The May 9th, 2013 issue of Our Town Downtown. Our Town Downtown (OTDownTown) is a newspaper for 25 to 40-year-old New Yorkers living, working or simply hanging below 14th Street
NYPRESS.COM • COMMUNITY NEWS BELOW 14TH STREET • MAY 9, 2013 city Arts P.9 DINING PAGE 15 Some downtown residents claim the newly installed CitiBike racks create hazards and hassle for their neighborhood By Helaina Hovitz L ast week, 330 CitiBike stations were installed in Manhattan and Brooklyn, garnering a reaction from most Manhattanites that can essentially be boiled down to this: not on my block. Or, at least, not where it’s currently installed. e CitiBike program, also called Bike Share, will place bike rental stations throughout parts of the city, allowing riders to pick up a bike at one location and drop it off at any other CitiBike spot. Sponsored by CitiBank, the program is under the purview of the Department of Transportation (DOT). (See sidebar.) On ursday, May 2nd, Community Board 2 held a meeting at P.S. 41 to give West Village residents a chance to voice their EAST RIVER BLUEWAY PLANS P.6 CUPCAKE WARS RAGE DOWNTOWN P.14 ALSO INSIDE A Not All Happy About Not All Happy About Sharing with Bike Share Sharing with Bike Share Continued on page 4
Transcript
NYPRESS.COM • COMMUNITY NEWS BELOW 14TH STREET • MAY 9, 2013
cityArts
P.9
DINING
PAGE 15
Some downtown residents claim the newly installed CitiBike racks create hazards and hassle for their neighborhood
By Helaina Hovitz
Last week, 330 CitiBike stations were installed in Manhattan and Brooklyn, garnering a reaction from most Manhattanites that can essentially be boiled down to this: not on my block.
Or, at least, not where it’s currently installed. Th e CitiBike program, also called Bike Share, will place bike
rental stations throughout parts of the city, allowing riders to pick up a bike at one location and drop it off at any other CitiBike spot. Sponsored by CitiBank, the program is under the purview of the Department of Transportation (DOT). (See sidebar.)
On Th ursday, May 2nd, Community Board 2 held a meeting at P.S. 41 to give West Village residents a chance to voice their
EAST RIVER BLUEWAY PLANS P.6
CUPCAKE WARS RAGE DOWNTOWN P.14
ALSO INSIDEA
Not All Happy About Not All Happy About Sharing with Bike ShareSharing with Bike Share
Continued on page 4
PAGE 2 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
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Chin Launches Re-Election
On Sunday, City Council Member Margaret Chin offi cially kicked off her campaign for re-election for the 1st council district, which covers parts of Lower Manhattan including Chinatown, the Financial District, Tribeca, Little Italy and the Lower East Side. She was joined at the kick-off rally, held on the Independence Plaza North steps in TriBeCa, by supporters including New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, and various community leaders.
“Margaret Chin is an outstanding council member and a longtime advocate for our Lower Manhattan community. She has a clear and undeniable record of achieving results for her constituents and improving the lives of
countless Lower Manhattan residents,” Silver said. “Council Member Chin is a dedicated and passionate public servant who has the right priorities for our community and the skills, focus and determination to get things done.”
“Margaret Chin’s energy, passion and commitment to serve her community and the city is unquestionable,” said Rep. Velazquez. “In these tough economic times, we need a Council Member who will continue to stand up for small businesses, working families, aff ordable housing, and access to better education and childcare for our children. Margaret is a progressive Democrat who has demonstrated great leadership during her community’s most challenging times.”
New York City Council Member Rosie Mendez, who has also pledged her support to Council Member Chin’s re-election campaign, said in a statement, “In her fi rst term, Margaret accomplished a number of landmark achievements for her constituents — fi ghting every day on quality of life issues, holding oversight hearings on critical topics as Chair of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee and fi ghting to save our essential and enriching day care centers and aft erschool programs.”
Also in attendance at the press conference were Community Board 3 Chair Gigi Li and Smith Houses Tennant Leader Aixa Torres,
both of whom praised the work of Council Member Chin’s fi rst term in offi ce and pledged their support to her re-election bid.
“I am humbled by the outpouring of support from the leaders we know and trust and my loyal supporters who have stood by me from Day One. For the last thirty years, I have been an outspoken advocate for Lower Manhattan and I have been proud to take our district to new heights with the input, help and support of our residents,” said Council Member Chin. “My commitment to our neighborhoods has never been stronger and I am eager to continue moving Lower Manhattan forward in the years ahead.”
Parks Kick Off Paths to Pier 42
On Sunday, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner William Castro, the Lower East Side Waterfront Alliance, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Community Board 3 opened part of the new waterfront park at Pier 42 on the Lower East Side for interim recreational use with a Waterfront Community Day and the launch of Paths to Pier 42, a series of art, educational, and design installations along the East River waterfront throughout the summer of 2013.
Th e opening makes a section of the pier accessible to the public, as planning for the redevelopment of the pier into a full waterfront park proceeds. Th e public can visit Pier 42, with the northern section between the greenway and the waterfront open for interim use. Th e space has been partially resurfaced and picnic tables have been installed.
NEIGHBORHOOD CHATTER
Bike and Roll set up hundreds of bikes in
preparation for Sunday’s 5 Boro Bike Tour.
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 3
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w w w . c h p n y c . o r g
By Jerry Danzig
Handbag HeistAround noon on Tuesday, April 9, a
27-year-old woman working at a boutique on Greene Street reported that a man had walked into the store, grabbed a beige handbag worth $2,995 from a display, and left the store without paying for the bag. Th e thief fl ed in an unknown direction. Police conducted a canvass of the area but were unable to locate the man. No arrests have been made.
Denim DemonIn the aft ernoon of Tuesday, April 9, a
28-year-old man working at a department store on Spring Street noticed that two of the store’s bags were missing from a display. He checked the store’s video surveillance footage, which revealed that an unknown 25-year-old man had taken the two bags without paying for them before he fl ed in an unknown direction. Police conducted a canvass of the area but were unable to locate the thief, who was wearing blue jeans, a baby blue baseball hat, and a denim jacket splattered with paint. Th e total value of the two bags stolen, a satchel and a purse, was $2,350.
Suzuki SnatchAt 8:30 the morning of Wednesday, April
10, a 48-year-old man parked his girlfriend’s motorbike on the southwest corner of South End Ave. and Albany Street. Th e bike was still there when he went out at 12:30 in the aft ernoon, but when he returned at 3 p.m., he found the bike was missing. Police conducted
a canvas of the area but were unable to locate the motorcycle. Th e bike owner’s boyfriend went to a building at the end of the block and witnessed video of an unknown person taking the bike, a black 2012 Suzuki GXR with New York plates, valued at $15,469.
Luckless Law StudentA 25-year-old man was hanging out with his
friends in a dark and crowded tavern on West Broadway in the evening of Th ursday, April 11. He placed his bag at the end of their table. When he left the bar at 9 p.m., he realized that his bag was no longer where he had placed it. Th e contents of the Tumi bag included a MacBook Pro laptop and law books with a total value of $1,900. Th e MacBook Pro had no tracking soft ware installed. No evidence was collected, because the victim didn’t report the crime until the aft ernoon of the following day, aft er the bar had been cleaned.
Texting TerrorIn the evening of Tuesday, April 16, a
21-year-old woman was walking along William Street texting on her iPhone, when a man ran up from behind and tried to snatch the phone from her hands. He failed in his attempt, screamed out an expletive, and fl ed northbound on William Street. Police conducted a canvass of the area, and the victim was able to identify the suspect. A 15-year-old man was arrested. Th e victim’s iPhone 4S is valued at $599.
