Urban Agenda New York City, March 2014

The Dakota

Christy Turlington Burns and “Every Mother Counts” • Tribeca Film Festival • Being Esther Dyson • NYC Tea Rooms • New York Botanical Garden • Lincoln Center has a New Leader and a New Look • Destination: Jersey Shore March/April 2014

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At the Dakota, Celebrities and Ghosts Mingle By i lene duB e

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Five Cups of Tea

THE TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

By jami e saxon

“NEW” NEW YORK IN OLD NEW YORK

BY JUDITH

ZINIS

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The Tribeca Film Festival By judi th zi ni s

(LEFT TO RIGHT): Clint Eastwood and Darren Aronofsky attend Tribeca Talks Directors Series. Ethan Hawke attends World Premiere of Before Midnight. Actor Robert De Niro attends the Mistaken for Strangers premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last April 2013.

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ho needs another film festival?” film producer Jane Rosenthal asked herself in 2001 when she and Robert de Niro were considering a film festival in their neighborhood of Tribeca.

One year later, they launched the Tribeca Film Festival. The festival was created to support and develop Tribeca after the devastation of 9/11 described in 2001 as a “ghost town” by the New York Times. According to Martin Scorsese, one of the festival’s early supporters, the festival was developed in four months. Twelve years later, it draws thousands of filmgoers and offers a broad category of films and events as well as an opportunity to explore the neighborhood.

In 2002, 1300 films were submitted; last year the number grew to over 6000 and range from studio to independent films, from feature length to shorts. The films are shown over a ten day period, this year from April 16 to 27.

International films that audiences might not have a chance to see elsewhere are also an important part of the schedule as are documentaries. In addition, many of these films first seen at the festival have gone on to win important awards. For example, the Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy film, Before Midnight shown at last year’s festival has been nominated for an Oscar.

Moms Mabley: I Got Somethin’ to Tell You directed by Whoopi Goldberg was introduced at last year’s festival and is now shown on HBO. Awards are part of the festival and are given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Short to name a few. Last year, the Best New Narrative Director Award went to Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais for the film Whitewash, a comedy set in northern Quebec. Documentaries can range from an exploration of Bernie Madoff to an examination of the Gucci fashion house.

In 2013, Sean Dunne’s Oxyana, won the Best New Documentary Director award. It focuses on the epidemic abuse of OxyContin in a small town in West Virginia. There is even a category for Best Online Feature. The festival provides an opportunity to see excellent films unlikely to be found on the big screen.

Two weeks or two days at the festival can be an educational experience tantamount to a mini film class. Besides showcasing films, the festival offers direct access to filmmakers, actors, and writers through the series, Tribeca Talks. Directors such as Clint Eastwood and Ben Stiller are placed in conversation with other directors. Eastwood spoke with filmmaker Darren Aronosky, who directed Black Swan. “After the Movies” where the film’s director discusses his or her film is another opportunity to interact with filmmakers. In addition, there are talks that address the film industry as well as the creative process. Last year at a Tribeca Talks, director Paul Verhoeven

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(Total Recall, Basic Instinct) provided the first four minutes of a script and had the audience attempt to complete the story.

For pure entertainment, Tribeca Drive-In screens films such as Beetlejuice and The Birds outdoors at Brookfield Place (World Financial Center Plaza). In addition, there’s the Tribeca Film Festival Family Street Fair. Several streets are closed to traffic and various activities are offered that any family member might enjoy: kite flying, cooking demonstrations, arts and crafts, and even dancing. This year’s street fair occurs on April 26 on the last weekend of the festival. Another event is the Games for Change Festival which focuses on games for social good. As a result, a Games for Change arcade is open to the public with a Games for Change arcade.

Not only is the Tribeca Film Festival worth seeing, the neighborhood is worth exploring. Tribeca, which refers to the “triangle below Canal Street,” is bordered by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway and Vesey Street with half the area designated as historic districts. The neighborhood may be the most expensive zip code in Manhattan; however, a visitor will find “old” New York in “new” New York. Unlike Soho, which is a tangle of narrow streets packed with stores, galleries, and restaurants, Tribeca maintains ties to its industrial past.

The streets are wide, sometimes cobblestoned, and above the restaurants, galleries and stores, 19 and early 20 century architecture fill the eye. The James White Building on the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street made of cast iron and built in 1881 is worth a look. A sign on the side of the building advertises the Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. Not far away on Hudson Street is the Powell Building, a Renaissance revival in brick and terracotta. A link to Tribeca’s industrial past is the former New York Mercantile Exchange from 1886, a gabled brick building at 6 Harrison Street. Film and architecture come together at the Hook & Ladder Company No.8 at 14 North Moore Street where Ghostbusters was filmed.

Tribeca has been reclaimed but not dominated by gentrification, so a visitor can enjoy the modern amenities but still feel like a local. Grab a coffee and take a stroll around the neighborhood. Good coffee can be found at Blue Spoon Coffee Company, La Colombe, or Laughing Man Coffee and Tea. Lower Manhattan has a long history of embracing artists and Tribeca has its number of interesting art galleries. Located in the Pearline Soap Factory at is the Tachi Gallery showcasing modern and contemporary art. Five or six blocks over is Apexart, a non-profit visual arts organization. On Franklin Street, R & Company exhibits finely crafted museum quality designs from furniture to jewelry to pieces of sculpture.

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B eing Esther Dyson By ellen gi lBert

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Christy Turlington Burns and “Every Mother Counts” By lynn adams smi th

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Lincoln Center has a New Leader and a New Look By anne levi n

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A Tropical Paradise in the Bronx

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By ellen gi lBert

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Destination: Jersey Shore By taylor s mi th

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Calendar 18 Cover Photo: “The Dakota” New York City, by Simon Fieldhouse.

A r tis t S i m o n Fi e l d h o u s e lives a n d wo r k s in Sy dn ey, Aust r alia and s p e c ia li z e s i n p ai n t i n g s o f h ist o r ic a r ch it ec t ur e. w w w. s im o n f i e l d h o u s e. c o m

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Real Estate: Recently Sold in the Northeast

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At the Dakota,

Celebrities and Ghosts Mingle

BY ILENE DUBE

When Roman Polanski needed a building in which to set the satanic cults and witchcraft of the 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby, he chose the Dakota, at the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West. With its profusion of Gothic dormers and high gables, terracotta spandrels and balconies, it suggested hidden passageways to the occult.

(OPPOSITE) Mia Farrow running down a hallway at the Dakota on Central Park West, New York, in the film Rosemary’s Baby, 1968.

(ABOVE) Detail of the Dakota building, images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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he Dakota also had a role in the 2001 Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. Protagonist David Aames, played by Tom Cruise, owns two apartments in the Dakota, elegantly outfitted with high-tech equipment and collectibles. And in Time and Again, the 1970 time-travel novel by Jack Finney, the protagonist visits the Dakota to conjure the year 1882.

Most know of the Dakota as the home of Yoko Ono, and the place where John Lennon was gunned down 33 years ago—the Strawberry Fields Memorial is just across the street in Central Park.

So how is it that a building so famous in movies, books and pop culture is shrouded in secrecy? When I phoned property manager Douglas Elliman and asked for stories about the Dakota, he wasted no time. “Absolutely not,” he said and slammed down the phone. Residents spending tens of millions on an apartment deserve privacy.

Lauren Bacall, Jason Robards, Leonard Bernstein, Lillian Gish, Rosemary Clooney, Roberta Flack, Jose Ferrer, Boris Karloff, Judy Garland, Rudolf Nureyev, Gilda Radner—these are just some of the celebs who have called the Dakota home ... or second or third home.

But star status is no guarantee of getting in. The persnickety coop board has denied residency to an equally impressive list: Billy Joel, Carly Simon, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Cher, Madonna, Judd Apatow and Téa Leoni.

The most expensive Dakota apartment—the asking price was $25.5 million, although it sold for $21 million—was the second-floor unit where Leonard and Felicia Bernstein lived. With four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a great room with wood fireplace and park views, library, formal dining room, and a kitchen with breakfast room, it featured both original and restored window details.

Nureyev’s ornate gilded apartment was dubbed “The Nutcracker Suite.”

Lauren Bacall paid $48,000 in 1961 for a cavernous upper-floor apartment, with views overlooking Central Park. She sold all her stocks to buy it, and calls it the only smart financial move she ever made. Signed photos of Robert Benchley, Noël Coward, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, John Gielgud and Truman Capote line a wall of her parlor, according to an account in Vanity Fair.

To live in the Dakota, you must follow the rules: chauffeurs are prohibited from loitering in the lobby or distracting the doormen. Residents may use only firewood provided by the building, and they must take their luggage through the service entrance. Domestic employees, messengers and trades people are required to use service elevators, and childcare providers and “nurses/ companions” can only use passenger elevators when accompanying clients.

When hot dog vendors began showing up on 72nd Street in front of the building, staff made a call and police moved the vendors down the block.

The Dakota takes its historical relevance seriously; it has an aesthetics committee to review and approve renovation plans and tour each apartment before and after any work is done. No original fixtures may be removed.

New York’s most exclusive building was completed in 1884 in what was then a developing region of Manhattan. Elevated trains were running up Columbus Avenue, the Museum of Natural History was not far away, row houses were under construction, and Central Park had become a major tourist attraction. Edward Clark, who headed the Singer Sewing Machine Company, commissioned the architectural firm of Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, which also designed the Plaza Hotel and the Waldorf-Astoria (demolished in 1929 to make way for the Empire State Building).

Clark came up with the name Dakota because he was fond of new western territories. A Dakota Indian looks out from above the 72nd Street entrance.

With its grandiose gables and courtyard, the Dakota may seem one-of-a-kind, but Clark and Hardenbergh had already built a similar structure five years earlier, the Van Corlear on Seventh Avenue from 55th to 56th streets. That 36unit “French flat” survived until 1925.

On the Dakota, Hardenbergh and Clark spent $25,000 per unit, as opposed to about $8,000 at the Van Corlear, according to Christopher Gray in The New York Times. There was no dearth of bathrooms; each apartment had as many as four. “Nor did they suffer with a defect peculiar to the Van Corlear, whose courtyard had been used as an entrance for clattering grocer’s wagons and ice deliverers. At the Dakota the courtyard was for residents only. Deliveries were made in a below-grade turnaround, just under the courtyard.”

Even before the Dakota, Clark had been developing the Upper West Side.

He’d built row houses on West 73rd Street, also designed by Hardenbergh, and had a vision for the neighborhood—the boilers of the Dakota also heated the 73rd Street houses. The property west of the Dakota was, for more than half a century, the Dakota gardens—with the boilers underground.

Designated a New York City landmark in 1969 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, the square building is designed around a central courtyard. Its look was influenced by an amalgam of German Gothic, French Renaissance and English Victorian styles. Some of the rooms are nearly 50-feet long, with 14-foot high ceilings. Built for those with means— it was the fashionable place for New York’s high society to live—the Dakota

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono in front of the Dakota, copyright © Allan Tannenbaum.

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Edward C. Clark 1811 – 1882

Henry Janeway Hardenbergh 1847 - 1918

View of the Dakota from Central Park in the 1880’s. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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(ABOVE AND BOTTOM-RIGHT) Detail photograph of the Dakota, images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

featured amenities and a modern infrastructure considered exceptional at the time, with a large dining hall and dumbwaiters that could send meals up to the apartments. There was a playroom and a gymnasium, a garden, private croquet lawns and tennis courts. Some of these recreational spaces have since been converted to apartment space.

With ceilings of hand-carved oak and flooring inlaid with marble, mahogany, oak and cherry, all 65 apartments were let before the building even opened.

