At Barclays Center, No Bottle Caps for You

Dear Diary:

DATE: Nov. 21, 2012
PLACE: Barclays Center
EVENT: Bob Dylan/Mark Knopfler concert

My partner, Janet, and I are eager to sample the Brooklyn cuisine at the new venue. I order a sandwich and a bottle of water from the friendly young server. As she puts the bottle on the counter, she explains what she's about to do.

“I have to open it for you.”

Shrug. O.K. Whatever.

“I also have to keep the cap.”

“Huh? Why?”

“People have been throwing them.”

Sigh. Zheesh. There are long, steep stairs between us and our seats… now with water sloshing all over? Janet asks if an exception can be made for a couple of tame older folks.

“No, I'm really sorry. That's the policy.”

We cajole the server, with a watchful eye on someone behind her who looks a lot like a supervisor.

“I'm sorry. I wish I could.”

Minutes pass. We wait for the sandwich. The server smiles and gestures toward Janet's jewelry.

“That's a beautiful ring! Can I see it?”

Janet extends her hand for the server to study. With the invisible skill of a true sleight-of-hand artist, she slips the cap into Janet's palm. Janet beams. My sandwich comes. Bravo!

And the concert was great, too.

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After Petraeus and Broadwell, Considering the Ethics of Biographies

Let's start with an eminently reasonable suggestion from the ethicists: Preferred behavior for biographers does not include sleeping with the people they write about. So much for that business between David H. Petraeus and his chronicler, Paula Broadwell.

Hang on, not so fast. Might hanky-panky between subject and biographer be somehow less objectionable if it is openly acknowledged?

A group of respected thinkers pondered that one for a moment Monday evening at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. But in the end the consensus among them boiled down to a single, if inelegant, word: Nah.

“I don't think it would change the ethics of what she did,” said Carol Levine, an ethicist who is director of the Families and Health Care Project at the United Hospital Fund. Ms. Levine was referring to Ms. Broadwell. But she quickly edited herself. “What they did,” she said.

The Petraeus-Broadwell affair has been examined from almost every conceivable angle: national security, marital fidelity, military code of honor, human frailty, you name it. Monday evening, it inspired a discussion about the “ethics of biography,” conducted before an audience of 65 under the auspices of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, a division of the Graduate Center.

As you might have suspected, there are issues in play for biographers besides sex, the Petraeus-Broadwell spectacle notwithstanding.

Authors don't have to hop into bed with their subjects to qualify as getting too close, said Gary Giddins, executive director of the b iography center and author of books on Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Bing Crosby. To go way back, there is James Boswell, as in Samuel Johnson's Boswell. “He wasn't sleeping with Johnson,” Mr. Giddins said. “But he worshiped the ground Johnson walked on. He was a toady.” Not the most enviable label to have slapped on you, we'd say.

Joining this conversation, besides Ms. Levine, were John Matteson and Benjamin Anastas. Mr. Matteson wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Louisa May Alcott and her father, and, more recently, one of Margaret Fuller, a 19th-century American transcendentalist. Mr. Anastas has just published a memoir, “Too Good to Be True,” which for some people has raised questions about whether it is possible to reveal perhaps a tad too much about oneself.

Does a memoirist have a responsibility to anyone other than himself? “Absolutely,” Mr. Anasta responded. Before publishing his book, he said, he showed it to people who figure in it. “I didn't want anyone to be blindsided,” he said.

Mr. Matteson said that “a moral obligation” also extended to people long dead.

For example, Alcott, who died in 1888 at age 55, was a “very private” person. She so disliked having others poke into her life, he said, that she would turn a garden hose on reporters nosing around her house. (Don't try this at home, people.)

“There's no history of her ever having a lover,” Mr. Matteson said. Inevitably, that fed speculation: Was she hiding something? Might she have been gay? “There was no smoking gun, no evidence” as to her sexuality, Mr. Matteson s aid. In the end, “given how private she was,” he said, “I felt I had to step back” and not pursue the matter further.

Those among you who truly crave to know the sex life of the creator of Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy will have to search elsewhere. Sorry.

Some issues that arose on Monday were fairly straightforward: Does a biographer who has interviewed his or her subject take that person's account as gospel? Plainly, no. Is it ethical for a writer to gussy up an absence of hard facts with fudge phrases like “maybe” this or that occurred, or such and such “could have” happened? Examples of that technique abound. But it's “heavy-handed,” and best avoided, Mr. Matteson said.

Nor, the panelists agreed, is it a good idea to toss a juicy anecdote into a category favored by many a story teller: “too good to check.” Probe deeper, they said.

But not everything can be investigated thoroughly. Mr. Giddins inquired about “the ethics of let ters.” How does a biographer treat letters written by a subject who died long ago: with the same critical eye that would be applied to a living person, or with an assumption that they, in Mr. Giddins's words, “always tell the truth”?

“That won't be a problem in 20 years,” Ms. Levine said. “We won't have any letters.”

Not an encouraging thought, even if she was probably right. Then again, as Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell learned the hard way, letters aren't everything. For a biographer, exchanges of e-mails may do you. They may do you in, too.

E-mail Clyde Haberman: haberman@nytimes.com

Relief Workers Find Spartan Lodging, Right on the Water

Uli Seit for The New York Times A merchant marine training ship anchored near the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx has been used to house federal workers involved in hurricane relief work.

Andrew Baas, 32, a federal employee sent to New York as part of a recovery team, told the folks back home in Everett, Pa., that he was helping Hurricane Sandy victims in south Brooklyn and sleeping on a ship docked at the base of a bridge in the Bronx.