CRIME WATCH
BAIT AND DITCHLate in the afternoon of Tuesday, April 9, a 28-year-old man was approached
on lower Broadway by a man in his 60s who off ered to sell him a computer. The younger man agreed to buy the computer and had $340 cash in his hand,
when the older man snatched the money and fl ed to an unknown location. Police conducted a canvass of the area but were unable to locate the older
man.
PAGE 4 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
concerns about the Bike Share program, but it wasn’t just West Villagers who showed up to gripe. People from all over the city came to speak their peace about the program — but some of it wasn’t so peaceful.
Chair David Gruber said that the board received 160 calls and emails, 70 percent of which were negative comments.
“Th e DOT chose not to come to this meeting, we don’t know why,” he said.
“People are upset about the size and volume, and once we saw it in place, we realized red dots on a map aren’t the same as something actually being on a street and installed,” Gruber said of the major complaints about Bike Share.
While most people in attendance said that while they actually weren’t “against” the program, they weren’t happy with the way it was being implemented.
“I’m shocked that this showed up on
my block. Th e magnitude of it and the lack of notice provided to residents by DOT is unconscionable. Th ey’re too big and too clunky on residential streets, and the community was not properly informed,” said West Village resident Lisa Cannistraci, who spoke for many when she added that “they obstruct building entranceways,” a problem that will worsen when the stations are fi lled with an average of 40 bikes each at the end of the month.
While many in attendance weren’t opposed to the bikes or the bike program, they were “opposed to the way that the city handled placing the bike racks around the city — mainly, in front of their entranceways.”
Th e bike racks on Barrow Street, for example, are located directly in front of residential buildings with 170 units. Residents claim that elderly people can’t get to their Access a Ride busses, and that ambulances can’t access the building, either.
“Th at means elderly and children will have to navigate around the bikes to get a cab or Access A Ride. We’re not opposed to the rack, but it needs to be moved, and we have alternative locations in mind,” said Cannistraci. “Th ese bike stations located on historic landmarked blocks are a travesty. Th ey need to be moved to more commercial locations, perhaps in front of the Citibanks, since this is their project.
West Village resident Charlie Decker, 69, wasn’t just concerned about the rack placement, though; he thinks that allowing inexperienced riders to hop on bikes whenever they feel like it, especially aft er they’ve had a few drinks, is a recipe for disaster.
“It’s dangerous to promote neophytes grabbing a bike in New York, especially tourists. Are you going to wait until 10 people are slaughtered to see that? Inexperienced
bikers are going to get hurt riding around New York City,” he said.
Bikes lined the fence outside, and pro Citi Bikers with signs lined themselves up in front of the school’s entrance, eagerly awaiting press.
Hilda Cohen, who works in the West Village and lives in Fort Greene, said that those showing up to protest on Th ursday were most likely absent at meetings held to discuss the plans.
“We’ve been involved since 2011, and we’ve been here every step of the way. We’re excited,” said Cohen. “I’ve never experienced a more inclusive community process than the one they did with Bike Share.
Jane Brown, who lives on West 4th between 7th Ave South and W. 10th, said that sanitation trucks haven’t been able to get through the racks, and piles of trash and water have been attracting mice.
“Th ere’s no way for them to clean. It’s a health hazard. Someone’s going to get hit by a fi re truck this summer pulling out,” Brown said. “If they’re benefi ting and making money off of it, why doesn’t Citibank but them in front of their branches? Let them see the trash, the water, and the mice.“
Residents of 99 Bank Street, among other West Village Streets, countered that they were never alerted of their block being a potential location in the fi rst place, that it was never a red dot on the map they were given.
Ed Zimbalatti, board president of 99 Bank Street, fi led a lawsuit last week that has been re-fi led as a petition. “Th e space in front of our building was never designated as a planned site. Th ere was no outreach, it just showed up. Who made this decision, aft er all this outreach? Th at’s what we want to know,” said Zimbalatti.
In the middle of the night, a portion of the racks were removed and, for some reason, replaced by a giant slab of rock.
“Clearly there were a lot of plants here,” said Jeff Barr, referring to the group standing with signs and countering their comments to reporters. Barr, who fi led the lawsuit at 99 Bank, spoke while leaning on his own bike.
“Th ey’re a great way to ride around, but this location was not properly thought out. Th e
size of the stations are too big for where they are,” Barr said. “Nobody wants to stop the program. But it’s not safe. People will ride on the sidewalk to pull up to the posts.”
His sentiment was echoed by Decker, who expressed concern that “people are going to be popping out of nowhere, buses and trucks are going to be swerving and hitting either them, buildings, or pedestrians. “
Inside, the criticism continued.“It’s going to be creating more traffi c and
congestion, and I don’t know how green that amount of pollution is,” said Marna Lawrence. “I also have an objection about using public land for private gain. Citibank has no right to steal public space.”
Michael Murphy, communications director of Transportation Alternatives, a biking/walking/mass transit advocacy group, said that he thinks “the burden of proof lies with the people raising these phantom concerns.”
“Since none of the other major cities currently operating a bike share program endure these problems, what possible reason do we have to think we will in New York City?” he said. “Th is isn’t a he said/she said situation - we can actually look at the cities where this program is underway and verify whether or not these concerns make any sense.”
Th e DOT did not respond to specifi c questions regarding community members’ concerns about safety of riders, garbage truck and emergency vehicle access, or whether some bike rack locations might be relocated. A spokesman said that Citi Bike in conjunction with DOT held 400 meetings with community boards to determine the best locations for the racks, and also consulted the 65,000 online requests and comments.
By Mayor Bloomberg’s estimates, the program will be “great for local businesses” and generate 170 new jobs along with $36 million in revenue for “the city.”
Still, citizens of Gotham remain skeptical.“I’ll bet you Mayor Bloomberg has never
been on a bike in New York City in his life,” Decker challenged on his way out. “And if he has, it wasn’t without an entourage of ten people riding around him.”
NEWSBike ShareContinued from page 1
�■The rates are $95 per year, $25 a week, $9.9 5 for 24 hours.
�■Purchase a 24-Hour or 7-Day Pass from any Citi Bike station. A $101 security hold will be placed on your credit or debit card for every pass you purchase (you may purchase up to two Passes per card).
�■24-Hour and 7-Day Pass holders can print their ride code at the kiosk after they buy a Pass. Type the code into the 3-digit keypad on any dock with an available bike.
�■24-Hour and 7-Day Pass holders may ride for 30 minutes per trip without incurring any overtime fees. Annual Members have 45 minutes to ride per trip before incurring overtime fees.
�■ If a station is full, selecting “Request Time Credit” at the kiosk adds 15 minutes of free time to your ride as you fi nd your way to a free station. .
CitiBike stations will be placed throughout downtown Manhattan.
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 5
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The New Museum’s biennial Ideas festival presents hundreds of concepts for productive change in the City
By Alissa Fleck
This past weekend was alive with innovation as Ideas City — a multi-day festival of presentations, exhibitions, workshops and panels which
aims to take New Yorkers’ ideas about improving the City, and urban living in general, to the people to whom these ideas matter most — hit the streets.
Four days of demonstrations and performances, founded by the New Museum in the Bowery under this year’s theme of “untapped capital,” included ways to bring art and green space to public places, more effi cient and environmentally friendly versions of items we already use on a regular basis and far more.