Edward Clark wanted an apartment house that would be run like a hotel. In the early years, the Dakota had 150 employees: elevator staff, doormen, janitors, porters, watchmen, resident housekeepers, resident maids and laundresses.

Clark died in 1882 before the edifice was completed. Had he lived his own apartment on the sixth floor would have had floor-to-ceiling windows and a ballroom-size drawing room (24-by-49 feet). His son, Alfred Corning Clark, continued the project and also built the Dakota Stables on the south block of 75th between Amsterdam and Broadway. This Romanesque-style threestory structure of brick and brownstone with a mansard roof had 145 stalls for horses and served as a club and office for coachmen and grooms. Edward Clark’s grandson, Frederick Ambrose Clark, sustained his grandfather’s vision in what was the golden age of the Upper West Side.

“Although its situation seemed enviable—the peace and quiet, the unobstructed light, the country air, the boundless vista—many New Yorkers thought the view to a vast greensward was a lonely prospect,” wrote Elizabeth Hawes in New York, New York, How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City (1869-1930). “It was a daring building and a daring venture.”

The influential mid-century designer Ward Bennett lived in an apartment created in 1962 from a warren of maids’ rooms tucked under the rooftop gables. It was legendary in the world of New York interiors, and in the news every time he redecorated it. In 1964 George O’Brien, who reported on home furnishings in The New York Times Magazine, called it ‘’the most exciting modern apartment in New York.’’

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Lennon and Ono moved from a loft on Bank Street to the Dakota in 1973, taking up residence on the seventh floor and acquiring more space over time.

They could often be heard rehearsing (although house rules stipulate no rehearsing at night). Sean was born in 1975, and John developed a reputation as a protective father.

Roberta Flack told The New York Times the Lennon apartment was uncluttered and tasteful, but in Life at the Dakota: New York’s Most Unusual Address (1979), author Stephen Birmingham found the Lennon apartment “wasn’t particularly stylish.”

The Lennons expanded beyond their two seventh-floor apartments, buying three more for storage, a studio for Ono and a guest suite. Annie Leibovitz’s famous Rolling Stone cover of a naked John Lennon embracing Yoko Ono was shot in Lennon and Ono’s apartment just hours before Lennon’s murder.

As the Dakota ages, so do its residents, and a $10,000 ramp was recently added to improve elevator access for, among others, Bacall, 88, who fell and broke her hip in 2011.

Just as with any old building, the Dakota has its ghosts—and not just Lennon’s, or echoes of Rosemary’s Baby. Several workers and visitors have reported sightings of a little girl in 19th-century garb and a 10-year-old boy dressed like Buster Brown. But for most of us, who will never get inside, there’s nothing to be spooked by.

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Five Cups of Tea

BY JAMIE SAXON | PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID KELLY CROW

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here is a certain poetry, an unspoken connection to a deep source of quiet, in wrapping your hands around a cup of hot tea, watching the swell of silent steam swirl skyward, and inhaling the scent of steeping tea leaves—with a clean bite of citrus, a secret whisper of fragrant floral, the earthy green breath of herbs, or the arranged marriage of pungent spices.

In New York, a midwinter tea crawl can satisfy every palate and sensibility—from armchair traveler to bar lizard, from minimalist to homesick New Englander. Let’s say the temperature has dipped below freezing, your feet hurt from walking for blocks, and your arms are groaning from the weight of your post-holiday sales stash. What you need is a cuppa—the balm for all pains, physical and emotional, real or imagined—as Mrs. Hughes of Downton Abbey might say.

At Tea and Sympathy (110 Greenwich Avenue in the West Village between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, across from Jane Street), you can have your fill of bangers and mash and a nice cuppa, while enjoying all the photos of the royals on the wall and the smashing accents of the staff. Feel free to check whatkatewore.com (my go-to site for all things Kate Middleton) to get in the mood.

Owner Nicky Perry, a high-spirited Londoner with masses of enviable curls, landed stateside in 1981, started working in restaurants, quickly fell in with the British music crowd, and one night found herself at a party talking to Kate Pierson of the B52s. “She said there was no place in New York to get a good cup of tea,” Perry said. “I had the idea in my head for 12 years.”

(OPPOSITE) Teapots stand at attention in the store at Tea & Sympathy. (BELOW) Owner Nicky Perry surrounded by sweets and comestibles from her native England.

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Asian tearoom/bookstore Radiance Tea offers tea lovers like Jorge Chatey and Grettel J. Singer a peaceful oasis in the theater district.

n a Saturday afternoon just before Christmas, I found Perry knee deep in boxes of Wilken & Sons jam, tins of Christmas pudding, and Nestlé Milkybars next door at the Tea and Sympathy store. Floor to ceiling shelves groaned with all manner of beloved British pantry staples (Bachelors Mushy Peas, McVitie’s digestive biscuits, Bisto beef gravy granules— really!) and all the sweets and comestibles you’d expect in a hamper delivered to some knock-kneed, freckle-faced choir boy or greatgreat-granddaughter of an earl at boarding school.

“Right after Christmas the cupboards are bare, just like old Mother Hubbard,” Perry says. As for her own go-to junk food, it’s Cadbury’s chocolate fingers. Wielding a three-foot-long holiday box of them, she says: “I’ve got these all over my house.”

Her husband, Sean Kavanagh Dowsett, was a Tea and Sympathy customer.

The couple now run the café and store together.

Inside the cozy tearoom, tiny tables are squeezed together but nobody seems to mind. Plates are filled with British comfort food—Heinz baked beans on toast, cottage pie, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, sausage rolls, sticky toffee pudding, and scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. The tea arrives in quirky pots from Perry’s vast collection, served properly of course, the teacups saddled with a metal tea strainer.

Just don’t ask Perry about the day Princess Diana walked past her on the sidewalk in London and smiled at her. The memory brings tears to her eyes.

Like Perry, Dawn Cameron, owner of the zen-like, sleek but unpretentious Sanctuary T (3378 West Broadway, corner of Grand Street), hatched her teashop idea because of something she couldn’t find in New York—a simple good glass of iced tea.

“I am from the South where ‘sweet or unsweet?’ was the only question one was asked when one ordered tea,” Cameron says. “It was always assumed to be iced unless you specified hot tea.”

While working long hours in finance, first at Lazard and then at a family investment fund, and living in a tiny, dark studio apartment, Cameron began to daydream about a place like Sanctuary T. “I associate tea with comfort, warmth and familiarity, but I also drink it when I need to think, to stay awake, to focus or to face the day.”

As Cameron drew up her business plan, she visited every teashop in New

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York as well as several other cities. “I found them to either be overly snobby or overly pedestrian,” Cameron says. “I wanted to create a refuge from the intensity of New York City.”

The menu by executive chef Donovan Tian is innovative, rustic and healthconscious with appetizers such as house-made burrata crostino with heirloom cherry tomatoes and entrees such as miso-marinated salmon with lemon pilaf and sweet and spicy Brussels sprouts.

The extensive tea menu includes gems such as flowering teas (I tried the jasmine white lily), which arrive in a large wine glass with a little blob floating in it that is actually tea tied with string around a flower; the hot water opens it up.

Bestsellers include Hugs & Kisses, ginger peach-flavored green tea; Geisha Beauty, peach black tea; Spring Harvest, passion fruit green tea; Serenity, an herbal blend, and Energy.

As I sink my teeth into the wickedly delicious cauliflower steak appetizer (broiled and served with a caper gremolata) and sip cranberry acai tea, I watch as manager East Lee—think style guru Carson Kressley’s personality garnished with the good looks of Hawaii Five-O star Daniel Dae Kim Lee—put together a custom gift box for a woman who said her brother was a tea snob.

Undaunted, Lee deftly marches his fingers through a Rolodex of tea choices and tucked tins of teas and tea-infused culinary seasonings into the box.

Sanctuary T’s full bar serves cocktails such as the Earl Grey tea martini and the mean green margarita, which is made with green tea and jalapeno-infused tequila and gets its green color from matcha powder.

In the theater district, Radiance Tea (158 West 55th St. between Sixth and Seventh avenues, across from City Center) is an oasis of calm. I slip past throngs of tween girls—pressed against the roped barriers outside a stage door, waiting for a glimpse of One Direction, in town as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live—and escape up a flight of stairs to the spacious tearoom.

Radiance is part Asian tearoom, part bookshop with a remarkable range of books about China and Japan—travel, memoirs, children’s books, history, music, flowers, and of course, tea.

I strike up a conversation with the couple beside me. Grettel Singer, a writer and self-described tea connoisseur, has taken tea tours all over the world from Paris and Rome to Rio de Janeiro. She has visited just about every tea place in New York and makes sure I know about Podunk in the East Village (more on

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(CloCkwise from bottom left): the burrata crostino at sanctuary t; server kortnee leigh at sanctuary t; imported teas for sale at mariebelle; the café at mariebelle.

that later); Ten Re Tea (75 Mott Street), which she claims is the best teashop in Chinatown; Cha-An (239 East Ninth Street), an authentic Japanese tea house; and for families, Alice’s Tea Cup (102 West 73rd Street, 156 E. 64th Street; and 220 East 81st Street), “the bastion of all things pink and baked,” according to the Village Voice, in an Alice in Wonderland setting.

Singer and her companion are enjoying a pot of Big Red Roke tea. The tea menu, which is the length of a small novella and reads like a sommelier talks, describes Big Red Roke as “the King of Tea, a small annual yield makes it one of the most sought after and expensive teas; features a long-lasting sweet taste with roasty (sic) and floral aroma.”

I settle on the Golden Monkey, a Chinese black tea: “This legendary top 10 Chinese tea is one of the finest from the Fujian province. A smooth tea, rich with complex cocoa undertones, low in astringent yet rich in flavor.”

So, what if someone in your party doesn’t actually like tea? At MarieBelle (484 Broome St. between Wooster St. and West Broadway), you can choose from several elegantly titled teas—Autumn Tapestry Roibos Red, Royal English Breakfast, Blooming Heavens Chinese Flower, Dark Obsession chocolate rose, Love’s Labour lychee, Earl Grey, or Scent of the Night Jasmine—and your friend can have hot chocolate. Drop dead serious hot chocolate.

Part artisan chocolate shop (each handmade chocolate has a miniature painting on it), part Parisian café, MarieBelle is the brainchild of Maribel Lieberman. A native of Honduras, Lieberman has been drinking hot chocolate since her childhood, made the way the Aztecs and Mayans made it centuries ago—with water and ground toasted cacao seeds.

She opened MarieBelle after years of research on chocolate, including traveling to France, Belgium and Switzerland, where she discovered milk takes away the full flavor of chocolate.

“I found a shop in Paris called Angelina, and they served a very good quality hot chocolate but with milk, so I decided to make my own, including spices from an old Aztec recipe,” Lieberman said.

The Audrey Hepburn-perfect café serves teas, coffee, and hot chocolate in delicate demitasse cups. French fare includes crepes (au chocolat, Suzette, dulce de leche, strawberry compote, bananas Foster, creme fraiche with chocolate) and macarons (chocolate, coffee, pistachio, passion fruit, cassis), as well as sandwiches and salads. No pedestrian chocolate croissants here — instead, gouttes de chocolate, a crusty baguette with warm lavender-scented

butter and lightly melted dark chocolate.

The Mesoamerica cacao menu is presented on a parchment-style paper placemat printed with a map of the world and a key guide indicating where each offering comes from, such as Mestizo hot chocolate (Spain), Mayan Virgin hot chocolate (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras), and Aztec King hot chocolate (Mexico).

If a crooked pinky finger isn’t your cup of tea and your mindset is more wipe-your-L.L.-Bean-boots-on-the-mat, you’ll feel right at home at Podunk (231 East Fifth St. between Second and Third avenues).

