PathWay’ to opportunity

‘PathWay ‘ to opportunity BY JEREMY WAYNE

JOE KENNER GREETS ME AT THE DOOR OF THE GREYSTON FOUNDATION’S YONKERS HQ LIKE A HOTEL MANAGER WELCOMING BACK AN ESPECIALLY VALUED GUEST, OR A PASTOR RECEIVING A LONG-ABSENT, ESTEEMED PARISHIONER. TRUTH IS, I’VE NEVER MET THE GUY BEFORE, BUT THAT DOESN’T SUPRESS JOE’S INNATE ENTHUSIASM.

I’m barely inside the door before he ushers me into a conference room — a classroom by any other name, reconfigured for Covid with fewer desks and Perspex screens between them — to talk me through Greyston’s PathWay training programs, its pioneering Open Hiring policy and, well, the whole Greyston story, actually.

Founded by Zen master Bernie Glassman in 1982, Greyston is a social justice enterprise that supports the disenfranchised and those who ordinarily face rejection, by teaching various job skills and offering real job opportunities. And in addressing poverty head-on, Greyston benefits individual lives and communities. No background checks are made; no questions are asked. “If you want to work, we’ll train you,” says Joe, intoning it almost like a mantra.

Greyston offers employment and no-cost development programs entirely free of charge to anyone in need, which means battling against systemic inequities and advocating for a level playing field for all, regardless of their pasts. At the Greyston Bakery, the original core concern, a workforce of around 65 people produces 40,000 pounds of baked goods every day, for companies like Whole Foods and Ben & Jerry’s, giving a whole new meaning to the expression “flour power.”

Back in the conference classroom, an associate spies Joe and rushes over to show him examples of the new certificates, hot off the press, which will be awarded to program graduates. These certificates, or “proclama-

tions,” are beautifully designed, but their worth is far greater than their swirls and curlicues, representing as they do a genuine, nationally recognized qualification — and therefore a passport to a job. “For a lot of people,” says Joe, “this is the first time in their life that someone has really celebrated them.”

PathWay courses usually run two weeks. As long as you will commit to attending from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, explains Joe, then anyone can join, regardless of age or circumstances. And, if after starting, participants find they can’t continue, for whatever reason, then that’s not a problem. “We don’t judge you on the way in and we don’t judge you on the way out,” he elaborates. “Just come back and start again when you’re ready.”

But stay the short course — security guard training, say, or building and construction trades safety, or certification from the National Retail Federation — and your chances of walking out of Greyston and into job will soar. Everything comes with a credential that graduates can take anywhere. “Just give somebody an opportunity. That’s all they need,” Joe reiterates.

Certificates duly admired, we move to the back of the large foyer and sit down to continue talking. Joe, sunny and smiling behind his Greyston-branded mask I sense, looks youthful and spiffy in a navy suit and a pale-blue and white candy-striped shirt. He first came to the nonprofit sector after 15 years on Wall Street, working with names like Chubb Insurance, Lehman Brothers and PepsiCo, serving out his time in corporate America. Then he bailed, acutely aware of the need to “give back.” He was appointed deputy commissioner, Department of Social Services for Westchester County in 2014, before coming to Greyston, in 2018, as vice president of programs and partnerships. Then, eight months ago, he slipped into the CEO’s shoes. Born in Sleepy Hollow (“North Tarrytown, as we called it then,”) now living in Port Chester (where he is a former trustee and deputy mayor of the village,) Kenner is a graduate of Williams College, of the University of Oxford and of Pace University. He is a practicing Christian. All of which serves him in his role at the helm of Greyston.

What’s next for the organization? “My goal is to see Open Hiring replicated wherever we can. We just need to continue to tell the story but tell the story with compelling data.” (Open Hiring, capitalized, and as promulgated by Greyston, is a registered trade name.) A regional hub, in Rochester, New York, is already offering Open Hiring through CleanCraft, a cleaning company owned by Greyston board member, Ty

Altagracia Garcia at work, Greyston Bakery. Photograph by Olivia Halligan. Hookway, and other companies and major businesses in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California have joined the march. The Body Shop, whose American headquarters is in North Carolina, has extended opportunities to 500 people, implementing Open Hiring in its retail stores across the U.S.A. and Canada this season. As a result, productivity “has gone through the roof.”