According to the event’s offi cial website, Ideas City, founded in 2011, in addition to facilitating conferences and a massive outdoors street festival around the Bowery neighborhood, incorporates more than one hundred independent projects and public events that are “forums for exchanging
ideas, proposing solutions, and accelerating creativity.”
Th e New Museum’s director Lisa Phillips explained: “As an institution dedicated to new art and new ideas, the New Museum strongly believes that the cultural community is essential to the vitality of the future city.”
“We also believe that the cultural sphere is still a relatively untapped source of enormously powerful creative capital,” she added, “Especially in its potential to stimulate economic development and foster greater innovation in other fi elds.”
Th e Ideas City StreetFest, a family-friendly aff air, included such highlights as a “sweat your own battery” lodge; more effi cient means of turning urban landscapes into playgrounds; blueprints for the City’s “Lowline” (an underground park in development); mobile libraries and art studios and far more.
Meanwhile, the conference component focused on places untapped capital can be used in urban development, including “ad hoc strategies,” “waste,” “play” and “youth.”
While Ideas City has come and gone for now, affi liated global conferences continue to promote ideas for productive urban change worldwide and New Yorkers, continually on the very cusp of major urban rejuvenation, have had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with hundreds of projects underway in the City with an eye toward the future.
NEWS
Where the Streets Are Filled With Ideas
The Bable Waste Capital styrofoam sculp-
ture represents an extension of the city
built from its own refuse.
Through the practice of parkour, The
Movement Creative aims to highlight how
the city is our playground.
PAGE 6 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
The East River Blueway Plan establishes community-based framework for East River waterfront
By Alissa Fleck
“Th e water is coming,” said Eric Klinenberg to community members and elected offi cials gathered at Cooper Union last week. Klinenberg, an NYU professor and author to one of the most famous essays about rebuilding New York City aft er Hurricane Sandy, went on to say there’s not much we can do about that fact anymore.
Indeed, the crowd was there to discuss proactive ways to rebuild the City in anticipation of rising sea levels, in particular the East River Blueway Plan, commissioned by Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh in collaboration with community boards in the area and the Lower East Side Ecology Center. Th e plan itself has been more than a year in
development. “Th e important thing to do is reduce
greenhouse gases, but we also need to think about how to adapt and build our cities diff erently,” explained Klinenberg. “Our impulse is to rebuild, but aft er Sandy the new challenge is to pro-build.”
“We cannot go back to what we had before,” he added. “We have to build in anticipation of what’s coming next time.”
At the risk of sounding alarmist, Klinenberg made a comparison to rebuilding the City aft er 9/11 and talked about developing “dual use homeland security strategies.”
“We have a sense we need those [security strategies] but they haven’t made the City more pleasant,” he said. “We put up with them because we feel like we have to. Our systems do not have to be unpleasant.”
Klinenberg and others who presented at Cooper Union talked about seeing the waterfront as an opportunity—a way to prevent storm surges but also enhance the quality of everyday life in the community. Th e Blueway Plan covers the East River waterfront from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 38th Street, aff ecting the South Street neighborhood area, the East River Park
waterfront and the Stuyvesant Cove waterfront plaza, as shaped predominantly by FDR Drive, though presenters discussed the importance of viewing the plan in conjunction with the entire coastal region.
Th e East River Blueway Plan is a social infrastructure, they explained, as well as a system intended to curb the impact of disasters. It’s also a springboard for the future.
“Th is plan is a model for initiatives to come,” said Roland Lewis, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. “Our waterfront is a utility—it’s owned by thousands of folks and entities, but we all depend on the utility.”
He added the Blueway plan is a way of better understanding that utility, particularly the component of access.
“We are going to be re-imagining the entire region,” said Lewis. Th e Blueway project,
which was developed in cooperation with hundreds of organizations, community members and elected offi cials, was developed in part from these community members’ answers to what the river has meant to them over time.
“Th e goals we identifi ed came out of conversations with people,” said Adam Lubinsky, the managing principal of WXY
architecture and urban design. “We viewed the community engagement process as an exchange of information and created a dialogue.”
Th e plan has since evolved with feedback to maximally improve waterfront resiliency while providing a space to educate and promote recreation. Th e project involves creating new biodiversity and green space as well as improving community
access to existing green space and the waterfront.
“It’s going to take a lot of people to own [this plan] and make it happen,” said Lubinsky. “Th is is ours to take forward and ensure it becomes a reality.”
Pro Building, Not Rebuilding NEWS
Stringer introduces new parts of the Blueway Plan
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 7
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PAGE 8 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
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THURSDAY
THE7-DAYPLAN
10111213141516
BEST PICK
Madison Square EatsMadison Square Park, 23rd St. and Madison Avenue, madisonsquarepark.org, 11 a.m, varied pricing, All of May.
Madison Square Eats is back, and it’s here for the entire month of May. This pop-up market has 30 vendors from revered eateries all over the city. ASIADOG, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Mexicue, and Momofuku Milk Bar are all participating. After work, grab your friends and treat yourselves to a lively and fl avorful dining experience.
FREE: Astronomy NightIntrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Pier 86, intrepidmuseum.org, 7:30 p.m.If you consider yourself a lover of constellations and observing the far reaches of our galaxy, don’t miss out on celebrating Astronomy Day. Get an up-close view of the stars through 8 diff erent telescopes, as well as learn about the names, history, and mythology of constellations. RSVP at [email protected].
Crawfi sh for Cancer79th Street Boat Basin Café, West 79th St., crawfi shforcancer.org, 2 p.m., $95-110.Catch something that doesn’t happen often in NYC- a Louisiana-style boil of crawfi sh. However, you wont be here just to gorge on crustaceans, this is a fundraiser that benefi ts the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Your ticket buys you unlimited crawfi sh, sausage, corn and potatoes, plus beer, wine and cocktails. This is all set to a live soundtrack, including a cover band.
FREE: Bike MonthMultiple locations, bikenyc.org.We bet you didn’t know it was Bike Month, huh? Join this celebration that hopes to make NYC more cycle-friendly than it already is. Multiple events will be occurring, including CycloFemme’s yearly bike ride today, which will travel all over Manhattan. Other events include a ride-in movie, and a 2nd avenue commuter bike train.
Ophira EisenbergStrand Book Store, 828 Broadway, strandbooks.com, 7 p.m., $15. Ophira Eisenberg is a comedian and the host of the weekly game show “Ask Me Another” on NPR. She will be reading from her new memoir Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, which is a compilation of tales about the hilarious trials and tribulations she has faced in her search for love. Her reading will be followed by an After Hours version of her game show.
FREE: Word for Word: Wendy WilliamsBryant Park Reading Room, 41 West 40th St., bryantpark.org, 12:30 p.m.The New York Times bestselling author and talk show host is ready to answer your most pressing and personal relationship questions. She will also be speaking about her latest book, Ask Wendy, which is a collection of boldly honest words of advice taken from the popular segment on her show. You will defi nitely leave feeling enlightened and ready to make a change.
FREE: Richard Misrach “On the Beach 2.0”Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th St., thepacegallery.com, 10 a.m.Richard Misrach fi rst introduced his “On the Beach” series 9 years ago, now digital technology has enabled him to capture movement and to freeze the motion of water in a completely new way. These remarkable photos document the sea’s changes in color and energy, as well as humans entering and aff ecting the ocean while being dwarfed in the vast landscape.
Spring For Music
Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th St., carnegiehall.org, 7:30 p.m., $25.The spring for Music festival is in it’s third and unfortunately, fi nal year. The purpose of the festival is to allow music-lovers to hear world-class music at aff ordable prices, and for orchestras to showcase their artistic philosophies. On this particular night, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will be performing all four of Ives’s numbered symphonies.