Owner Elspeth Treadwell (you can’t make this stuff up) hails from Minnesota. With her granny glasses—the lenses no bigger than quarters, saltand-pepper hair piled messily on top of her head, and chatty, come-on-inand-take-a-load-off manner, she’s a character straight out of Lake Wobegon.

Treadwell bakes everything herself, including lefse, a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread, scones, pies, cupcakes and shortbread. Even the jam is homemade. The décor, if you can call it that—you can’t—is wooden-slatted chairs and tables you’d find on the deck of a Nantucket lobster roll place, Adirondack chairs, wooden benches lined with red-striped ticking, bookshelves filled with all sorts of books, and grandmother’s attic castoffs—a pair of ice skates, a metal umbrella stand.

I am the last customer of the evening, if you don’t count the young woman who lives across the street and stopped in to dig her keys out of her bag in the shop’s bright light. Treadwell was in winding-down mode. Had I come in earlier, she said, I would have been able to see the group of Harajuku girls who come by about twice a month. “Today’s theme was snow princess,” Treadwell says.

Podunk attracts all kinds of people probably because it is so low-key. One online reviewer takes two different subways to get there. A Podunk Facebook post captures the shop’s homey gestalt and indeed the gestalt of tea itself: “Hillary and her mother came in on Saturday to have one last tea before summer. Hillary’s semester in London means we won’t have her next fall, but there was summery compensation: wild blackberry jam from their backyard and maple syrup so deep and complicated that I need to drizzle it on some Manchego cheese and figs for tea time.”

march/aPrIL 2014

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CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS March

20

March

Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna opens at Citi Field with performances scheduled through April 13. www.cirquedusoleil.com.

March

21

Architectural Digest’s Home Design Show at Pier 94 (through March 23). www.adhomedesignshow.com.

The New York Pops’ 31st season at Carnegie Hall presents On Broadway, celebrating Broadway’s fascinating past and present. www.carnegiehall.org.

Cabaret begins performances at Studio 54. This production stars actors Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams (through August). 212.719.1300.

27

April

2

April

Heart and Lights starring the Rockettes opens at Radio City Music Hall. This show is a celebration of the dance and film heritage of New York City with never before seen dance numbers and 3-D special effects (through May 4). www.heartandlights.com.

Authors Lydia Davis and Jonathan Franzen discuss and sign copies of their novels at Symphony Space. www. symphonyspace.org.

The 2014 Prevent Blindness Person of the Year Award will be presented to Bob and Henry Shyer of Zyloware Eyewearik. Prevent Blindness fights to preserve sight in all Americans. www. preventblindness.org.

April

Storm King Art Center in the lower Hudson valley re-opens for the 2014 season. www.stormking.org.

4

The “Celebration of Suds,” better known as The Atlantic City Beer Fest, returns to The Atlantic City Convention Center. Perfect for beer aficionados and casual beer drinkers, alike (through April 5). www.atlanticcitynj.com.

12

Launch of Animal Care & Controls Mobile Adoption Center, a vehicle that will make animal adoptions more accessible to residents throughout NYC. The Mobile Adoption Center will be stationed at Fenwick Keats, 2244 Broadway. The event is made possible by the ASPCA and Fenwick Keats Real Estate. Stop on by to find your new furry friend. www.nycacc.org.

April

15

The Brooklyn Nets vs. New York Knicks at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. www. barclayscenter.com Singer, pianist, and opera composer Rufus Wainwright performs at The Town Hall. www.thetownhall.org.

4/2

3/29

4/1 3/25

March

23

MARCH

Macy’s 2014 Flower Show, Secret Garden, features lavish garden displays, bouquets, and more (through April 6). www.macys.com/flowershow.

March

25

Arianna Huffington discusses her latest book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall. Huffington will be joined by iconic TV journalist Barbara Walters. www.92y.org.

March

26

Wine & Wishes 11th Annual Wine Tasting and Auction is one of Manhattan’s premier wine events. Proceeds benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York and Western New York. www. metrony.wish.org,

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

March

29

The Pier Antiques Show & Fashion Alley, New York’s largest antique and art collecting event, at Pier 94 (also, on March 30). www.pierantiqueshow.com.

March

31

“The Music of Paul Simon” Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall with performances by Joy Williams, Madeleine Peyroux, Ben Sollee, and many more. Proceeds benefit New York’s Music Education Programs. www. carnegiehall.org.

April

4/1

1

New York Times best selling author Malcolm Gladwell discusses his latest cultural observations at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. www.nypl.org.

The John James Audubon Collection from the Indiana Historical Society goes up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York City. The Collection includes famous works from Audubon’s Birds of America series (1827-1838). www.sothebys.com.

4/15 April

5

6th Annual New York Culinary Experience with hosts Gillian Duffy and Dorothy Cann Hamilton at the International Culinary Center of New York. Chefs Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Rose, Jacques Torres, and Joe Ng will be in attendance. www. internationalculinarycenter.com.

April

9

America’s top Olympic figure skaters from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi headline this season’s all-new Stars on Ice Tour at the Prudential Center in Newark. www.prucenter.com.

MARCH/APRIL 2014

April

16

The Tribeca Film Festival returns, showcasing promising independent filmmakers at locations throughout New York City (through April 27). www. tribecafilm.com.

Ethical Shopping Event with SAME SKY jewelry at Henri Bendel. SAME SKY supports the employment of women artisans in Africa and has been worn by numerous film stars including Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep. Henri Bendel and Francine LeFrak will host the exclusive shopping event. www.samesky.com.

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men opens at Longacre Theatre on Broadway (through July 2014). www.broadway. com/shows/mice-and-men.

April

18

May

Le Cercle Rive Droite Grand Tasting event at The Carlton Hotel. Guests will have the opportunity to taste recently released vintage and award-winning wines paired with French pastries, hors d’oeuvres, and cheese. www. cerclewinetasting.eventbrite.com.

April

29

New York City Ballet’s Spring 2014 showcase at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center (through June 8). www.nycballet.com.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Spring Plant Sale on Cherry Esplanade, offering the largest collection of quality plants in the metropolitan area. www.bbg.org.

1

May

Robin Roberts, cancer survivor and co-anchor of “Good Morning America,” discusses her new memoir Everybody’s Got Something. Roberts will be joined

by George Stephanopoulos, ABC’s chief political correspondent and fellow co-anchor of GMA. The event will take place at Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y. www.92y.org.

May

9

May

The Frieze New York Art Fair on Randall’s Island features over 190 of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries including solo and emerging artist presentations (through May 12). www.friezenewyork.com.

May

10

Cher performs at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford as part of her Dressed to Kill tour. www.meadowland.com

4

The Off Broadway League’s 29th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards hosted

by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman at the NYU Skirball Center. www. lortelaward.com.

May

12

New York Yankees vs. New York Mets at Yankee Stadium. www.yankees.com.

17

The New York Road Runners FiveBorough Series continues with the Brooklyn Half Marathon. www.nyrr.org.

May

21

2014 Fleet Week, an annual celebration of America’s Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. There will be dozens of military demonstrations and displays.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to meet with Tri-State area sailors, marines, and coast guardsmen (through May 27). www.fleetweeknewyork.com.

May

24

ARF Designer Showcase and Sale in the Hamptons features rooms styled by some of New York’s most sought-after interior decorators. All proceeds benefit ARF, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons. www.arfhamptons.org.

5/21

5/9

5/12 4/16

“Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties;” Brooklyn Museum “Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe;” Guggenheim Museum

ONGOING

“Folk Couture: Fashion and Folk Art”; American Folk Art Museum

“Folk Couture: Fashion and Folk Art;” American Folk Art Museum “Radiant Light: Stained Glass from Canterbury Cathedral;” The Cloisters “Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine;” Rubin Museum of Art “Tales of Wonder: Indian Art from the Asia Society Museum Collection;” Asia Society and Museum “Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection;” The Frick Collection “Oak Circle Tree House Installation;” Brooklyn Botanic Garden “The Power of Poison;” American Museum of Natural History “Bill Cunningham: The Façades Project;” New-York Historical Society “Capa in Color;” International Center of Photography “Report on the Construction of a Spaceship Module;” New Museum of Contemporary Art

MARCH/APRIL 2014

“The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter;” The New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwarzman Building “After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997;” Queens Museum “There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33;” MoMA

Theatre Performances: Rocky; Winter Garden Theatre Waiting for Godot; Cort Theater AnnaPurna; Acorn Theatre Les Miserables; Imperial Theatre If/Then; Richard Rodgers Theatre All the Way; Neil Simon Theater The Glass Menagerie; Booth Theater

MAY

Art Exhibitions:

A Raisin in the Sun; Barrymore Theatre Bullets Over Broadway; St. James Theatre Aladdin; New Amsterdam Theater

Dinner with Friends; Laura Pels Theater The Bridges of Madison County; Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

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THE TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

“NEW” NEW YORK IN OLD NEW YORK

BY JUDITH

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

ZINIS

(LEFT TO RIGHT): Clint Eastwood and Darren Aronofsky at last year’s Tribeca Talks Directors Series. Ethan Hawke at the World Premiere of Before Midnight. Robert

De Niro at the Mistaken for Strangers premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last April 2013.

W

ho needs another film festival? That is what film producer Jane Rosenthal asked herself in 2001 when she and Robert de Niro were considering a film festival in their neighborhood of Tribeca. One year later, they launched the Tribeca Film Festival. The festival was created to support and develop Tribeca after the devastation of 9/11, described in 2001 as a “ghost town” by the New York Times. According to Martin Scorsese, one of the festival’s early supporters, it was developed in four months. Twelve years later, it draws thousands of filmgoers and offers a broad range of films and events as well as an opportunity to explore the neighborhood.

In 2002, 1,300 films were submitted; last year the number grew to over 6,000 studio and independent films, from feature length to shorts. The films are shown over a ten day period, this year from April 16 to 27. International films that audiences might not have a chance to see elsewhere are an important part of the schedule, as are documentaries. Many of the films first seen at the festival go on to win important awards. For example, the Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy film, Before Midnight shown at last year’s festival has been nominated for an Oscar. Moms Mabley: I Got Somethin’ to Tell You directed by Whoopi Goldberg was introduced at last year’s festival and is now shown on HBO. Awards are part of the festival and are given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Short to name a few. Last year, the Best New Narrative Director Award went to Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais for Whitewash, a comedy set in northern Quebec. Documentaries can range from an exploration of Bernie Madoff to an examination of the Gucci fashion house. In 2013, Sean Dunne’s Oxyana, won Best New Documentary Director award. It focuses on the epidemic abuse of OxyContin in a small town in West Virginia.

There is even a category for Best Online Feature. The festival is an opportunity to see films unlikely to be found on the big screen.

Two weeks or two days at the festival can be an educational experience tantamount to a mini film class. Besides showcasing films, the event offers direct access to filmmakers, actors, and writers through the series, Tribeca Talks. Directors such as Clint Eastwood and Ben Stiller are placed in conversation with other directors. Eastwood spoke with filmmaker Darren Aronosky, who directed Black Swan. “After the Movies” where the film’s director discusses his or her film is another opportunity to interact with filmmakers. In addition, there are talks that address the film industry as well as the creative process. Last year at a Tribeca Talks, director Paul Verhoeven

(Total Recall, Basic Instinct) provided the first four minutes of a script and had the audience attempt to complete the story.

For pure entertainment, Tribeca Drive-In screens favorites like Beetlejuice and The Birds outdoors at Brookfield Place (World Financial Center Plaza). In addition, there’s the Tribeca Film Festival Family Street Fair.