And it’s not just national, but international. “We work with a foundation called “Start” in the Netherlands, who are taking a similar approach to us,” Joe says, adding that “13 different companies in Amsterdam are doing Open Hiring as we speak, ranging from manufacturers to bakers.”

Wherever Open Hiring is practised, local nonprofits are needed to provide all of the necessary support services. These, it quickly becomes clear, are key, because you can’t begin to train and employ people without addressing all sorts of wider issues, such as housing, health, childcare, drug dependency, parole — all of the challenges, whatever they might be, that could prevent a willing applicant or employee from showing up for work. In Yonkers, Joe says, the Westchester Jewish Community Services organization (WJCS) has proved a terrific nonprofit support partner.

As for the compelling data, “we’re unlocking a lot of economic potential.” His mission is to prove that Open Hiring means higher profitability and massive savings in public assistance money (emergency housing, hunger alleviation, correctional costs and the like,) while the income that’s generated will at some point be taxable. This all contributes to a healthy economy, a total winwin situation for the employer, the state, the community and most important, the individual.

“It works. We know it works,” Joe adds, “because Greyston has been doing it for 40 years.” And with that the interview is over, though not, I hope, my association with this compassionate, forward-thinking and ever so gracious Greyston CEO.

A VIRTUAL FEAST

Best-selling author, founder of The Chef Jeff Project Relaunch, and someone who embodies Greyston’s mission, Las Vegas celebrity chef Jeff Henderson is hosting a virtual holiday cooking demonstration to benefit Greyston’s PathMaking programs. You’re invited to tune in on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. when Chef Jeff will introduce you to his family’s traditional cornbread dressing as well as a delicious dessert featuring Greyston brownies and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream — two treats that are even better together. He’ll also share his thoughts on eating well, giving thanks, and supporting Greyston’s tireless efforts to build a more inclusive economy, one person and one job at a time. For more, visit greyston.org. To shop Greyston Bakery’s amazing brownies online, visit greystonbakery.com.

1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, exterior. Courtesy 1 Hotels.

Checking in, gratefully

BY JEREMY WAYNE

IN NEW YORK CITY, RESTAURANTS ARE SERVING INDOORS ONCE AGAIN, MUSEUMS ARE SLOWLY RAISING THEIR SHUTTERS AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY IS IN A STAGED REOPENING – SURELY A BELLWETHER OF BETTER TIMES TO COME.

And while many of the city’s celebrated, big-name luxury hotels remain closed, because tourists have not yet returned in sufficient numbers, others are cautiously starting to open their doors. With the holidays just around the corner, this is traditionally the busiest time of year for the hospitality industry and establishments are desperately hoping to salvage what they can from the wreck of 2020.

If you’re facing the holidays at home, unable or unwilling to travel far afield this year, why not consider a city break? Goodness knows, the city needs you. And in return, with all due caution exercised, it will give you something that it never could before — space. Space to walk, space to breathe, even space when standing on line — since you will be socially distanced, naturally.

Gratitude is a two-way street and your custom will be appreciated as never before. Even before the pandemic, many hotels were giving back, thinking about the wider community along with their guests. Now comes your opportunity to give your valuable business to a hotel, or hotel group, with a sense of civic responsibility. What goes around comes around, after all.

The Blond at 11 Howard. Courtesy 11 Howard.

You might start with Marriott. This is currently the largest hotel group in the world, the operator of luxury brands including Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis and Luxury Collection. Working with humanitarian relief agencies like the American Red Cross, Children’s Miracle Network and World Central Kitchen, as well as sustainable foundations worldwide, this behemoth has certainly embraced giving back, and bucks spent at Marriott establishments can filter down to benefit all manner of good causes. Rates at its luxury Manhattan properties, like the JW Marriott Essex House on Central Park South, or Le Meridien, are something of a steal right now, while at the budget end, Marriott’s too-cool-for school Moxy brand (with four Manhattan hotels and counting) has rooms going in its Chelsea locale — entered Narnia-like through a flower shop — for little more than $100. Rude not to, as the saying goes.