Annual Identifi cation DayAmerican Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, amnh.org, 12 p.m., free-$19.Do you have a young aspiring archeologist in your home? If so, today you can bring all of the shells, feathers, and bones that they have been collecting to the Museum of Natural History. Museum scientists will attempt to identify each of your little one’s treasures. In conjunction with The World’s Largest Dinosaurs exhibit, the collection’s most massive artifacts and specimens will be on display.
FREE: A Closer Look for KidsMuseum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St., moma.org, 10 a.m.This activity is a tour of the MoMA’s permanent collections and temporary exhibits, for kids ages 5 to 10. They- as well as mom and dad- are encouraged to voice their opinion on what they like and dislike. This tour will help them begin to develop an appreciation for art, which could become an important presence in their lives and futures.
FREE: The Pop Object: The Still Life Tradition in Pop ArtAcquavella Galleries, 18 East 79th St., acquavellagalleries.com, 10 a.m.This exhibit features Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Oldenburg, with a focus on the development of Pop Art in the U.S. Still Life is also illuminated, having been used in some of Pop Art’s most innovative expressions. Artists viewed it as a vital vehicle of expression in displaying themes of contemporary life in a post-war consumerist society. Get in touch with these seemingly simple images that hold complex meaning.
Wayne BradyB.B King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd St., bbkingblues.com, 9:30 p.m., $40-45.You may know Wayne Brady from the famed improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? or as the host of the recent revival of Let’s Make a Deal. In this show, Brady creates a spectacular and extremely entertaining performance all on his own. He engages the audience by incorporating their suggestions or bringing them onstage as props. He may even treat you with a vocal performance to show off his legitimate singing chops.
FREE: FREE: Small Business ExpoPier 94, 711 12th Avenue, thesmallbusinessexpo.com, 10 a.m.This is the largest and most anticipated national business networking event, trade show, and conference for business owners. Learn about products and services that will help your business grow, as well as attend cutting edge workshops and seminars that will further your education. Most importantly, partake in speed networking and develop connections that could pan out to be extremely valuable.
Broadway Sessions with Ben CameronLaurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank Café, 407 West 42nd St., 11 p.m., $5 plus $15 minimum.When the curtain falls on Broadway, don’t end your night just yet. This après-theatre variety show is hosted by Ben Cameron, of Wicked, Aida, and Footloose fame. Every week a new Broadway star performs and bares their soul. If you’re revved up and in the mood to perform, the show then morphs into an open-mike show-tune night. Don’t be intimidated, we’re sure your rendition of “Defying Gravity” is spectacular.
.comVisit nypress.com for the latest
updates on local events.Submissions can be sent to [email protected]
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FREE: Spring Music Series at MillesimeThe Carlton Hotel, 92 Madison Avenue, millesimenyc.com, 8 p.m.This Music Series features some of the best up-and-coming jazz musicians in the entire country. Tonight’s performer is Courtney Graff , a singer-songwriter with a bluesy sound. Her inspiring lyrics speak to empowering the self, embracing the moment, and appreciating the people you love.
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THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 9
Edited by Armond White CityArtsNYC.comNew York’s Review of Culture .cityArts
Cicely Tyson brings realness to The Trip to Bountiful
By Armond White
Broadway’s new Black (or non-traditional cast) production of Th e Trip to Bountiful comes alive when Cicely Tyson as Carrie Watts, an elderly
Texas widow longing to return to her titular hometown, stands up and sings a church hymn in a desolate bus station. It is the chestnut “Blessed Assurance” and as Tyson prances and sings, the audience spontaneously joined in.
Was it a response to the actress and her legacy of cultural landmarks (Sounder, Roots, Th e Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, East Side/West Side) or gospel’s call-and-response tradition that veteran Black performers and audiences bring to Broadway? It was a surprising—and unexpectedly satisfying—moment; unscripted by playwright Horton Foote whose synthetic Southern doggerel treats the human condition like bolts of preprinted fabric. Familiar ideas about family, aging and the passing of time are cut and stitched into ready-made, second-hand drama—the half-tragic equivalent to a sitcom.
But there’s Tyson as Carrie Watts, the role that originated by Lillian Gish and that won Geraldine Page an Oscar. Th is occasion forces one to realize the paucity of roles for older actresses (Tyson is 80), especially black actresses. Tyson seizes the vehicle to communicate her principled talent to a culture that has forgotten what that means.
When Carrie cries “I want to go back to Bountiful,” Tyson gives it the yearning of a woman who feels existentially stranded in a debilitating, non-nurturing place, a cramped two-room Houston apartment with her son Ludie (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and his frustrated, harpy wife Jessie Mae (Vanessa Williams). Th e
situation parallels the lack of mobility faced by black actresses toiling in an unwelcoming or restricting profession.
Tyson‘s career milestones have always happened against the odds yet her successes are impressive because their always demonstrate moral integrity. Not the worse legacy, it puts Tyson in the same league as Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte–powerful performers who also stood for something. In this case, the memory of a bountiful artistic and political calling in which personal artistry illuminates mere professionalism.
Th at Tyson’s lack of sentimentality—her defi ning quality—fi ts Carrie Watts is ironic. Foote’s determined yet nostalgic crone is utterly average, suff ering typical old-age dilemmas. Not exactly a warm matriarch, Tyson makes her stubborn, self-obsessed drive to return to her roots seem vital, (her subtle anger recalls Tyson’s Rebecca in Sounder). She works Foote’s threadbare, pseudo-homey clichés for all they’re worth. Th ere’s no richness in Foote’s writing, the fl at, naturalistic language resists poetry; Geraldine Page gave the fi lm her hammy but great emotionalism to stave off Foote’s unintended yet unavoidable bleakness. In the last act, director Michael Wilson lets Tyson nearly transform Carrie Watt’s dotage into principle: “I found my dignity and strength” she says looking at her girlhood home with the symbolic name, (a bland version of the yearning psychology William Inge expressed better in Come Back, Little Sheba).
Th at line isn’t quite believable but we know what Carrie/Tyson means: Th e search for stronger values and desire to restore personal heritage are clear. Th e sympathetic audience provided a Tyler Perry response, giving more implicit Christian fellowship than Foote intended. (Singing “Blessed Assurance” also recalls Tyson’s very excellent Peter Bogdanovich TV movie Blessed Assurance.) With Tyson’s presence, this production’s new
ethnic focus evokes the Great Migration history of blacks relocated to urban living yet retaining ambivalent memories of the South as home. Jeff Cowie’s set, superlatively lighted by Rui Rita, recalls the Hudson River School of bucolic radiance; creating a visible, nearly cinematic passage of time.
Th e years since Tyson performed in the legendary 1961 production of Genet’s Th e
Blacks have seen the once-thriving Black American theater movement pass. In this not-good-enough play Tyson’s richness and will makes one nostalgic for Black theater’s forgotten bounty.
Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair
Recall and Response
Tyson and Candola Rashad in A Trip to Boun ful.
PAGE 10 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
R E S E R V A T I O N S2 1 2 - 2 5 8 - 9 5 9 5 / 9 7 9 5J A L C . O R G / D I Z Z Y S
L I V E J A Z Z N I G H T L Y
‘The Best Jazz Room in the City’
—Tony Bennett
CITY ARTS FILMS
Steven Spielberg’s Obama.