Several streets are closed to traffic and various activities are offered that any family member might enjoy: kite flying, cooking demonstrations, arts and crafts, and even dancing. This year’s street fair takes place on April 26, during the last weekend of the festival. Another event is the Games for Change Festival which focuses on games for social good. A Games for Change arcade is open to the public.

Not only is the Tribeca Film Festival worth seeing, the neighborhood is worth exploring. Tribeca, which refers to the “triangle below Canal Street,” is bordered by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway and Vesey Street with half the area designated as historic districts. The neighborhood may be the most expensive zip code in Manhattan; however, a visitor will find “old” New York in “new” New York. Unlike Soho, which is a tangle of narrow streets packed with stores, galleries, and restaurants, Tribeca maintains ties to its industrial past.

The streets are wide, sometimes cobblestoned, and above the restaurants, galleries and stores, 19th and early 20th century architecture fills the eye. The James White Building on the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street made of cast iron and built in 1881 is worth a look. A sign on the side of the building advertises the Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. Not far away on Hudson Street is the Powell Building, a Renaissance revival in brick and terracotta. A link to Tribeca’s industrial past is the former New York Mercantile Exchange from 1886, a gabled brick building at 6 Harrison Street. Film and architecture come together at the Hook & Ladder Company No.8 at 14 North Moore Street where Ghostbusters was filmed.

Tribeca has been reclaimed but not dominated by gentrification, so a visitor can enjoy modern amenities and still feel like a local. Grab a coffee from Blue Spoon Coffee Company, La Colombe, or Laughing Man Coffee and Tea, and take a stroll around the neighborhood.

Lower Manhattan has a long history of embracing artists and Tribeca has its fair share of interesting art galleries. Located in the Pearline Soap Factory at is the Tachi Gallery showcasing modern and contemporary art. Five or six blocks over is Apexart, a non-profit visual arts organization. On Franklin Street, R & Company exhibits finely crafted museum quality designs from furniture to jewelry to pieces of sculpture.

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Locanda Verde.

The Greenwich Hotel is an oasis of calm where one can sip tea or champagne.

Atmosphere at the 12th Annual Tribeca Film Festival in 2013.

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

Locanda Verde, the De Niro restaurant, is described as an “Italian Tavern.”

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

Bouley is the American chef’s David Bouley’s French influenced eatery.

The Tribeca Grand Hotel’s sumptuous interior offers a brunch with music.

Enjoy the art of being a flaneur and find one-of-a-kind shops. At 255 Broadway is a most unusual men’s wear shop intriguingly named “The Liquor Store.” J. Crew clothing is housed in what once was a local liquor store and maintains the original fixtures and bar. Also on Broadway is Calypso, housing elegant and colorful women’s clothing. Roberta Roller Rabbit is a unique boutique filled with textiles, children and women’s clothing a few blocks over on Duane Street. Several unusual bookstores are located in Tribeca: The Mysterious Bookshop dedicated to all types of mysteries and The Artists Space Book and Talks selling books selected by artists.

There are more restaurants than shops in Tribeca, so enjoying a meal before or after a film can be a diverse and tasty experience. Robert de Niro has several well-respected and atmospheric restaurants. The Tribeca Grill is noted for its wine list. Another De Niro restaurant right next door is Locanda Verde described as an “Italian Tavern.” Some very well known chefs have restaurants in Tribeca. Bouley is the American chef’s David Bouley’s French influenced eatery and Nobu is perhaps the city’s most respected Japanese restaurant. An old favorite, the Odeon recreates a Paris bistro from the 1930s and offers a menu of French favorites. Several hotels provide opportunities for rest and even entertainment. The Tribeca Grand Hotel’s sumptuous interior offers a brunch with music. The Greenwich Hotel is an oasis of calm where one can sip tea or champagne in the late afternoon seated in comfortable couches or under the trees of its interior courtyard.

Tribeca also offers natural environments to rest the body as well as the eyes. Not far from Tribeca Cinemas is Duane Park, one of the first parks established in New York, in 1797. Although small, it offers benches for resting and you can feast your eyes on a variety of architectural styles in the surrounding streets. A pleasant afternoon could be spent crossing Greenwich Street and walking to the waterfront, that is, to West Street, part of the Hudson River Park that runs from Battery Place to 59th Street. After watching skateboarders launch themselves in the air at the Tribeca Skate Park, go north with the Hudson on your left and make your way to the two and half acre Washington Market Park at the edge of Tribeca. This large neighborhood park has basketball and tennis courts, a gazebo, and beautiful flowerbeds.

Whether you stay for a day or for the whole ten days of the Tribeca Film Festival, you will have a remarkable experience seeing film, exploring lower Manhattan, and strolling along the Hudson River. U

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW The website for the Tribeca Film Festival (tribecafilm.com/festival) provides schedules, dates, and locations for the various events and announces the full line-up of films in March. Ticket sales for the Festival begin on April 8 for American Express cardholders and on April 14 for the general public. Tribeca can be easily reached by public transportation as well as by car. The 1 line is a direct subway route to Tribeca from Penn Station. Getting off at Franklin Street places you in the heart of the neighborhood. If you are taking your car, the Holland Tunnel empties out into Tribeca at Canal Street.

Blue Spoon Coffee Company La Colombe Laughing Man Coffee & Tea Tachi Gallery Apexart R & Company The Liquor Store Calypso Roberta Roller Rabbit The Mysterious Bookshop Artists Space The Tribeca Grill Locanda Verde Bouley Nobu Odeon Tribeca Grand Hotel Greenwich Hotel

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76 Chambers St. 319 Church St. 84 Duane Street 414 Washington St. 291 Church St. 82 Franklin St. 235 W. Broadway 137 Broadway 176 Duane St. 58 Warren St. 55 Walker St. 375 Greenwich St. 377 Greenwich St. 165 Duane St. 105 Hudson St. 145 Broadway 2 Ave. of the Americas 377 Greenwich St.

212.619.7230 212.625.1717 212.680.1111 212.226.6828 212.226.6828 212.343.7979 212.226.5476 212.608.2222 212.966.0076 212.587.1011 212.226.3970 212.941.3900 212.925.3797 212.964.2525 212.219.0500 212.233.0507 212.519.6600 212.941.8900

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BEING ESTHER DYSON

BY ELLEN

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

GILBERT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM

GRIMES

I’m flattered,” Esther Dyson says quietly when asked how it feels to be referred to by names like “queen of the internet,” “digital visionary,” or “innovation evangelist par excellence.” In a list of “Famous Real-life People Named ‘Esther’” her name appears next to Queen Esther and the competitive swimmer/movie star, Esther Williams. Since Dyson is a tenacious pursuer of new causes and a swimmer who steadfastly hits the pool every day no matter where she is, there is a certain unintended logic to citing this trio of Esthers in the same entry.

On a recent snowy Saturday in New York City, Dyson is the only person at Meet-up.com’s Broadway headquarters. Moving around the broad expanse of computer banks, she cuts a slight figure in worn jeans and a well-laundered tee-shirt. Sitting down, she kicks off her comfortable flats, exposing cozy-looking red socks. For an “angel investor” who is “one of the most influential voices in technology,” she comes across as pretty earth-bound.

After over thirty years of being “one of the most powerful women in American business,” the 62-year old’s history is pretty well-known by now.

The eldest child of the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson and his first wife, mathematician Verena Huber, Esther was born in Zurich. Her brother George, also from this marriage, was born in Princeton where they both grew up with their father and his second wife Imme, mother to four more daughters, surrounded by brainiacs at the Institute for Advanced Study, where her father is still a beloved figure. Family and colleagues recently celebrated his 90th birthday there.

PRINCETON Dyson has fond memories of Princeton. “I had a wonderful childhood; I was oblivious to everything going on around me.” At around the age of eight, she says, she wanted to marry Prince Charles. Other childhood memories include sharing a sled with her father who took it to work on snowy days, and fantasizing about becoming a librarian as a result of the pleasure she took in the Princeton Public Library, located then in Bainbridge House. Ever the acute observer, Dyson took note of different parenting styles at the library—as some parents let their kids have free rein among the books while others strictly controlled whatever their children read. Dyson is clearly a product of the former.

However happy her childhood was, Dyson left home at 15. “I really wanted to be a teenager and we needed room for the younger kids,” she explains. She had her parents’ blessing and enrolled at Harvard. Writing for the daily newspaper, The Crimson, proved to be far more engaging than going to math and science classes. Harvard administrators were not pleased: calling her in one day, they expressed concern about how the promising student they had accepted appeared now to be a laggard with mediocre grades. Her response was to take a year off for travelling in Morocco with her boyfriend.

When she returned to Harvard the following year she switched her major to economics. Still devoted to The Crimson, Dyson’s attendance record and grades remained undistinguished. She served as an extra when the movie Love Story was filmed on campus. After it was released, she gave it a “pompous” review in the The Crimson.

FORBES Dyson describes her economics degree as a “convenience.” After graduation, the time she spent as a college journalist was rewarded with a three-year stint as a reporter for Forbes, a job she has described as “transformational,” teaching her the ins and outs of the business world.

On the way to becoming “the most powerful woman in the Neterati,” Dyson worked as a tech analyst. In the mid-80s she bought Rosen Research from her boss and renamed it EDventure Holdings; it’s been her investment vehicle ever since. She is a board member of numerous companies, including 23andMe, Eventful, Meetup, NewspaperDirect, Voxiva, WPP Group, XCOR Aerospace, and Yandex, and was an early investor in such notable start-ups as Evernote, Flickr, Mashery, Medstory, Omada Health, and Square.

In 1997 Dyson wrote the best-selling, widely translated book Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age. In his review of the book, former Senator Bill Bradley described it as a “must read for people who want to understand the Internet’s development and potential.” Summing up Dyson’s prescience about the internet and ability to make connections, Bradley continued by saying that she “explains–in words that both laypeople and ‘techies’ will find illuminating—how the Net is a tool to improve our workplaces, schools, and government.”

Esther Dyson being interviewed by Ellen Gilbert.

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HICcup between Abu Dhabi and Boston. The day after that she participated in a discussion about privacy and authentication of digitally relayed data.

Dyson, who thought that two-and-a-half month vacations were the norm when she was a child in Princeton, hasn’t taken a real vacation in years. She says that good quality sleep and her morning swim help her maintain a pace that would give anyone else permanent jet lag. She allows that she tallies the number of unread messages in her email inbox every night: “it’s the best indicator of stress.” Her commitment to swimming is absolute. On the road she finds luxurious hotel pools. At home in New York City, she alternates between two YMCAs each day, and, seems to be particularly drawn to the idiosyncratic atmosphere of the Chinatown branch, though it’s not clear whether or not this ties in with loving the movie.

Dyson professes to being “proud” of using modest facilities like the YMCA and there’s a kind of grittiness too, in Dyson’s choice of where she lives: a four-flight walk-up that is, she pointedly says, “furnished, not decorated.” Her use of frequent flyer miles for family visits during the holidays seems like another “just folks” touch, and Dyson’s globe-hopping may offset, in a way, the fact that she never learned to drive a car.

Dyson was among the first people to have her genome sequenced using the $99 23andMe home kit that was briefly available to consumers before the FDA pulled it off the market. She looks forward to its return. The verdict is still out as to how, when, and by whom DNA genomes will be sequenced, but Dyson was happy to have more information about herself.

While she ultimately didn’t learn anything really new (she already knew that her parents are long-lived), she responded to anything that looked potentially threatening by quickly making lifestyle adjustments.

Her attitude about genome sequencing is consistent with her philosophy about HICcup, and she describes early participants in the study as being “benefactors” who will provide lots of good data.” In five years, she adds, they will also be beneficiaries.