Marriott guests can also contribute to the group’s affiliated charities directly, by donating their Bonvoy loyalty program points, a truly generous thing to do in the season of giving back.

Saving money while doing good is always an appealing proposition. “The future of the world and the future of hospitality are one and the same,” says the prescient Barry Sternlicht, co-founder of Starwood Capital Group and one of the most gifted, forward-thinking hoteliers on the domestic and international stage. I wrote about his terrific property, 1 Hotel South Beach, wagmag.com/cool-comfort/ in these pages last year, but 1 Hotels have properties right here in New York also. 1 Hotel Central Park and 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge are currently open, and both extend excellent Covid protocols, such as sanitizing guest luggage using UV technology on arrival, and keeping rooms unoccupied for a minimum of 24 hours between guests.

What’s more, 1 Hotels’ commitment to environmentally responsible hospitality is utterly in earnest and goes far beyond virtue signalling. In other words, these guys are determined to make a difference, as evidenced by their partnerships with associations like the National Defenses Resource Council (NRDC,) Oceanic Global and E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), the last an organization founded on the principal that what is good for the environment is good for the economy. Add to this their work with City Meals on Wheels (serving the homebound elderly in New York), the New York Restoration Project — creating and maintaining beautiful public spaces in New York City — and the Central Park Conservancy, and you’ll surely agree that staying at a 1 Hotel has benefits. Having regard for the planet and doing good locally, while simultaneously having fun and enjoying the perks of a stylish city hotel are now entirely compatible.

Although currently closed, one further property to tell you about is the exceptional 11 Howard, a luxury hotel in SoHo, whose guiding principal is “Conscious Hospitality.” No empty slogan, this caption describes how every aspect of the hotel — from concept to design to how it conducts its daily business — has been sensitively thought out, going beyond the usual considerations of turning a profit. Partnering with concerns such as Thrive Market and Lauren Bush’s FEED initiative, and engaging with Conscious Commerce to ensuring that goods offered in the hotel are “consciously” conceived, this good ethical practice spreads out to the wider community. And in more pragmatic terms, for all reservations made directly with the hotel, a portion of the rate is donated to charity.

Of course, all of this would count not a jot if the saintly hotel in question were not an oasis of comfort, with good accommodations, a great restaurant and bar and attentive service, but happily 11 Howard has all of the above. Simpatico staff — check. Exceptional Danish minimalist design — check. Wonderful restaurant (that would be Le Coucou,) and cool, clubby bar (that would be The Blond) — check. The hotel is an object lesson in good taste and good living. And it should go straight into your contacts for places to stay or recommend to visitors to New York, when it reopens — with luck — in the spring.

For more, visit marriott.com, 1hotels. com and 11howard.com.

Gimme ‘Shelter‘

BY GREGG SHAPIRO

NOW, MORE THAN EVER, WE NEED A REASON TO LAUGH. FORTUNATELY, WRITER DAVID LEAVITT HAS RETURNED WITH HIS FIRST NOVEL IN SEVEN YEARS. A THOROUGHLY MODERN COMEDY OF MANNERS, “SHELTER IN PLACE” (BLOOMSBURY,$27, 384 PAGES) IS BOTH ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR AS WELL AS THE MOST HUMOROUS. SET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, LEAVITT INTRODUCES US TO HIS FABULOUS AND EXPANSIVE CAST OF CHARACTERS, INCLUDING HUSBAND AND WIFE BRUCE AND EVA, EVA’S BEST GAL-PAL MIN, INTERIOR DECORATOR JAKE, EVA AND BRUCE’S ANTAGONISTIC NEIGHBOR ALEC, BRUCE’S SECRETARY KATHY AND JAKE’S MENTOR PABLO, JUST TO MENTION A FEW. EVA AND BRUCE ARE THE NOVEL’S NUCLEUS, AROUND WHICH THE OTHER CHARACTERS REVOLVE. SHE IS SO DESPERATE TO GET AWAY FOLLOWING THE CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE ELECTION THAT SHE IS WILLING TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY FOR VENICE. BRUCE, A FINANCIAL MASTERMIND, IS WILLING TO DO ANYTHING TO KEEP HER HAPPY. LEAVITT, RECOVERING FROM AN UNEXPECTED HOSPITALIZATION FOR AN APPENDECTOMY, WAS GENEROUS ENOUGH TO TAKE TIME OUT OF HIS CONVALESCENCE TO ANSWER A FEW QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK:

David, did you know when you first started writing your new novel “Shelter in Place” that it would take such a humorous direction?

