just enough to keep working in the business. I’m not a great dancer, but can move around enough to do a show like this. Justin: They used to have separate choruses- a singing chorus and a dancing chorus- but now everyone has to do everything. So if you go in saying you’re just an actor or you just sing, you’re limiting yourself. The majority of our cast is made up of singers, but everyone has to kick, move and do choreography. Our choreographer would always say, “Just try it, even if you’re afraid of looking foolish, because more often than not you’ll surprise yourself.”
What’s your dream role? Ben: Billy Bigelow in Carousel. Justin: There’s a tiny show running off Broadway called The Fantasticks. I think it’s the longest running show in New York. Andy: Fifty years. Justin: Since high school, playing the Boy has been a dream role of mine. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do it because I’m getting too old at this point. Bur I think it’s so simple and beautifully told. Ben: It is a cool story. Andy: When I was young, I always wanted to play Henrik in A Little Night Music, because it required a tenor and I’m a tenor. And the character played the cello and I’m a cellist. However, I got to finally do it at the Goodman in Chicago. I played the cello and sang, and no one in the audience knew I was playing because they thought it
was coming from the pit. So I didn’t get the payoff I wanted. Nobody cared at all. When did you know you were going to be an actor? Ben: I don’t think I really thought about it until college, when I was pre-med and lost the passion for the science part. I was in the middle of college and didn’t really know what to do. I was always in the arts in high school and had a lot of fun doing theater and music, so thought, “Maybe that’s something I can do.” I didn’t take it seriously until maybe my junior year in college. Justin: I think I always wanted to do it for as long as I can remember. When I was six, I did Singin’ in the Rain, where I was a street urchin, and since then, it’s the only thing I wanted to do. Pretty much everything I’ve done has been to get me to this point, because I’ve always wanted to live in New York. I’m from Virginia, but my parents used to bring me up every once in a while to see some shows and I was just enamored with Broadway. Andy: I was a music double major, so I was on the fence about being a cellist. When I was in conservatory in music studying both theater and cello, it became really clear to me not so much that I loved the theater more, but loved what they did and liked the atmosphere and hanging out with actors more than cellists and string players. To learn more about the show, visit roundabouttheatre.org
Know somebody who deserves their 15 Minutes of fame? Go to ourtownny. com and click on submit a press release or announcement.
MARCH 26-APRIL 1,2015 Our Town 19
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Allstate - The Wright Agency Anthony Wright 718 671 8000 Ao65989@allstate.com Auto.home.life.retirement CARMEL Car & Limousine Service To JFK… $52 To Newark… $51 To LaGuardia… $34 1-212-666-6666 Toll Free 1-800-9-Carmel Frank E. Campbell The Funeral Chapel Known for excellence since 1898 - 1076 Madison Ave, at 81st St., 212-288-3500 Hudson Valley Public Relations Optimizing connections. Building reputations. 24 Merrit Ave Millbrook, NY 12545, (845) 702-6226 John Krtil Funeral Home; Yorkville Funeral Service, INC. Independently Owned Since 1885. WE SERVE ALL FAITHS AND COMMUNITIES 212-744-3084
ANTIQUES WANTED Top Prices Paid. Chinese Objects, Paintings, Jewelry, Silver, Furniture, Etc. Entire Estates Purchased. 800-530-0006. CASH for Coins! Buying Gold & Silver. Also Stamps, Paper Money, Comics, Entire Collections, Estates. Travel to your home. Call Marc in NY: 1-800959-3419 I Buy Old Tribal Art Free Appraisal 917-628-0031 Daniel@jacarandatribal.com WE BUY-TOP DOLLAR PAID Fine & Costume Jewelry Gems-Silver-Gold-Jade Antiques-Art-Rugs Call Gregory@718 608 5854 Certified GIA Gemologist PUBLIC NOTICES
New York City Department of Transportation Notice of Public Hearing The New York City Department of Transportation will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 2:00 P.M., at 55 Water St., 9th Floor Room 945, on the following petition for revocable consent, all in the Borough of Manhattan: Park Avenue Synagogue – to continue to maintain and use planters and bollards on the south sidewalk of E 87th St., east of Madison Ave. and on the east sidewalk of Madison Ave. south of E 87th St Interested parties can obtain copies of proposed agreement or request sign-language interpreters (with at least seven days prior notice) at 55 Water St., 9th Fl. SW New York, NY 10041, or by calling (212) 839-6550.
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To advertise in this directory Call Susan (212)-868-0190 ext.417 Classified2@strausnews.com SINCE 1979
East 67th Street Market
(between First & York Avenues) Open EVERY Saturday 6am-5pm Rain or Shine Indoor & Outdoor FREE Admission Questions? Bob 718.897.5992 Proceeds Benefit PS 183 DOG TRAINING
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Alex Himel (H) 516.767.0747 (C) 516.633.3384
ANTIQUES WANTED
TOP PRICES PAID
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+/- 16,000 sf Cellar - $75 psf Call Mark @ Meringoff Properties 646.262.3900
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