Surprisingly, Dyson is adamant about encouraging the next generation of digital stars not to take unconventional paths to success. She claims MAKING THINGS HAPPEN to have learned more from her job at Forbes than Dyson insists that she never set out to be an she did at Harvard or could have from an advanced entrepreneur, humorously contending that she is a degree. “Without a business school education to court jesther, or, more seriously, a “catalyst” who confuse me, I learned how business actually helps to make things happen. She wants to be worked,” she says. While that formula may have needed for her problem-solving abilities. Endorsing a worked for her, she tells others not to “do what I new effort, which can be for-profit or non-profit, isn’t did.” Bill Gates may have dropped out of Harvard enough for her; she needs to figure how it will work (and her father does not have a Ph.D.), but or how it can be made better, with a result that is encouraging “a normal person” to do that would be usually socially conscious, promising a positive “bad advice.” Unlike Malcolm Gladwell, who sees outcome for many people. truths in anomalous statistics, she goes for critical The desire to confront things that need fixing up masses of logical data to prove a point. In general, probably accounts for Dyson’s affinity for Russia. she is “amazed” by how uninformed many people After learning the language at Princeton High are, and by their willingness to take cues from School, Dyson travelled to the then-Soviet Union. “It questionable statistics. was like a fish discovering air,” she says. “It was just a The would-be librarian was also, at one point, an fascinating, screwed up place where nothing made aspiring novelist. Although her work right now is sense.” Being in Russia also afforded her the firmly grounded in non-fiction writing, Dyson is opportunity to view the United States from afar.

Dyson in preparation for a possible space flight. happy to share three plots she has in mind for a Her many return trips to Russia include a potential novel. In one, a “large malicious corporation” murders people, particularly satisfying stint preparing to be a back-up cosmonaut. She stayed allowing them to create new IDs for others. In another, a “delusional in Star City, the former Russian military facility that is home to the Yuri Gagarin correspondent creates a fictional correspondence with him—or herself,” and Cosmonauts Training Center and spent six months there, taking courses and the third is based on an act of terrorism. Armchair psychoanalysts, take aim. participating in simulations and drills.

Dyson’s papers are already housed at Harvard University, a pretty unusual Dyson was in Budapest over the Christmas weekend when the Ceaușescus achievement for someone who is relatively young. The collection was were executed. “It was all over Hungarian TV, not just the execution, but the processed last fall, and there’s an online finding aid to guide researchers in Romanian riots, and all this stuff,” she recalls. “The village where it all started locating particular documents. was mostly Hungarian, and people were in anguish.” She experienced a The online resource that Esther-enthusiasts (or critics) should really look profound sense of homesickness which she recognized as a longing to be in at, though, is her photostream on Flickr. It consists of about 75 screens-worth Russia, not the U.S. It makes sense that one of Dyson’s favorite movies is The of beautiful images annotated with pithy captions by Dyson. Together they Lives of Others, which depicts East Germany in the 1980s. Another is document a remarkable life, with pictures of famous people she has met (the Chinatown, and recently she was making plans to see the recently released Obamas, Mick Jagger); whimsical moments (an arrangement of toilet paper movie Gravity, which may or may not have quenched her desire for space rolls); and shots of the gorgeous swimming pools she frequents around the travel. world. Group shots from recent meetings provide a who’s who in the world Here on Earth, Dyson’s year-round itinerary would probably hold its own of computers. One photograph shows her brother, George, standing in front against that of any other well-seasoned traveler. In November, for example, of an image of John von Neumann, one of the subjects of his well-received she spent two days talking about Yandax, a Russian Internet company. The book about the advent of the digital age, Turing’s Cathedral. Dyson has Yandax conversation continued, without a break, in Amsterdam. A day later labeled the photo “Two extraordinary people.” A third one, of course, was she was in London to talk about the mobile virtual network operator Credo, behind the camera. U and from London she flew to Abu Dhabi for a World Economic Forum event.

She had no meetings the next day only because of the time needed to travel WikiPedia.ru

Her latest venture, HICcup (Health Intervention Coordinating Council) proposes to promulgate good health habits in large communities of people in an effort to forestall the onset or even eliminate many of the illnesses that plague us. “Individuals often lack willpower or access to healthy food or convenient exercise facilities, and are surrounded by poor examples that encourage instant gratification rather than effort and restraint,” she writes in “The HICcup Manifesto,” sounding a bit like Michael Bloomberg on the subject of oversized soft drinks.

Like many of Dyson’s other ventures, this one requires a leap of faith or two, as well as the help of others. The first thing she did for HICcup, she says, was to hire a CEO to get it off the ground. HICcup will begin by selecting five American communities of 100,000 or fewer to participate in a pilot project.

“The majority in each community and its institutions must be enthusiastic,” she points out. “If most community members work for just a few employers and obtain health care from just a few providers, the effort of corralling the players will be easier. And, of course, community leaders—the mayor, city council members, and others—must work together rather than undermine one another.”

Another hurdle is money. “The trick is to capture some of what is being spent on health care already,” says Dyson. Before that happens, though, an investor, ideally in the form of a benevolent but ultimately profit-driven billionaire or hedge fund; or a philanthropy that “sees a way to do good while earning money for future goodness,” must come forward with a sizable initial down payment. If this is not enough, the investor will “need to repurpose the health-care facilities and workers to some other role, including prevention, serving outsiders, or conversion to another use entirely.” Like all of the other causes she chooses to back, Dyson is optimistic about achieving good results: healthier people and less money spent on health care. Once the ball gets rolling, she says, “we will wonder what took us so long to get started.”

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standing UP for mothers everywhere: Christy Turlington Burns and “Every Mother Counts� by lynn adams smith images courtesy of every mother counts

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

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F

Christy Turlington Burns filming No Woman No Cry.

ashion model Christy Turlington Burns has represented some of the biggest names in fashion such as Calvin Klein and Versace. Most recently, she has devoted much of her time, energy, and passion towards the organization she founded, Every Mother Counts, a campaign to end preventable deaths caused by pregnancy and childbirth around the world.

Christy Turlington Burns at the screening of No Woman No Cry. Photo by Josh Etsey.

When did you first become interested in maternal health?

When I became a mom in 2003, I became more interested and concerned with maternal health. I had experienced a complication after delivering my daughter which helped direct my focus in this direction and was the impetus for directing my first documentary No Woman No Cry. Before that I had no idea that hundreds of thousands of girls and women die every year from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth simply because they don’t have access to basic or emergency maternity care. Almost all of these deaths are preventable. When I learned this I asked myself what could I do, and it turns out, quite a lot.

Tell us about your experience of making the film No Woman, No Cry, including where you traveled to and how you connected with the women in the film.

While pregnant with my second child in 2005, I did a lot of traveling in Central America where I came across many individuals who were successfully helping women rise above the tragic maternal mortality statistics. I wanted to share these stories with the world, the considerable challenges and real solutions. It was the hope in these stories that inspired No Woman, No Cry which features stories of real women from my travels to Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala and the U.S. between 2008 and 2010. I have gone back to each of the countries where we filmed and most of the participants have viewed the film. Once you are a part of someone’s story they are with you forever.

What efforts related to Every Mother Counts (EMC) are you the most proud of?

Every Mother Counts is a campaign to end preventable deaths caused by pregnancy and childbirth around the world. We inform, engage, and mobilize new audiences to take action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women worldwide.

There are many are things I am proud of. One in particular is the way we’re beginning to see a groundswell of interest and concern about the welfare of women and mothers in the world. When I had my childbirth complication ten years ago, there was very little attention being paid to the problem of maternal

march/april 2014

URBAN AGENDA New York City

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Robin Lim (Left) and Christy turlington Burns in Bali.

mortality and poor maternal health conditions. Now, we’re seeing and hearing more about it. I’m also really proud of the grants our organization has been able to fund. Because of the generosity of our supporters, we’ve been able to fund projects that are making a significant and direct impact on maternal health in some of the most in-need countries in the world like Haiti, Uganda, Malawi, Indonesia and the United States. I’m also very proud that people are beginning to look closely at women’s health and maternal health conditions right here at home and understanding that we need to do more and do things differently to take care of our own mother.

What is your long term goal for EMC? To continue to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother, and that eventually there will be no more preventable deaths. Mothers and their children will thrive and girls will see their future lives as mothers as hopeful, safe and supported.

When you speak with young American women about issues related to maternal healthcare in other countries, what are they most surprised to learn?

Well, they likely aren’t aware that women continue to die in childbirth in the 21st Century. We have known how to address most of the complications commonly related to these senseless deaths and yet, millions of women don’t have access to the people and supplies that could save their lives. Fifteen percent of pregnancies will result in a complication, as mine did. We can’t always identify who may have one, which is why it is so important that every pregnant women have access to prenatal care and quality delivery care wherever that may be. EMC is focused on addressing access gaps so transportation and education are two of the focal areas of our grants so far.

Did you start marathoning because of EMC and how can runners join the team?

I started running as a kid. My dad would put me and my sisters in meets at a local college. I was fast and had long legs. I wish I had stuck with it but I moved on to other team sports. Later as a teenager I would run three to five miles a week periodically but I never enjoyed it as much when it felt more like exercise than for fun. It wasn’t until the summer of 2011, that I was given the opportunity to run the ING NYC marathon with EMC that I started to run again for more than just fitness and that’s when I started to enjoy it again. Running

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

long distance provides a new way to elevate awareness for maternal health.

Distance is one of the biggest barriers pregnant women around the world face when trying to access critical maternity care; 5k is the minimum distance millions of women have to walk to access basic care and 35k is an average distance many would have to travel to access emergency obstetric care.

Anyone can run in support of EMC by joining our team or starting their own fundraising team. All of the details can be found on our website here: http:// everymothercounts.org/take-action/join-every-mother-counts-team.

Do you still practice yoga or meditation and do these techniques help to manage being a working mom, wife, and advocate for global maternal health?

I still practice yoga and can’t even imagine my life before it. It has given me so much more than I could ever have imagined. Not only is it an excellent form of exercise, it has given me perspective in so many other aspects of my life. I feel a great sense of connection and community with others because of this practice.

How can people help support the EMC mission?

There are many ways that people can get involved to support EMC’s work, which we detail on our website everymothercounts.org. We’ve had men and women do everything from donating to the organization, running in support of EMC through apps such as Crowdrise, purchasing a product in which proceeds go to benefit maternal health projects on the ground. Any action that helps raise awareness and educate people about maternal health is something will support EMC’s mission.

Is there anything else about EMC or any of your advocacy work thus far that you want to share with us?

Even though we’re still a small organization, we’re amazed and humbled by the immense response we’ve received from women and men all over the world. This issue really resonates with people from all walks of life. Once people hear the statistics and realize that women are still dying giving birth in the 21st century, from almost entirely preventable conditions, that strikes a chord. So often people will then say, “I knew a woman…” and they relate the work we’re doing to a personal experience they’re connected to. We’re banking on those personal connections to help all of us prevent maternal deaths.

march/april 2014

(LEFT) Christy Turlington Burns prepares for the Hamptons marathon.

(RIGHT) Christy Turlington Burna wih children in Bali.

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UPDATING AN ICON Lincoln Center has a New Leader and A New Look

BY ANNE

LEVIN

The front of Alice Tully Hall, once boxy and forbidding, is now an airy, glass-walled gathering space, home to another popular cafĂŠ and seating area.

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

T

here was a playground on the roof of the Manhattan elementary school Jed Bernstein attended in the early 1960s. From this vantage point during recess, he watched the first buildings of Lincoln Center rising on the site of a bulldozed Upper West Side neighborhood, just a few blocks away.