Media short sides with American aristocracy—and dishonesty
By Armond White
The worst Steven Spielberg production ever is, without doubt, his Barack Obama homage, Steven Spielberg’s Obama. Unlike his disingenuous
Obama-in-disguise campaign feature fi lm, Lincoln, this two-minute second satirical short looks artless and slapdash; it was made for last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner—an annual event for fatcats that contradicts the United States’ supposed allegiance to democracy by gathering the nation’s most empowered people (media celebrities) to gently lambaste but mostly celebrate their empowered peer, the President, as the most casual, supercilious, inviolable and narcissistic cat of them all.
Newscasters have disgraced their profession and politics by making cameos
with apparently no qualms that news is just another form of celebritized fi ction. Th ere’s an unholy alliance between the news industry and Hollywood. No matter the deprivations Americans across the country still suff er from Hurricane Sandy, Sandy Hook, West, Texas and the economy—the Correspondents’ dinner is a ritual for the privileged, the ruling class that Americans like to think doesn’t exist. Th at’s one reason they go to the movies, (the most shameful reason), and Spielberg made this short to further that ends of mystifi cation, misguidance and manipulation.
Th e mockumentary’s unfunny jokes start with Spielberg asking “I mean who is Obama, really? We don’t know. We never got his transcripts.” Th is would only be amusing if it weren’t true. Th ere’s obscenity in joking about the media’s protection of Obama’s image and its implicit lack of decorum which began (negatively) with the media’s assault on George W, Bush’s presidency. But Nevermind. (Th at might have been a more clever title for the short—what, was Tony Kushner too busy reading Entertainment Weekly?).
Steven Spielberg’s Obama was made redundantly, to disguise the euphemistic Beltway metaphors of Lincoln, (such as
that despicable moment when Abraham Lincoln, arms outstretched, mendaciously emulates the scales of justice—but politicking with his right hand and prevaricating with his Left ). Yet, those who care about the honor of Spielberg’s best work have to pay mind to this short’s dishonesty. It gainsays the fact of Obama’s media-based mythifi cation by joking about it.
Spielberg pretends in the short to be thinking about doing a fi rst fi lm about Obama and smirks, “Picking the right actor to “play Obama that was the challenge. So I needed someone who could dive in and really become Barack Obama. And as it turns out the answer was right in front of me all along: Daniel Day Lewis.” Th is plays the movie going public cheap, as if they weren’t smart enough to catch that Obama was already the subtext of Lincoln. Spielberg knew this, he let screenwriter Tony Kushner go forward with the rhetorical ruse which Th e New York Times only cottoned to aft er the fi lm’s release.
In an analysis titled “Confronting the Fact of Fiction and the Fiction of Fact,” two thumbs-up reviewers chimed “Lincoln isn’t just about how President Lincoln navigated the passage of the 13th Amendment; it is also about President Obama
whose presidency could not be imagined without that amendment.” So much form the limits of Times critics’ imaginations. Th ey fi nally admitted that Spielberg and Kushner’s fabrications were rooted in the dark heart of millennial White Liberal fantasy, not historical fact or African American dreaming.
Because Obama has become the fulfi llment of White Liberal dreaming, his mythifi cation in Lincoln and throughout the mainstream media is accepted without vetting—so much so that even Spielberg can contribute to the mythifi cation, attempting to sway an election and then kid about it.
His short’s suggestion that the Obama myth required an actor of Daniel Day Lewis’ stature is inadvertently revealed. Spielberg boasts about Day Lewis’ method of ”becom[ing] his character: Hawkeye from Last Of Th e Mohicans, Bill the Butcher in Th e Gangs of New York and Abraham Lincoln from Lincoln. And you know what, he nailed it.” Nailing it is the correct, crucifying term for the Washington Correspondents Dinner’s deprecation of American history.
Spielberg’s litany accidentally links Obama’s presidency to questionable representations of American history: James Fennimore Cooper’s White fantasy that Leslie Fiedler once explicated, (in Love and Death and the American Novel) as the embodiment of Eurocentric fears and the basis of America’s racial delusions, (a critical thesis now forgotten in the Ebert age); Scorsese’s post-Vietnam imagining of America’s hostile social legacy and immigrant brutality. Spielberg ties all that to Lincoln, not to absolve it but to unconsciously root it to the racial and political confusion about slavery and identity that the unvetted Obama represents.
But, wait! It gets worse! Obama himself takes part in Spielberg’s charade. Aft er once claiming “I have a lot on my plate,” Obama generously took the time to complete Spielberg’s fantasy by showing how he prepares for public performance: Looking into a mirror, Obama preps “Hello, Ohio! Hello, Ohio!” “I love you back.” “Look, look, let me be clear about this.” Th e only thing that’s clear is that the gathered media aristocracy, (including the low-down yet highly-placed of Hollywood and Manhattan), approves this disingenuousness. It’s all right with them. Th ey
want a President as lacking in dignity as they are, so they reduce him to their level—morally, professionally, politically.
Th is short is Spielberg’s most Brechtian comedy: he gets the President of the United States to ridicule the supposedly sincere reasons his constituents support him, undermining the prestige of offi ce that even his opponents are obliged to respect. (One could argue that the media’s out-of-control disrespect the presidency began with George W. Bush or maybe our lapdog media was born during the Clinton administration). For
Spielberg, Obama willingly portrays a performer in
the act of deceiving the public. (Only Bill and Hillary Clinton taking on the roles of the mafi a gangsters Th e Sopranos was as off ensive.)
It is not funny when Obama-as-Day-Lewis confuses things, saying “Th e hardest part? Trying to understand his [my] motivations. Why did he [I] pursue ‘health care’ fi rst? What makes him [me] tick? Why doesn’t he [I] get mad? If I was him I’d be mad all the time. But I’m not him, I’m Daniel Day Lewis.” It’s as bad as a Saturday Night Live skit. Or a Jon Stewart Early Show skit. Or a Real Time with Bill Maher skit. (Or a Morning Joe, Rachel Maddow skit, I mean, “newscast.”) Th at’s how low the producer of the terrifi c early Zemeckis-Gale comedies has sunk.
For the past seven months I’ve personally been fi elding questions about why I didn’t like the movie Lincoln. Going through the unpleasant eff ort of explaining the fi lm’s basic inaccuracy and unfairness to people who were prepared to love and defend it simply because it was customized to their political sentiments, made my explanation all the more frustrating. (When die-hard Spielberg scoff ers praised Lincoln, I knew their commendations had nothing to do with esthetics or history, only with the fi lm’s slanted politics and strenuously forced contemporary parallel to Obama’s lame-duck presidency.)
Now, aft er the disappointment of the Kushner-Spielberg Lincoln, we get its unfortunate sequel—actually a coda. A coda ought to reinforce a work’s preceding revelations but it’s become apparent that aft er his previous great fi lms showed the humane aspect of the human experience, Spielberg has taken up the partisan view. Now that Spielberg shows us what Lincoln actually meant, one can really, rightfully rue it.
Spielberg’s Shortcomings
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 11
CITYARTS GALLERIES
Wan-der-lust by Peter Rupprecht.
Suspending RealityBurning Man collaborative art comes to Wan-Der-Lust
By Elena Oumano
The six artists behind “Wan-Der-Lust,” a month-long, (now through May 15), mixed-media pop-up exhibit on the ground fl oor of 72 Wooster Street,
announces its mission in a black painted scrawl over the entrance:
“Wanderlust is about the primal impulse for exploration. Th e work assembled expresses a freedom pulsing through the body blood.
Th e collective narrative in this exhibition is informed by journeys unknown; inspired by the moment. Th e work is meant to inspire a state of constant fl ow and transformation. Th rough these works on paper, canvas, photography, sculpture and furniture, we express the human craving for discovery.