“Various people have told me they have found it really funny. I think it’s revealing of me that I thought of it as a comedy, but I never realized it was actually funny. I was actually happy to hear that.”

I’m glad you said that because I’ve been describing “Shelter in Place” to people as a 21st century comedy of manners on par with predecessors such as Noel Coward and Joe Keenan.

“Oh, Joe Keenan. I'm so glad you mentioned him. I loved those books. He wrote those great novels ‘Putting On the Ritz’ and ‘Blue Heaven.’ They were among the funniest books I have read. Then when he went to the dark side — Hollywood -- and he was writing for “Frasier,” I had a little bit of correspondence with him in which I think I said that I hoped he would write more books. It's so funny that you mentioned him. Noel Coward was absolutely on my mind, but I must have had Joe Keenan in my subconscious. You're a very good reader. I had not put that together.”

Did the inspired and timely title of the novel come before or after the pandemic?

“It came in November. I cannot claim credit for it. We had been having a very hard time with the title and it was my editor, Anton Mueller at Bloomsbury (who suggested it). He and I were having a lot of conversations about the fact that all the titles I was coming up with had to do with time. We both felt that the title needed to be about place. One day he called me up and said, ‘I have an idea for a title. I don't know what you're going to think of it,’ and he said ‘Shelter In Place.’ At that point, back in November I associated that with earthquake drills. I loved it and I thought it was a great title. There was a little bit of a hesitancy on the part of the marketing people — this is hilarious — that readers would not be familiar enough with the phrase. Little did any of us even begin to know. I think it was a bit of prescience, not on my part, on his part.”

In addition to the political themes threaded throughout the book, there are various insights into the world of interior decorating and decorators. Can you please say something about your interest in design and interiors and how much research was involved?

“I have always been sort of a touristic aficionado of interior design. The World of Interiors is my favorite magazine in the world. In fact, this summer, the postal issues and the delays in getting my issue from England have been a minor cause of stress. I’d always been very interested in interior decoration. My husband has a really good eye. He has that ability to take two or three things that I wouldn't recognize as going together and see how they go together. My interest evolved through two sources. I was doing a lot of research at a certain point on Jean-Michel Frank. He was a French furniture designer and interior decorator whose heyday was the ’20s and ‘30s. He was a cousin of Anne Frank’s. He lived in Paris. Now, his furniture is enormously expensive. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé had a bunch of (his) pieces.

“He had a very tragic life. He suffered from acute depression. He eventually left Paris in 1940 — all of this material mostly ended up in my novel “The Two Hotel Francforts.” He couldn't get a visa to the States, so he went initially to Buenos Aires and had a brief career there. Then went to New York. He had an American lover who had essentially ended the relationship, and he was pursuing him. Jean-Michel Frank ended up committing suicide in March of 1941.

“Through my fascination with Jean-Michel Frank and his extraordinary story, I

David Leavitt. Photograph copyright Basso Cannarsa.

met a guy named Mitchell Owens who was then at Elle Décor and has now been, maybe for the last 10 years, at Architectural Digest. Mitch became a close friend of mine and my sort of window into the world of interior decorating and shelter magazines and all that. I was in regular touch with him. I would see him sometimes when I went up to New York. I was interested in the subject from a couple of perspectives. One was the whole question of where do you draw the line between an art and a trade. Which is something writers think about as well. It's a much more complicated question when your art is one that requires rich clients. I had some fragments, dating back to as far as 2009, about the relationship between interior decorators, most of whom are gay males, and their clients, who are mostly women, and the sort of strange psychology and the sense of almost a second marriage.”

A codependent relationship.