The little boy gazing down from the roof couldn’t have had an inkling that some five decades later, he would be at the helm of the prestigious performing arts complex that was taking shape before his eyes.

Bernstein, now a well known Broadway producer and arts executive who was recently instrumental in bringing the Bucks County Playhouse back to life, begins his tenure as president of Lincoln Center this month.

By this past November, Bernstein was dividing his time between the Playhouse in New Hope, Pa. and his new office at Lincoln Center. “Having the chance to lead an iconic institution, and a unique institution, is very special,” he said during a recent interview in New Hope. “No other place in the world has Lincoln Center’s concentration of world-class performing arts.”

Bernstein’s appointment to succeed longtime Lincoln Center president Reynold Levy comes near the end of a $1.2 billion renovation of the 16.3-acre campus. Designed to make the world-class arts center—the largest and most comprehensive in the world—more open, accessible, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing, the project will be complete once Avery Fisher Hall, home to the New York Philharmonic, is renovated. Patrons and members of the public can now find places to hang out and relax as well as performances of opera, ballet, theater, film, jazz, chamber, and orchestral music to attend.

There is the David Rubenstein Atrium on Broadway, which has a central box office as well as a café with plenty of tables and free wifi. There is the Lincoln Ristorante, a pricey dining destination behind Avery Fisher Hall, with a tilting, grass-covered roof that invites lounging and sunbathing during warm months. The front of Alice Tully Hall, once boxy and forbidding, is now an airy, glass-walled gathering space, home to another popular café and seating area.

At the entrance to Lincoln Center’s main plaza, some of Columbus Avenue is now sunken to a drop-off lane below ground, with direct access to the basement concourse. The fountain that is the plaza’s focus has been redesigned with new technologies for special-effect water shows. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the lead architects of the entire development project, have designed a sculpturally striking bridge that spans West 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. At the Juilliard School, a studio with large windows allows passersby to watch dance students in action.

Though much of the revamping of Lincoln Center has been completed, the urgency to raise money never goes away. “There is tremendous financial need on an annual basis, and there is always the challenge to identify new revenue streams,” said Bernstein who, as a theatrical producer and former head of the Broadway League trade association knows how to coax contributions out of investors.

Bernstein, 58, began his career in advertising, working for the firms Wells Rich Greene, Ogilvy & Mather, and Ally & Gargano. Switching his focus to theater was a natural progression for him. “I grew up on the Upper West Side in a family that valued art,” he said. “I was taken to ballet, opera, and classical music at an early age, often at Lincoln Center. We were not a family of significant means, and we could access the arts easily. If I can communicate to others and facilitate for others the joy and satisfaction of the arts that I grew up experiencing, that’s not a bad goal.”

When first approached about taking on the Lincoln Center presidency, Bernstein was surprised. But he came around quickly. “I was kind of baffled at first. I thought, why me? But the more time I spent with the head-hunter and the chair of Lincoln Center, the more I understood,” he said. “Sharing my love of the performing arts with people makes me the happiest. And one thing I’m good at is connecting with people and seeing ways to build relationships, being entrepreneurial about how to make opportunities happen.”

When it was conceived in the 1950s, Lincoln Center was the first arts

Henry Moore sculpture behind Avery Fisher Hall, home to the New York Philharmonic.

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

URBAN AGENDA New York City

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The David Rubenstein Atrium on Broadway, which has a central box office as well as a cafĂŠ with plenty of tables and free wifi.

Lincoln Center new president Jed Bernstein.

Lincoln Ristorante, located behind Avery Fisher Hall, has a tilting, grass-covered roof that invites lounging and sunbathing during warm months.

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

The Metropolitan Opera House, designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison. complex of its kind. In his book The Lincoln Center Story, Alan Rich writes that one would have "to run the clock back to a Medici palace in Renaissance Florence" to find anything comparable in the world. A neighborhood of midtown Manhattan tenements known as Lincoln Square, which was the inspiration for the musical “West Side Story” and later served as a location for the film, was razed to make room for the complex.

The overall design was assigned to architect Wallace K. Harrison, who also designed the Metropolitan Opera House. Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) is credited to Max Abramovitz; Philip Johnson did the New York State Theatre (now the Koch Theatre); Pietro Belluschi designed the building for the Juilliard School and the chamber music auditorium Alice Tully Hall; and Eero Saarinen designed the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

Philharmonic Hall was the first to open on September 23, 1962, with a gala concert of newly commissioned works by composers Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, and Samuel Barber, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Other buildings and public spaces followed over the next seven years. There are 11 resident organizations: The New York Philharmonic, The New York City Ballet, The Metropolitan Opera, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, The School of American Ballet, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Theater, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Several popular annual events are produced by Lincoln Center, including the Mostly Mozart Festival, the annual Lincoln Center Festival, and Midsummer Night’s Swing, which brings hundreds of amateur swing dancers and live bands to the plaza each June. Outside companies such as American Ballet Theatre and the Paul Taylor Dance Company also perform at the complex.

As the new Lincoln Center president, Bernstein has his work cut out for him. There is Avery Fisher Hall to renovate, at a cost that has been estimated at more than $300 million. An original plan, now abandoned, tapped British “starchitect” Norman Foster for the job. But concerns about raising the necessary funding have sent it back to the drawing board, and a new architect has yet to be named. As always, there are donors to court and government support is always a challenge.

“I see the job of our organization, because I don’t think of it as just me, to try and provide the resources to allow not only ourselves, but all of our constituent partners to present great art,” he said. "But I'm so humbled to have the chance."

Bernstein is especially intent on arts education. “Education is absolutely critical,” he says. “Exposing kids to the arts—not because they’ll become professionals but because of the way it can help them in other parts of their lives—is something I’m very interested in. And we in the arts world have not made that argument enough.”

While not a practicing performing artist himself, Bernstein has a healthy respect for those so gifted. "Throughout my whole life, I've always had a crush on talent," he said. "You put me next to a baseball player, or the best coin collector in the world, and I'm interested. My role, when it comes to the arts, is to help provide the resources. That's what I was put here to try to do."

Settled into his new office at Lincoln Center's Rose Building, Bernstein is in charge of bringing the performing arts complex firmly into the 21st century.

But unlike those childhood days of watching from his elementary school roof, he'll be looking out instead of looking in. U

MARC H / AP RI L 20 1 4

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A TROPICAL PARADISE

IN THE BR NX BY

ELLEN GILBERT

The Enid Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden is home to many flower shows and exhibitions, including the Orchid Show.

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nspirational, coveted, and, let’s face it, kind of crazy-making, orchids have a reputation for inspiring passion. “The nursery owner petted each plant as we passed,” reports author Susan Orlean in her book The Orchid Thief. Orlean makes it a point to never own an orchid, lest she fall prey to the proprietary orchid madness she is observing all around her.

This effusiveness is probably nowhere more evident than at the New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) annual Orchid Show. The theme of this year’s show is “Key West Contemporary,” and it will run from March 1 through April 21, 2014.

The Orchid Show is the largest exhibition of its kind in the United States, and NYBG employees and volunteers pull out all the stops for it. “We work on planning the exhibitions years in advance, particularly in creating the theme, securing designers, and creating designs for the set pieces,” says Karen Daubmann, the Garden’s associate vice president of exhibitions and public engagement. “A team of roughly 20 gardeners spends several weeks preparing orchids, and planting them among the sets in the conservatory.”

“When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.”

—Chinese Proverb The epicenter of the Orchid Show is the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, considered by many to be a “must see” landmark destination all year round.

The Victorian-style glasshouse opened in 1902, and serves as home for a permanent exhibition, “A World of Plants,” where visitors can embark on an “‘ecotour’ around the world and across the ages.” The Conservatory also hosts the Garden's seasonal flower shows and exhibitions, including the Orchid Show and Holiday Train Show that immediately precedes it.

The educational mission of the NYBG shines through at the Orchid Show.

Gardener for Public Education Sonia Uyterhoeven is typically on hand offering

orchid care demonstrations on weekends at 2 and 3 p.m. A wealth of orchid (and other botanical) information is available online, along with good old-fashioned printed hand-outs, like the one devoted to America’s favorite orchid, Phalaenopsis, a.k.a. “Moth Orchid.” The highly informative sheet includes the plant’s “Cultural Requirements,” with instructions for optimizing light, temperature, water humidity, and air (“ventilation is important to keep Phalaenopsis thriving”).

On selected days during the Orchid Show, the celebration continues after dark, when cocktails and music add to the already magical scene.

A YEAR-ROUND DESTINATION While orchid-worship at the NYBG is particularly frenzied during the annual show, it should be noted that these “seductive stars of tropical plant collections,” hailing from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Americas, can be seen in changing displays all year long in the Conservatory and in the Orchid Terrarium in the Library Building.

To be sure, there are many ways to enjoy the NYBG throughout the year.

Its 250 acres is home to 50 acres of native forest; indoor rain forests and deserts; and 50 different kinds of gardens, including the award-winning Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. Regularly scheduled narrated tram tours are available, along with programs that focus on in-season garden highlights.

Children are welcome to get their hands dirty and grow their own vegetables and flowers in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, and the Everett Adventure Garden encourages exploration in a world of mazes. Cafés provide on-the-go sustenance and a dining pavilion offers more leisurely dining.

The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which includes a lab for conserving and preserving older printed materials, is a world-class institution. It houses over one million accessioned items (books, journals, original art and illustration, seed and nursery catalogs, architectural plans of glass houses, scientific reprints, and photographs) and over 4,800 linear feet of archival materials. It is rich in both scholarly and general plant information, offering a wide array of print and electronic resources. Informed staff members are available to anyone visiting the Library through the Internet or in person.

Phalaenopsis orchids, also called moth orchids, are the most popular type of orchid and one of the easiest to grow at home.

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Photograph by Frank S. Castellana

Cymbidium orchids are prized for their long-lasting sprays of flowers, used especially as cut flowers or for corsages in the spring.

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Paphiopedilum orchids are often called "slipper orchids" because of their unique pouch.

“POLISHED BY NATURE” For tried-and-true enthusiasts, orchids eclipse any other plant even when they aren’t flowering. They look “as if they had been waxed and polished by nature,” says writer Henry Jaworski. “Their thick, white roots, with the most delicately green tips imaginable, crawled over the outside of the pots and wooden baskets in which the plants grew,” he recalls of a particular sighting.

“They were infinitely more exciting than a mere soil-growing plant.”

This year’s show is the NYBG’s twelfth. “We find that our visitors are anxious for spring and appreciate an indoor venue that makes them feel transported to distant, tropical lands,” explains Daubmann. “Late winter/ early spring is a natural bloom time for the orchids and there is great curiosity about them.”

Visitors entering this year’s exhibition “will be transported to a tropical paradise,” promises NYBG Public Relations Director Gayle Snible. “Key West Contemporary” may call to mind the Garden’s 2009 orchid show, “Brazilian Modern,” which was also designed by the Miami-based firm Raymond Jungles.

“We were inspired by the work of Raymond Jungles and in particular some of the projects that he has worked on in Key West,” says Daubmann. “Waterfalls, pools, colorful textured walls, and trellises will all play a part.”

HURRICANE SANDY While exoticism seems to be the order of the day when it comes to orchids, environmental sensibilities are present too; last year’s show included Hurricane Sandy storm-damaged trees from the Garden’s grounds that were incorporated as a design element and evidence of the fact that orchids also grow in the wild.

As noted by Susan Orlean, orchid-worship is often accompanied by a certain wariness about owning them. “I decided that orchid people are too crazy,” says John Laroche, the main character of The Orchid Thief (which is subtitled “A True Story of Beauty and Obsession” and was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper.) “They come here and buy an orchid and they kill it. I can’t stand it. Fern people are almost worse, but the orchid people are too—oh, you know.”