Welcome to Wanderlust. We invite you to suspend in your reality.”
Since art of necessity involves exploration, transformation, and discovery, perhaps more to the point is photographer Peter Ruprecht’s observation that this show embodies the “Burning Man ethos of collaboration brought into the real world.” Photographers Reka Nyari and Ruprecht; artists Jody Levy and Arten Mirolevich; sculptors/furniture makers Dara Young and Yarrow Mazzetti; along with Harlan Berger of Centaur Properties, the developer hosting “Wan-Der-Lust” before 72 Wooster is sold, met at Burning Man and
formed a camp that creates art alongside others as part of the pop-up community that takes over Nevada’s Black Rock desert every year. Over the course of a few weeks, they’ve transformed a rough, rubble-strewn NYC space lacking electricity into a gallery in order to showcase the individual works that oft en bear traces of each other’s fortuitous interference.
All the contributors here evidence imagination and skill, but Ruprecht and Mazzetti show the strongest. Mazzetti’s powerfully authentic heart of pine and stainless steel furniture includes a sleekly gorgeous dining table and a chest with 5 theme drawers, each crammed with objects and opening to a fl ood of music. Ruprecht, a former Olympic skier and fi nancial consultant who’s untrained in photography, fi rst bought a camera in 2006 and a few years later, had a billboard looming over Times Square. His richly-colored, high contrast images are not framed. Instead, Mazzetti’s aluminum backings extend the images’ space beyond four corners, underscoring their generosity and excitingly alive quality. A series of meticulously rendered etchings by Mirolevich, a visionary artist also working in water color, pen and ink here stands out as well. He’s the only Wan-Der-Lust artist with professional representation, But galleries are currently circling Ruprecht. Th ree of his photos were snapped up at the opening night party attended by 2000 people gathered mostly by internet word-of-mouth—further evidence of Burning Man’s infi ltration into the real world.
PAGE 12 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
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CITYARTS MUSIC
Leonard Slatkin
A revived orchestra comes to Carnegie Hall with its maestro, Leonard Slatkin
By Jay Nordlinger
From May 6 to May 11, Carnegie Hall will present a festival called “Spring for Music.” It off ers fi ve orchestras in six concerts. Th e orchestras come from around
the country, and one of them was to have been the Oregon Symphony. Th e Oregonians found themselves short on cash, however, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) will play two concerts (May 9 and 10).
Th e fi rst DSO concert consists of Sergei Rachmaninoff , Kurt Weill and Maurice Ravel. Th e second one is devoted to Charles Ives—his four symphonies. Th e concerts are conducted by the DSO’s music director, Leonard Slatkin.
I say to him, in a phone conversation, “I’m glad to be hearing Ives. But it’s a shame not to hear Walter Piston—he’s never played.” Slatkin informs me that he himself conducts Piston. But it’s true: Th e mid-century Americans are largely ignored. Music follows fashion, and Piston, William Schuman, Peter Mennin and the rest of those guys are out of fashion. A young conductor, says Slatkin, should make a project out of reviving them.
A young woman named Caroline Shaw has just won the Pulitzer Prize, notes Slatkin. She does not call herself a composer, interestingly enough. But performers will naturally want to perform what music she has written, or will write. What they’re unlikely to do, says Slatkin, is unearth, say, the Seventh Symphony of Roy Harris. (Th at composer’s Th ird was once well-known, but has faded from the repertoire.)
Slatkin grew up in Los Angeles, the son of a famous musician: Felix Slatkin, the violinist, conductor, arranger and so on. In and out of the house trooped even more famous musicians: Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, yes, but also Art Tatum, the jazz pianist, and Frank Sinatra. Felix Slatkin died in 1963, when he was only 47. Leonard was 19.
He is now doing what his father wanted to do but did not live quite long enough to do: head an orchestra. His father wanted an orchestra of his own to conduct, somewhere. He was on the verge of getting one when he died. Leonard Slatkin has held many music directorships in his career. He started in Detroit fi ve years ago.
Th e DSO has come through a rocky period. Before there was a national recession, there was a “one-state recession”: Michigan’s. Th e DSO was not immune. Th en, toward the end of 2010, the musicians went on strike, for six months. Th e orchestra is now back on its feet, reformed and fl exible.
Th e musicians took a pay cut—22 percent, on average. But they can earn more with optional work. Th e orchestra’s main home is
still Orchestra Hall, downtown. But they are also out in the suburbs, in six diff erent venues. Occasionally, the musicians break out into smaller ensembles, such as string quartets. “We don’t do fl ash mobs yet,” says Slatkin, “but that may come.”
Ticket prices have fallen, and ticket sales have increased. Also, concerts are streamed live on the Internet. “We are redefi ning the word ‘audience,’” says Slatkin. Th e webcasts are free of charge. Doesn’t this keep people from going to the concert hall? On the contrary, says Slatkin: Th e webcasts whet their appetite for the live-and-in-person experience.
Th e DSO is even developing an audience abroad, says Slatkin. “So, when the time comes to resume international touring, we have a head start. People not only know how we play, they know what we look like.”
You can buy all nine Beethoven symphonies from the DSO for a mere 20 bucks: Th ey are downloadable. Slatkin fi gures we will have compact discs for another three or four years and then yield entirely to new technologies.
Th e DSO also has a number of programs designed to provide music education to young Detroiters—this used to be the job of families and schools. Slatkin himself enjoyed an excellent music education in the public schools he attended. He may have come from a spectacularly musical home, but “I cherished that hour when the music teacher came in with an autoharp.” Our society has changed, though, as we all know.
In short, the DSO has found a way to keep itself afl oat, and moving forward. Th ey are coping with the challenges of today, and also taking advantage of opportunities—such as the Internet. Slatkin is a particularly good ambassador for music. He is not only a fi ne conductor, he is one of the best talkers about music you’ll ever hear. He has some things in common with a conductor he much admired, Leonard Bernstein. And aft er all these years, he still loves music as much as ever.
“I have the best job in the world,” he says. “It is an honor and a privilege, as well as a responsibility.” He continues, “I stand in front of a hundred musicians and give a downbeat.
The Detroit Way
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 13
Veterans, service members and families, we’re here to help. NYU Langone Medical Center provides the most comprehensive program in New York City to help
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Some of the concerns we help with include:Depression Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Grief and Loss
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Healthyy ManhattanB
ronnie Ward, an Australian nurse who has spent time with patients during their last several weeks of life, wrote an article last year called "Th e Top 5 Regrets of the
Dying," based on the conversations she had with her patients.
Aft er compiling the answers, Ward said that among the most common regrets expressed by the patients were:
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier.She also wrote about one regret: I wish I
didn't work so hard. Th is sentiment came from mostly male
patients that she has nursed. Th ey missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship.
Women also spoke of this regret. But as most
women she has nursed were from a generation where they had not been breadwinners, there were less who mentioned it.
"All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence," she wrote.
Family and relationship expert Hellen Chen, has had a similar experience.
"Th e deepest regret that I have heard has been men and women missing out on the most important part of life: the quality of their relationship in a marriage or with their children," she said.
Chen specializes in working with men and women resistant to marriage. She says she helps them overcome their hopelessness and past disappointments so that they can say, "I do."
"Th ere are so many successful career professionals who came to me, from doctors to execs to CEOs," she said. "Th ey have everything in their life: money, house, stable career, talent. But all these accomplishments could not replace the void of a close companion to share their success with."