“Exactly. In its earlier incarnations, the novel was in first person, Jake was the narrator, and it was very much focused on that. As it evolved, and it evolved because of the election of Trump, I always knew it was going to have to take place after a Republican election. Originally, I thought maybe after the Reagan election, then maybe after Bush two in 2000. But finally I realized this idea of wanting to flee and create a kind of a jewel box panic room in another country. I was thinking about Trump. I was obviously projecting all my own fears. That led me into the difficult question of how to write about the impact of politics on contemporary life without the book either becoming incredibly depressing or a kind of ‘political novel,’ which isn't what I wanted it to be. It gradually seemed to me that the way to do it was comedy.”

You said something earlier about being a magazine reader and magazine publishing is sweetly skewered in the book, never

more so than when Min begins a sentence “When I was at Mademoiselle …” or “When I was at Town & Country…” Do you think magazine readers are affected by the revolving door of writers and editors?

“The only magazines I subscribe to, aside from the London Review of Books, which is the outlier, are Architectural Digest, AD as it’s now called, and I get The World of Interiors and… House & Garden. I have been comparing, every month, the size of the issues. Britain still has a thriving print magazine industry as evidenced by the fact that their issues remain pretty thick. If you look at Architectural Digest, the most recent issues, they are like 50 pages.”

It’s that thin now?

“They’re so thin. All the priority at Condé Nast, from what I’m being told, is being shifted to the websites and the online material. I think the print magazine, even in areas where beautiful images are very important, is a dying medium in the United States. Maybe it'll revive. I think it's very sad that that's happening. But at the same time I think there is a real ferocious belief in print. I agree with that. Now that Netflix has the power to pull movies or episodes of shows (out of rotation), I'm grateful that I have my old DVDs. I can imagine a future where if everything is electronic there's no permanent record that can be consulted, like in an archive.

“Also, it's just a reflection of my own experience. I know so many Mins. It seems to me, in the magazine industry, particularly when it was doing better, nobody ever kept a job for very long. Inevitably, when a magazine got a new editor, if you paid attention to the masthead you would see, ‘Oh, that was the former editor of X.’ I think editors determine the tone or the voice of the magazine. One reason I think “The New Yorker” is the exception to the rule is because it's had so few editors. David Remnick's been there forever, so there's a certain consistency. Whether it's good or not is another question, but at least it's consistent.”

Dogs are also very much a part of the cast of characters, Bruce and Eva’s Bedlington Terriers Caspar, Isabel and Ralphie, and Alec’s Sparky. Do you consider yourself to be a dog person?

“Oh, totally. I have a Bedlington Terrier. I only have one. But those three dogs are based on my dog, who is the same breed. I don't ever want to write another novel that does not have a dog in it. “

Writers also don’t escape the wrath of some of the characters. Does Lydia Davis know she’s a character in the book?

“I haven't told her. I don't know her very well. That reading was actually based on a reading by my friend Rachel Cusk that was at Greenlight Books. I attended that reading, so a lot of the detail for that scene came from Rachel’s reading. But I have heard Lydia read. I suppose what I was mostly interested in doing there was sending some nonliterary people to hear a sort of super-literary, super-refined writer whose audience is almost exclusively other writers. The idea of having someone like Bruce, who doesn't really know very much, hearing Lydia Davis, seemed to me to have a lot of comic potential. One of my favorite lines is Bruce's description of her stories being like things you hear people saying into their cell phones on the subway. That was an opportunity for me to create some comedy. At the same time, I don't think there's anything in it that Lydia would be offended by.”

“Shelter in Place” is extremely cinematic. If there was a movie version, who would you like to see as Jake, Eva, Bruce and Min?

“Oddly enough for me, I haven't thought about it that much. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking Nicole Kidman could be a good Eva. But I really do need to think about that. It's funny, because I usually cast my novels, but I haven’t with this one. That that will be something for me to do during my convalescence.”

For many authors, book tours appear to be on hold for the near future. Do you have plans for virtual events?

“I'm doing a number of them. They haven't been scheduled yet. I know I'm doing one at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. I'm doing one at a bookstore in San Francisco and one in Saint Paul. There should be more, including one in New York, as we continue. I keep meaning to put it on my own website, but it was one of the many things that I was completely waylaid from doing by this unexpected descent into the weirdness of hospitals in the age of Covid.”

For more, visit davidleavittwriter.com.