“Orchids have gotten a reputation for being divas,” confirms Ann Rafalko in a NYBG “Garden Tips” posting. Prospective buyers should not be daunted, though. “Go for it,” Rafalko says, noting that staff at the well-stocked NYBG shop includes orchid experts to help you make an informed purchase.

“Choose the right one for your home environment and you’ll have a beautiful

plant that can last for years with new blooms every year.” For those who can’t make it in person, NYBG staffers provide weekly columns on orchid care, and there’s even a video on how to re-pot orchids at home.

The Orchid family, Orchidacae, is one of the largest of all flowering plant families that grow in many different habitats. It is estimated that since the mid-1800s more than 100,000 orchid cultivars (variations) have been developed and orchids can be found to suit almost any growing conditions.

Some orchids are no bigger than a thumbnail, while others are the size of a hand. Some mimic bees and butterflies, while others resemble a lady's slipper.

“Some simply defy description,” says one appreciative owner.

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

—Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat When is the best time to visit the Orchid Show? “If someone were looking to come to take pictures they might enjoy the morning light,” suggests Daubmann. “If someone were coming to socialize with a beautiful backdrop and a cocktail in hand, they might enjoy an Orchid Evening.”

The orchids are replaced on a daily basis, if needed, “so the show looks spectacular from the day it opens until the day it closes,” she adds. “If people want to come back again and again, they will notice changes in the types of orchids displayed as well as the color palettes.”

You don’t need a special time to visit, though. As Daubmann points out, “most of our visitors come to escape a gloomy, gray winter and that is possible any day.”

The New York Botanical Gardens is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., in addition to some scheduled evening hours and special events. It is located at 2900 Southern Boulevard, New York, NY 10458. For general information call 718.817.8700.

Upcoming shows at the NYBG include “Antiques for the Garden and the Garden Room,” April 26 to 28; and “Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens & The Women Who Designed Them,” May 17 to September 7. U

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DESTINATIONS

Seagulls and Salt Water Taffy: Exploring

Coastal New Jersey

BY TAYLOR SMITH

N

New Jersey is gifted with approximately 217 miles of coastline.

During the summer months, it is not uncommon to hear discussions of your neighbor’s “shore” house or when the family reunion is planned at one of the local beach rentals.

In fact, ask anyone who was raised in New Jersey what their fondest childhood memories are and they will undoubtedly mention summers spent “down the shore.”

For such a small state, each beach is unique in its own way. While Ocean City is alcohol-free and kid-oriented, Asbury Park is rock and roll, and Spring Lake is country club chic.

No matter where your summertime memories reside, the shore is entwined within many New Jersey residents’ identity and it can’t be ignored.

ASBURY PARK Even before Bruce Springsteen immortalized this Shore town on his debut album cover, Greetings From Asbury Park, the place was known as a top destination for live music. Modern-day musicians with strong ties to Asbury Park in addition to Springsteen include Bon Jovi, Patti Smith, The Ramones, and The Clash.

Now more than ever, Asbury Park maintains a vibrant nightlife. Popular clubs dating back to the 1960s and 1970s include The Stone Pony, The Saint (formerly known as the Clover Club), and Asbury Lanes, a functioning bowling

SANDY HOOK

Images courtesy Shutterstock.com; WikiMedia Commons.

Sandy Hook is a narrow barrier spit located in the Northeastern corner of New Jersey. The community was notoriously hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy with roadways, homes, beaches, and businesses suffering severe losses.

Thankfully, summer 2014 looks bright.

This sliver of land mass encloses the southern entrance of Lower New York Bay, making it a convenient stop for ships before anchoring in New York Harbor. The now defunct Fort Hancock located in Sandy Hook was once an important U.S. military base defending the New Jersey coastline and the entrance to New York Harbor and is now part of the National Parks System.

Getting to Sandy Hook from New York is part of the appeal. The journey is a 30-minute ferry ride from Manhattan. Sea Streak operates regular ferries to Sandy Hook. Exchanging Manhattan in July for Atlantic Ocean views and fresh, salt air comes as a welcome relief and change of scenery. It is also recommended that visitors bring bikes onto the ferry, which they can then use on the 5.5-mile long “multiuse path” through Sandy Hook. Another attraction is the Sandy Hook Lighthouse built in 1764. It is the oldest working lighthouse in the US and was originally built as a guiding light for ship captains entering New York Harbor.

Not to be overlooked are Sandy Hook’s beaches, which feature public conveniences like restrooms and snack bars. Sandy Hook’s North Beach and South Beach are family friendly and monitored by lifeguards. For those who are interested, Gunnison Beach is a registered nude beach, which means that clothing is entirely optional.

(TOP) Sandy Hook Lighthouse; (RIGHT) Sea Streak ferry; (BOTTOM) View of New York City from Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

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Images courtesy Shutterstock.com; WikiMedia Commons; Flickr.

(Top) The Stone pony, Asbury park; (boTToM) Jersey Shore premium outlets, Tinton Falls; (rIghT) Yachts off shore of bay head, New Jersey.

alley and music venue. Both the downtown and boardwalk have undergone recent renovations and visitors will find that these areas are filled with newly opened restaurants, hotels, and condominiums.

Another fun attraction is the Jersey Shore Premium Outlets, located just ten minutes away by car in Tinton Falls. These outlets are a point of interest for shoppers from all over New Jersey. Here, you can purchase a coveted Kate Spade bag, find the perfect Theory dress, or buy a new jacket from Burberry.

With beaches, bars, and local theater’s celebrating LGBT causes and events, Asbury Park has become a popular destination for the gay community.

This is also reflected at Asbury Park’s beaches, where the Jersey Pride celebration is usually held in June of each year.

Spring Lake Spring Lake is a small beach resort town located in Central New Jersey.

Historically, the town was a much frequented vacation spot for the wealthy families of the Gilded Age who also built homes in Newport, Rhode Island and Bar Harbor, Maine. The largely residential community maintains an attitude of quiet sophistication reflected in the well-kept lawns and seaside mansions that line the streets.

The town’s two-mile stretch of beach is pristine since all food and drink is prohibited. Instead, visitors should plan on enjoying their picnic on the boardwalk or frequent one of the restaurants in town. A change of clothes is appropriate since the local restaurants are somewhat upscale. Enjoy a glass of wine at the Breakers Hotel and Restaurant or feast on a delicious seafood meal at the Island Palm Grill. Black Trumpet, the in-house restaurant at the Grand Victorian Hotel, offers fresh local catches alongside Porterhouse Porkchops and Cavatappi Pasta. Time will really stand still at Whispers Restaurant at the Hewitt-Wellington Hotel. The atmosphere is upscale yet unhurried and diners will appreciate the opportunity to linger over their meal while admiring the hotel’s gazebos and lush seaside gardens.

Bay Head/MantoLoking Bay Head and Mantoloking were decimated by Superstorm Sandy. Local residents found their beloved homes split in two, underwater or dragged and dropped into neighboring towns. Geographically speaking, the area has been permanently altered. The National Guard quickly descended, and homeowners have focused all of their energy on restoring and rebuilding.

While far from complete, a great deal of progress has been made in repairing local homes and roadways.

Due to their location, Bay Head and Mantoloking are very popular summer destinations for Tri-State residents. However, even strung together, the communities are small and land is at a premium.

While the beach is somewhat short and narrow, the sand and water are clean.

This is a quiet beach. No food, drinks or loud music are permitted.

Bay Head Yacht Club and Mantoloking Yacht Club promote serious sailing, rowing, tennis, socializing and yachting. Just five minutes away, the Manasquan River Golf Club in Brielle is another fun recreational center.

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DESTINATIONS

Beach view of Cape May, New Jersey.

ATLANTIC CITY The HBO series Boardwalk Empire has emphasized Atlantic City’s history as a prohibition-era hot spot for debauchery. However, modern day Atlantic City is filled with world-class entertainment and family fun beyond the well-known gambling and gaming facilities. In fact, the beachfront city is a year-round destination offering high-end shopping, concerts, celebrity appearances, and exotic bars and restaurants. Since the installation of direct train service from Manhattan and Philadelphia, Atlantic City has become a popular weekend getaway.

The massive Borgata hotel and casino, Harrah’s Resort, Revel Casino Hotel and the Pier at Caesars are always filled with excited revelers and crowds. Such places provide Las Vegas-quality entertainment with performances by Celine Dion, Cirque du Soleil, Jamie Foxx, and Fergie.

The Water Club, a 36,000-square foot spa with 16 treatment rooms, an infinity lap pool, fitness center, and gourmet restaurant, is one of the latest non-casino Atlantic City attractions. Another fantastic addition is the expansion of the Tanger Atlantic City Outlets, now featuring 100 outlet stores including Michael Kors and Lacoste.

The Chelsea, a luxurious boutique hotel, offers the perfect getaway for a fun and relaxing weekend. The Sea Spa, located on the ground floor includes a heated saltwater pool and a tempting list of spa treatments. Guests of The Chelsea have full access to Chelsea Beach on Atlantic City’s oceanfront, complete with white cabanas, lounge chairs, and full bar service. Before you leave, work up a sweat at Chelsea’s fitness center outfitted with the latest athletic equipment, large screen TV’s, and chilled water.

OCEAN CITY Located on a barrier island that lies between Great Egg Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean, Ocean City is extremely family oriented.

The town was once a favored vacation spot for Grace Kelly and her family, which owned a summer home here dating back to 1929. Due to the town’s Methodist roots, Ocean City is completely dry, meaning no alcohol can be found within the town’s borders and public drinking is prohibited.

One of the main attractions is the 2.5 mile-long boardwalk, built from wide-plank wood. During the day, the boardwalk is busy with casual shoppers, strollers, joggers and bike riders. At night, Gillian’s Wonderland Pier and

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

Playland’s Castaway Cove amusement parks fill the air with delighted screams and laughter. There are also several miniature golf courses and a waterpark filled with serpentine slides all located directly on the boardwalk.

Many leave the boardwalk having visited Johnson’s Popcorn to purchase salty sweet caramel popcorn, and Shriver’s Salt Water Taffy & Fudge, which makes authentic salt water taffy in flavors like banana chocolate, strawberry and peppermint. The boardwalk is also filled with fun, surf-oriented shops where visitors can buy a tie-dye colored boogie board, shell jewelry, beach cover-ups, a hermit crab, and peach-colored polo shirts for the kids.

If you are unable to secure a beach rental, Port-O-Call Hotel and The Flanders Hotel are two excellent choices. Port-O-Call Hotel is oceanfront and offers a few dining options and an outdoor pool for those kids who refuse to get covered in sand. The Flanders Hotel is an Ocean City icon, having stood on the boardwalk since 1923. Just a few strides from the beach, The Flanders Hotel offers comfortable suites that include a small kitchen, spacious bedrooms, living area, pool, and sundeck.

CAPE MAY When the Garden State Parkway’s exit numbers wind down to 0, you know you’ve arrived at Cape May. Bearing absolutely no resemblance to the images of the shore seen on reality television, Cape May is historic and filled with well-to-do homeowners from Manhattan, Washington DC, and New Jersey.

Between the detailed Victorian homes and white sandy beaches, Cape May features beautiful scenery. The town is also a popular spot for beachside weddings and is a major destination for bird watchers. Another option is to escape the summer heat with a visit to the Cape May Winery where you can taste-test a wide selection of wines, or simply relax on the back porch overlooking the vineyard.

Food lovers will relish a trip to Cape May where the number of restaurants seems to outnumber the number of locals. Casual options like the popular Uncle Bill’s Pancake House are always available, but it is worth visiting SeaSalt, 410 Bank Street or Peter Shields Inn & Restaurant for a taste of fine dining, shore-style.