Top regret of the dying: 'I wish I didn't work so hard'
PAGE 14 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
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PUBLIC NOTICECITY OF NEW YORK
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENTPursuant to Section 695(2)(b) of the General Municipal Law and Section 1802(6)(j) of the Charter, noticeis hereby given that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”) of the City of NewYork (“City”) has proposed the sale of the following City-owned property (collectively, “Disposition Area”)in the Borough of Manhattan:
Address Block/Lot244-246 Elizabeth Street 507/10
Under HPD’s Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program, occupied City-owned residential buildings arepurchased by Restoring Communities Housing Development Fund Corporation (“Sponsor”) and thenrehabilitated by a private developer selected through a request for qualifications. Upon conveyance to Sponsor,buildings will be managed by the private developers. Following completion of rehabilitation, Sponsor conveysthe building to a cooperative housing development fund corporation (“Apartment Corporation”) formed bythe building’s tenants. Tenants purchase the cooperative interests attributable to their apartments for $2,500per dwelling unit.Under the proposed project, the City will sell the Disposition Area to Sponsor for the nominal price of onedollar ($1.00) per building. When completed, the project will provide one building with approximately19affordable cooperative dwelling units and 1storefront commercial space.At the time of sale, the Sponsor will be required to sign a Regulatory Agreement containing, among otherthings, restrictions on renting and subletting and requirements for a flip tax and building reserve fund. The appraisal and the proposed Land Disposition Agreement and Project Summary are available for publicexamination at the office of HPD, 100 Gold Street, Room 5A1, New York, New York on business daysduring business hours.PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a public hearing will be held on May 29, 2013 at Second Floor Conference Room,22 Reade Street, Manhattan at 10:00 a.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be reached on the calendar,at which time and place those wishing to be heard will be given an opportunity to be heard concerning theproposed sale of the Disposition Area pursuant to Section 695(2)(b) of the General Municipal Law and Section1802(6)(j) of the Charter.Individuals requesting sign language interpreters should contact the Mayor’s Office Of Contract Services,Public Hearings Unit, 253 Broadway, Room 915, New York, New York 10007, (212) 788-7490, no laterthan seven (7) business days prior to the public hearing. TDD users should call Verizon relay services.
nyc.gov/hpd
MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERGMayor
MATHEW M. WAMBUACommissioner
The newest outpost serving the popular dessert comes prepared with a surefi re recipe for success
By Helaina Hovitz
You’ve got to have a pretty big pair of cake pops to open a cupcake shop just blocks from Magnolia Bakery.
Fortunately, the House of Cupcakes, which just opened at 101 7th Ave South, came prepared. Aside from off ering up over 36 delicious varieties, the owners have all sorts of strategies for success up their white sleeves - and Magnolia may have reason to worry a bit.
Aft er Ruthie and Ron Bzdewka won Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars” two years ago, their Princeton, New Jersey bakery gained a massive following. Now, they’ve got Steven Mandell, founder of the Party City franchise, to thank for helping them expand their Princeton shop into a mini-chain.
“He has such a proven track record. We knew if anybody could do it, Steve could,” said
Ruthie. Here’s how. “I know nothing about cupcakes, but I
know business, and I know the competition,” Mandell explained.
“I saw a mother and son sitting outside eating cupcakes from Magnolia and went up to them and said, ‘Excuse me, when you’re done with those, can I buy you the best cupcakes in the world?’ I gave them four, on the condition that they’d tell me what they thought and how I could make them better,” Mandell explained.
His mark on the place is unmistakable — the shop is decorated with photos of cupcakes created for every party theme imaginable, from a saucy bachelorette party to a Sesame Street birthday. Also popular are cupcakes made for “gender reveal” parties — cupcakes are fi lled with either pink or blue frosting, which let the mom-to-be and her girlfriends fi nd out the sex of the baby when they bite down. Th ey also specialize in “break apart” cakes, made up of individual cupcakes that create a larger picture.
Last Wednesday, Zara Stevens, 27, came into the shop on her friend’s recommendation. She’d just come from Magnolia where the “pickins’ were slim.”
“It wasn’t looking too good. Th ey only had chocolate and vanilla. Boring. I can’t wait to
eat these on the bus,” she said as she paid for her Oreo cake pop and a dulce cupcake.
With three dozen fl avors to choose from on any given day, in addition to cake pops, push pops (like the ice cream variety, but with cake!), and thick, rich cookies, boring is never a risk.
All fl avors are $2.95 each, and there’s always a special: buy fi ve, get one free or buy ten, get two free. Th e shop is open late, until 11 p.m. on weeknights, and from
10 - 11 p.m., you can buy six and get six free.Th ey anticipate staying open as late as 2
a.m. during the summer, since the aft er-hours turnout has been big.
“We’d prefer two weeks notice for a big event or custom cake order, but if you come in and say, ‘We need this by tonight,’ we’ll fi nd a way to make it happen,” Mandell said.
Mix all of this with a little Food Network star power, and you’ve got a recipe for success, if the last two weeks have been any indication.
Besim Kukaj, Owner of Zucca at 95 7th Ave South a few doors down, believes that aside from having good cupcakes, he hopes they’ll
also draw “good people” to the neighborhood.“Th ey’re bringing a beautiful face to the
neighborhood, and that’s what we need. Lots of places have opened and left ,” he said, calling over his shoulder on the way out, “I mean it, the cupcakes are really good. I’m not just saying that!”
In addition to the West Village space, new locations are also set to open in the Bronx and East Brunswick, New Jersey later this year.
“To me, business is about making friends, not money,” said Mandell. “But you tend to make money when you make friends.”
NEWS
House of Cupcakes Finds a Home in West Village
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 15
15 ways tore-useoldyour newspaper
1 2 3
4 5 6
7
10 11
14 15
12
13
8 9
Use it as wrapping paper, or fold & glue pages into reusable gift bags.
Add shredded newspaper to your compost pile when you need a carbon addition or to keep flies at bay.
Use newspaper strips, water, and a bit of glue for newspaper mâché.
Crumple newspaper to use as packaging material the next time you need to ship something fragile.
Make your own cat litter by shredding newspaper, soaking it in dish detergent & baking soda, and letting it dry.
Stuff newspapers in boots or handbags to help the items keep their shape.
Tightly roll up sheets of newspaper and tie with string to use as fire logs.
Wrap pieces of fruit in newspaper to speed up the ripening process.
Dry out wet shoes by loosening laces & sticking balled newspaper pages inside.
Roll a twice-folded newspaper sheet around a jar, remove the jar, & you have a biodegradable seed-starting pot that can be planted directly into the soil.
Make origami creatures
After your garden plants sprout, place newspaper sheets around them, then water & cover with grass clippings and leaves. This newspaper will keep weeds from growing.
Use shredded newspaper as animal bedding in lieu of sawdust or hay.
Make newspaper airplanes and have a contest in the backyard.
Cut out letters & words to write anonymous letters to friends and family to let them know they are loved.
a public service announcement brought to you by dirt magazine.
DINING
For this Mother’s Day, or even for that perfect spring Sunday aft ernoon, it’s the perfect time to celebrate with brunch. One of the best parts of brunch is
that delicious Bloody Mary. But not all spicy tomato cocktails are created equal. Take mom or your loved ones out for brunch, (even a liquid brunch), to one of these downtown places, where Bloody Marys take on an unusual twist.
At Burger and Barrel, the gastropub at Houston Street and Mercer Street, for instance, take your pick from four Bloody Mary choices including the traditional recipe. But for those looking for something more adventurous, try the Bloody Maria, made with infused tequila. Th e Queen Mary is made with spicy tomato juice, cucumber, gin and garnished with dill and lemon.
But the real draw, according to General Manager Carmelo Pecoraro, is the BBQ Bacon Bloody Mary, made with homemade BBQ sauce, tomato juice and candied bacon. It won fi rst place in the Tito’s Vodka best Bloody Mary competition.
“I feel like everyone likes a Bloody Mary made a certain way,” said Pecoraro. “Th ere’s always a variation on it, and that was the
whole idea, to create something new.”
More recommendations:*Cole’s (Greenwich Ave and Main Street)
— Get a drink and an appetizer all rolled into one with Cole’s “Kitchen Sink” Bloody Mary. Chef Daniel Eardley pickles the green beans for the cocktail, which are thrown into the in-house made Bloody Mary mix, along with caper berries, olives, celery and lemon.
*Sauce (Rivington and Allen Street) — You and your loved ones have a choice of three fresh Bloody Mary concoctions at this farm-to-table mom’s Italian kitchen-esque restaurant. Plus all moms eat for free on Mother’s Day at Sauce! Try the Bloody Mario (made with Grappa Zardetto di Prosecco), Th e Bloody Maria (made with Sauza tequila), and a traditional Bloody Mary made with Tito’s Vodka.
*Colicchio and Sons (10th Avenue Between West 15th and West 16th Streets) — Th e Bloody Verde - You heard that right. It’s green, not red. Th at’s because this Bloody Mary variation, at one of Tom Colicchio’s famous restaurants, is made with green tomatoes, jalapenos, chilis, cilantro and green Tabasco sauce.
Shaking Up an Old Favorite Cocktail: The Bloody Mary
Sauce’s Bloody Mary Bloody Mary MixServes 4-6• 4 cups tomato juice (we use a blend of our passato tomatoes)• 1 to 2 tablespoons Barrel aged Worcestershire sauce• 1 heaping tablespoon prepared horseradish (I prefer fresh)• 1/2 clove roasted garlic, passed through a garlic press or chopped super fi ne• 2 teaspoons coarsely ground pepper• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce or Franks red hot sauce
• 1 oz. castelvetrano olive juice• Juice of 2 limes• 1/4 can of Guinness stout• 20 dashes celery bittersTo Compose:Fill a 10oz glass with ice, add 2 oz. of vodka, grappa or tequila. Add bloody mix. Shake to mix fl avors.In a clean glass, garnish rim with salted fennel pollen (mixture of grey sea salt and fennel pollen), add ice, strain mixed bloody in new glass and garnish glass with peeled celery, olives, lemon and lime.
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PAGE 16 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
DRAW YOUR DAD FOR FATHER’S DAY
June 16, 2013
RULES Winners will be selected by random drawing. Age limit is 15 years. Employees of Straus News and their families are not eligible to win. Deadline: June 3, 2013
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THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 17
CELEBRITY PROFILE
Former New York Times columnist settles down to write a travel memoir
By Angela Barbuti
You know you’re a frugal traveler if you’ve eaten fried spiders in Cambodia,
slept in a Roman convent, and booked a fl ight with Ryan Air. Matt Gross has done all of the above while penning the Frugal Traveler column for the New York Times from 2006-2010. Now, the man who arguably had “the best job in the world,” is sharing his over 30 years of travel in one book, Th e Turk Who Loved Apples. At the moment, his longest journey is from the Times Square offi ce of Bon Appetit, where he serves as their web editor, to the Brooklyn home he shares with his wife and two children. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. When asked about his future plans, he said, “Right now, I have a great job, two kids, and a wife to see all the time. Most people want to be on vacation forever. Th at’s what it feels like right now.”
How did you organize 30 years of travel into one book?
[Laughs] Th at was the tricky part. I have very broad experiences of travel, but not necessarily very deep. Th at is, I’ve been lots of places, but never anywhere for more than about two weeks at a time. And I had to fi gure out some kind of way to tie everything together. I looked at everything I’d done and everything I’d been through and decided that crappy travel [laughs] was the organizing principle. A lot of getting sick, getting lost, being alone, scared, poor and naïve. I started out very innocent to the world and wound up capable of getting dropped off anywhere and getting along.
At the start of your book, you make a bold statement, telling readers that this is the last travel book they will ever need.
Yeah, I would hope so. [Laughs] I like the idea that if someone like me can become a fairly independent traveler and learn to break
free of the guide books and the newspaper and magazine articles that tell you how to travel, then anybody should be able to do it. It’s a very personal book, but if it has an eff ect, I would love for it to give travelers the confi dence to do things on their own.
In your book, you mention websites like couchsurfi ng.com and chowhound.com. In your opinion, what is the best travel site?
Roadsandkingdoms.com is fantastic. It’s full of the quirky and fascinating moments that mean something to travelers. I read it and it makes me want to go places.
At one point, you were spending three to six months a year away from your wife. How does she cope with that?
Pretty well. [Laughs] When I met her, we dated for six weeks and then she moved to France for a year. Th at sort of set up the pattern of our relationship from the very beginning - that we were going to be together and apart all the time. We don’t have the energy to get worked up about issues like that, so we just deal with it. It makes it so that every time you’re together it’s either a happy reunion or you want to make the most of it because you’re going to be going away again.
You are now the editor of bonappetit.com. How did that job come about?
Last August, aft er I fi nished writing the book, I was about to have a second child and realized that it was no longer fair to my wife or me to wonder off for a couple of weeks at a time and leave her in charge of the kids. And I wasn’t making all that much money doing what I was doing. I sent an email out to everyone saying I was looking. Six weeks later I got an email back from a friend in Portland, Oregon, who had put on a big food event with Bon Appetit, saying they were looking for an editor.
Most would be surprised to learn that you were a freelancer when you worked at the Times.
All freelance. You’d have to ask them why that is. [Laughs] But there was never held out the possibility that I’d become a staff er. My last big story, “Lost in Jerusalem,” came out for them in January of 2012. Th en
I sort of hunkered down to write the book and stopped traveling as much. Th at’s how most of their travel writers are. From an economic perspective, it makes sense. Travel stories take a lot of time to research and cost a lot of money to produce. And you can’t get that many big stories out of a person per year.
As the Frugal Traveler, you spent 100 dollars per day.
Long summer trips I would try to keep below 100 dollars a day. A hundred dollars a day was my cap, and I would try to shoot for as far under that as I could. Some people would get mad because I said 100 dollars a day and say, “Th at’s not frugal!”
You got that comment a lot, that you weren’t frugal enough.
Oh, yeah. People would say that all the time. It just depends on your perspective. Some people see “frugal,” and think that’s supposed to
mean you’re backpacking and sleeping in a tent and buying loaves of cheap white bread at the supermarket. But then there are people who are on the other side who think that the kind of travel I was doing was hopelessly impoverished. [Laughs] “How can anyone even fi nd a place to sleep for under 300 dollars a night?”
One interesting story you did involved traveling to Tokyo to write about Ramen. What’s one of your favorite articles?
Oh yeah, that was a great story. A lot of the food stuff I did for the Times was good. I did a story with the headline, “Mangia, Mangia!” about eating in Abruzzo with this program called Home Food, which brings you into regular families’ dining rooms. Th at was amazing.
Where is one place you still haven’t visited that you’d like to someday?
Hmmm. I’d really like to go to New Zealand, but not for any really specifi c reason. I just think I would like it a lot there. [Laughs]
Matt Gross Shares 30 Years of Travel
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PAGE 18 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
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4Add shredded newspaper to your compost pile
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THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013 OUR TOWN DOWNTOWN www.nypress.com PAGE 19
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