If you plan an overnight visit, Congress Hall beachfront hotel and resort is a wonderful choice. Guests can relax in rocking chairs overlooking the Grand Lawn or rent bikes to tour the resort’s 62-acre Beach Plum Farm. Also, don’t miss Congress Hall’s Blue Pig Tavern, which offers delicious cocktails, American fare and the sweet smell of salt air.

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High Times in a Wide-Open Town

In

BY STUART MITCHNER

May 1929 delegates to an Atlantic City convention worked out a fourteen point agreement that was a distorted mirror image of President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” treaty negotiated ten years earlier at Versailles. Led by Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and other mobster kingpins, this particular summit also dealt with war and peace, armaments, and the spoils of war.

As viewers of HBO’s series Boardwalk Empire know, the meeting

was hosted by Atlantic County treasurer Nucky Johnson, the model for Boardwalk’s Nucky Thompson. In Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation (Rutgers Univ. Press $24.95), Marc Mappen quotes an editorial in the Atlantic City Daily Press naively asking “Did these gangsters merely have reason to believe that here they would be undisturbed and here they could foregather without any police interference, a supposition that turned out to be the correct one?” The editorial “lambasted the town’s lax law enforcement,” for permitting “a gangster convention to be held under their very noses.” Of course that was why Atlantic City was the ideal setting.

Nucky Johnson had the police in his pocket.

Woodrow Wilson also makes an appearance in the opening pages of Steven Hart’s American Dictators: Frank Hague, Nucky Johnson, and the Perfection of the Urban Political Machine (Rutgers $23.95), which points out that each man “owed his ascension, ironically, to the efforts of Progressive reformer Woodrow Wilson during his attenuated term as governor of New Jersey.”

The most detailed discussion of Wilson’s role in inadvertently boosting the careers of the bosses is in Nelson Johnson’s Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City (Medford Press $16.95), the series tie-in edition featuring a foreword by writer and executive producer Terence Winter, along with excellent photographs of the major figures in the hit HBO series that has been renwed for a fifth season. You’ll find pictured therein Michael Pitt as Jimmy Darmody; Gretchen Moll as his mother, Gillian; Kelly Macdonald as Margaret Schroeder; Michael K. Williams as Chalky White; and Michael Shannon as FBI agent Nelson VanAlden, but you won’t find the names of these characters in the index because they’re all fictional. The “real people” are the Commodore, Louis Kaestner (based on Louis Kuehnle and played by Dabney Coleman), the gangsters, Al Capone (Stephen Graham), Lucky Luciano (Vincent Piazza) and Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg).

(Online various Boardwalk Empire sites suggest that Jimmy Darmody had a role similar to that of Johnson’s right-hand man Jimmy Boyd).

Above all, of course, there’s Nucky himself, a revelation as portrayed

by Steve Buscemi, arguably the most accomplished and admired character actor in film today. It was a daring and imaginative piece of casting, and according to Winter, who made his name as one of the main writers on HBO’s The Sopranos, “If we were going to cast accurately what the real Nucky looked like, we’d have cast Jim Gandolfini.” The idea was to move as far from the real-life Johnson as possible (in terms of criminal activity, the move follows a dark course). As described in Nelson Johnson’s book, Nucky stood 6 feet 4 inches with broad shoulders, “a ruggedly handsome man with large, powerful hands, a glistening bald head, a devilish grin, friendly gray eyes, and a booming voice.”

One piece of personal history the real and fictional Nuckys have in common in addition to corruption, high living and abuse of power is that both are widowers whose wives had died young. It’s worth noting, as well, that Nucky and his wife attended the State Normal College in Trenton, which became Trenton State, now The College of New Jersey.

Nucky left after a year to work for the Commodore, but his wife ended up teaching there.

WILSON THE TSUNAMI In Steven Harts’s American Dictators, Woodrow Wilson’s “passage through the governor’s office” had an effect on Atlantic City (“America’s Playground”) “akin to a tsunami.” The “wide-open town” overseen by Commodore Kuehnle was in Wilson’s eyes “a stain on New Jersey’s honor” and during his gubernatorial campaign he used the city’s “graft-sodden political machine as a prime example of the bossism he meant to eradicate.”

Once he became governor, he saw to it that a committee was formed to “root for evidence of electoral fraud” in the city. Although there was clear

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evidence of graft, particularly on the predominantly African American northside “where voters were paid $2 a head to cast their own ballots and those of deceased citizens,” both Nucky, then the county sheriff, and Kuehnle were eventually acquitted. However, another probe by Wilson led to the Commodore’s prosecution and imprisonment and the making of Nucky Johnson.

Thus, Hart writes, just as Wilson’s “pet reforms paved the way for Frank Hague’s acquisition of dictatorial powers,” his campaign to bring down Kuehnle “opened the way for a younger, even more venal successor.” By this time, Nucky was not only county treasurer but secretary to the Republican County Committee, with “control over the party’s agenda and membership.”

BOOKING BOARDWALK EMPIRE Evidence that Boardwalk Empire has evolved into something more than a spin-off of The Sopranos is in the appearance of books like Boardwalk Empire and Philosophy edited by Richard Greene and Rachel RobisonGreene (Open Court Books 19.95), which according to one reviewer turns “the Boardwalk into the School of Athens,” with contributions by, says another review, “sixteen philosophical bootleggers.” Then there’s Boardwalk Empire A-Z: A Totally Unofficial Guide to Accompany the Hit HBO Series by John Wallace (John Blake $10.95), billed as “the quintessential A-Z of the HBO show—from Atlantic City, Babette’s Supper Club, and Capone, to the Ziegfeld Theatre.”

Finally, a most unlikely and improbable and no doubt fanciful entry in the Boardwalk Empire publishing sweepstakes is the Chalky White Children’s Book collection, which is profanely introduced on Huffington Post by Michael K. White, who plays Nucky’s African American partner in crime (and is still best known for the role of Omar in The Wire). Titles include The Littlest Bag of Heroin in Town, Klan Man, Klan Man, Where Are You?, The Stumbly Wumbly Whore, and Chalky’s favorite, Who Did Daddy Whack Today?

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URBAN AGENDA New York City

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THE ART OF THE GETAWAY Welcome to the new Caribbean.

ABU DHABI • ANGUILLA • BEVERLY HILLS • BODRUM • ISTANBUL • MALDIVES • MIAMI • NEW YORK PALM SPRINGS • RIVIERA MAYA • SANTA MONICA • SNOWMASS • ST. LUCIA • ZIHUATANEJO RESORT RESERVATIONS 800 578 0283 INTERNATIONAL 264 497 7000 OR CALL YOUR TRAVEL PROFESSIONAL OWN A RESORT RESIDENCE 800 357 1930 INTERNATIONAL 264 497 0757 viceroyhotelsandresorts.com/anguilla facebook.com/viceroyanguilla twitter.com/viceroyai This is not an offering in any state where prohibited by law, including, but not limited to New York and New Jersey. WARNING: THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF REAL ESTATE HAS NOT EXAMINED THIS OFFERING, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE CONDITION OF TITLE, THE STATUS OF BLANKET LIENS ON THE PROJECT (IF ANY), ARRANGEMENTS TO ASSURE PROJECT COMPLETION, ESCROW PRACTICES, CONTROL OVER PROJECT MANAGEMENT, RACIALLY DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES (IF ANY), TERMS, CONDITIONS, AND PRICE OF THE OFFER, CONTROL OVER ANNUAL ASSESSMENTS (IF ANY), OR THE AVAILABILITY OF WATER, SERVICES, UTILITIES, OR IMPROVEMENTS. IT MAY BE ADVISABLE FOR YOU TO CONSULT AN ATTORNEY OR OTHER KNOWLEDGEABLE PROFESSIONAL WHO IS FAMILIAR WITH REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT LAW IN THE COUNTRY WHERE THIS SUBDIVISION IS SITUaATED.

GO FARTHER, SEAT MORE, SPEND LESS.

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866 -779-7770 JetSuite.com ©2013 JetSuite® All Rights Reserved. All flights operated by JetSuite Air, FAR Part 135 Certificate #9SUA667M. CJ3 service currently offered East of the Mississippi. Flights farther West possible but subject to higher rates. For lowest cost service area go to JetSuite.com.

ARGUS PLATINUM RATED

GOLF

&

B O DY

NYC

MANHATTAN’S FINEST URBAN COUNTRY CLUB If you play golf—at the highest level, just for fun, competitively, or at all—you know it is a high-performance sport. To play well in a tournament or a friendly weekend round, your swing and your body must be in good shape. Have one without the other and you might do okay. But to truly excel both must be in top form.

Welcome to Golf & Body NYC, the only club in New York City devoted to enhancing golf performance, getting and staying fit, and offering the opportunity to socialize with friends and business associates. All under one roof.

Leading the expert team of golf instructors is Darrell Kestner, one of the Met Area’s top professionals. At their fingertips is the latest and greatest in high-speed, computerized teaching equipment and simulators, all in a 25,000-foot space on the third floor of a modern building, minutes from Penn Station.

A skilled team of wellness experts offers an unprecedented range of sports medicine and wellness services that complement and support Golf & Body NYC’s personalized programs. Options include physical therapy, chiropractic, golf-specific stretching, yoga, and other modalities that

If you are serious about your golf, your body, or both, Golf & Body NYC is where you need to be. And where you’ll want to be.

From its state-of-the-art gym to high-tech golf simulators and wellness services, Golf & Body NYC offers a unique combination of experts, proven programs, a distinctive location, and luxurious private-club amenities unmatched anywhere in Manhattan—or in the world.

Ben Shear, a pioneering fitness trainer who works with a number of PGA Tour golfers, leads the body team. Ben and his team conduct a physical assessment on each member, from which they construct an individualized wellness program that includes exercise and nutrition.

help prepare the body as well as prevent injury and foster healing.

But what makes Golf & Body NYC truly special is its commitment to combining the physical and the golf, the trainers and pros working together to create regimens that help members play the best game of their lives in the best shape of their lives.

Golf & Body NYC also offers exciting entertainment options from a “19th hole” to sophisticated dining.

“Golf & Body NYC is probably the closest thing we’ve got in the United States that approaches the capability of an Olympic training center for golf.”

— George Zahringer, 2013 Seniors Open Amateur Champion, USGA Senior Amateur runner-up, seventime U.S. Senior Open participant, Manhattan resident, and member of Golf & Body NYC

Golf & Body NYC. Live the game.

Golf & Body NYC | 883 Avenue of the Americas (between 31st and 32nd) | 212/244-2626 | www.golfbodynyc.com

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox and Roach Congratulates Robin L. Wallack Broker-Associate, REALTOR

PLATINUM LeveL

BHHS F&R Chairman’s Circle - Platinum NJAR Circle of Excellence - Platinum My knowledge of the Princeton area comes from years of service to my community. How rewarding it is to have repeat customers and clients, and to be referred to their children or parents. No one knows Princeton better!

ELEGANCE PERSONIFIED! This glorious Princeton property will take your breath away. Professionally planned and executed grounds complement a most sophisticated, yet easy to live in, interior. Brick floored conservatory, lovely arches, and generous rooms make this one very special offering. $2,000,000

PRINCETON OFFICE / 253 Nassau Street / Princeton, NJ 08540 609-924-1600 main / 609-683-8505 direct

Visit our Gallery of Virtual Home Tours at www.foxroach.com

A member of the franchise system of BHH Affiliates, LLC

P OIS MOI COLLECTION

The Mall at Short Hills 973.379.5500 Garden State Plaza 201.226.9666 Stamford Town Center 203.351.1104