“They said, ‘Like a troll, under a bridge?' â€" and I said, ‘Well no, it's a big bridge.'”

Uli Seit for The New York Times The dining area aboard the Empire State offers cafeteria-style serving and basic comfort food.

Indeed it is - it's the 2,900-foot-long Throgs Neck Bridge, and the ship is the T.S. Empire State VI, a 565-foot training ship for the State University of New York Maritime College, where the ship is regularly docked at the tip of the Throgs Neck peninsula in the Bronx.

When the federal government needed emergency shelter for thousands of employees arriving in New York to assist with relief and recovery efforts, the academy offered the Empire as something of a waterfront hotel â€" a spartan one.

Two other ships that were brought to the New York area to house workers - the S.S. Wright and the T.S. Kennedy â€" are anchored off Staten Island.

All three ships provided sleeping space for about 1,200, but that number has decreased in recent weeks as the immediate response has ebbed, said Mike Byrne, 58, the coordinating officer in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency response in New York.

Workers board the ship, which currently houses about 260 workers, through a wide concrete pier and up a sturdy gangplank. There is a rack of USA Today newspapers at the entrance, but little else on board resembles a typical hotel.

Uli Seit for The New York Times The living quarters aboard the Empire are decidedly spartan.

Workers sleep in narrow bunks stacked three high and embedded into the wall like cubbies, on thin foam cushions in one of several berthing holds that can each sleep 138 people. Underfoot are steel floors, and overhead are labyrinths of ducts and wiring. To the side are long rows of stainless-steel sinks, and nearby are group showering areas. Belongings are kept in tall lockers.

It is not party central. There is a 10 p.m. lights-out rule and wake-up time is 5 a.m., when the workers divide into groups and board vans to areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.

Meals are eaten in the cadet mess area, served cafeteria-style on metal trays and eaten at long tables. (There is one bar near the ship, Paddy's on the Bay, and it has become a popular decompression site.)

“There's no mint on your pillow, that's for sure,” said Mr. Baas, who when his duties here are complete w ill return home where he works for the federal Transportation Security Administration at Altoona-Blair County Airport. “I've never been in the military, so this is all new to me. It's something I had to get used to.”

Among the things he's had to forgo are computer games because Wi-Fi and electrical outlets are scant on the ship. “I had to go cold turkey,'' said Mr. Baas, who is working as a FEMA outreach worker. “I took the mind-set like, ‘This is like camping.' It's allowing me to focus on the mission we're here for.”

Another worker, John McEwen, 61, said the sleeping conditions hardly bothered him because, “I enjoy operating outside my comfort zone and spent 35 years in the Coast Guard.”

Uli Seit for The New York Times The dining area aboard the Empire State offers cafeteria-style serving and basic comfort food.

“You adjust quickly to this environment,” said Mr. McEwen, who is from Virginia Beach and had spent the day in Coney Island and nearby Sea Gate supervising a team signing residents up for assistance. “You're working long days, so you're out as soon as you lay down. You're not concerned with comfort. This is something you go home and tell your kids about, that you made a difference.”

Mr. Byrne said the ship helped to alleviate a problem caused by the lack of vacancies in New York-area hotels, at a much cheaper cost.

The ship is typically used to train the academy's cadets with summer terms at sea and for classes and training during the school year. Its classroom space came in handy to prepare FEMA workers for their assignments.

“New York C ity is such a different environment for a lot of our people, so they need orientation,” said Mr. Byrne, who grew up in the Stanley Isaacs public housing project in Manhattan and is a former lieutenant with the New York Fire Department. “It helps to know the neighborhoods and their people.”

Mr. Byrne walked through the ship, up and down the stair towers that link the decks, and along narrow hallways and through oval cutout doorways. He passed the sick bay and entered a game room where, next to air hockey machines, a group of young women who had worked the day distributing food in the Rockaways were exercising.

The adjacent television room has grown popular lately, after FEMA arranged for the installation of a cable hookup. This was high priority, because many of the workers hail from college football-addicted southern states.

“A lot of SEC fans on board,” Mr. Byrne said, referring to the Southeastern Conf erence.

Mr. Byrne said that those living aboard the ship did not have to use the subways, something that some workers staying in Manhattan found distressing.

“I got reports that some of the workers had high stress levels,” he said. “I said, ‘Because of dealing with the people?' and they said, ‘No, from riding the subway.'”

Mr. Byrne ate some beef and mashed potatoes and chatted with workers from the Midwest, and told them about meeting President Obama during his visit to Staten Island.

“The president shook my hand and said, ‘Stay on it,' so that's what I've been telling my people, ‘We got to stay on it.'”

Mr. Baas said that after a hard day's work, he was hardly looking for luxurious lodging.

“I'm enjoying this,” said Mr. Baas. “I'm sleeping like a baby.”

Uli Seit for The New York Times The living quarters aboard the Empire are decidedly spartan.

Storm-Tested Menorah, Off to the White House

Uli Seit for The New York Times Rabbi David S. Bauman at Temple Israel of Long Beach, on Long Island, which was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy. One of the temple's other menorahs has been taken away because it is going to be displayed at the White House Hanukkah party.

A 90-year-old menorah from a temple on Long Island that was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy will be displayed at a Hanukkah party hosted by President Obama as a symbol of perseverance and hope for the holidays.

The brass menorah survived a 10-foot storm surge that destroyed a chapel, a library, numerous religious books and six Torah scrolls at Temple Israel in Long Beach, according to the congregation's rabbi, David S. Bauman.

Rabbi Bauman said the White House contacted him about two weeks ago seeking a menorah that survived the storm's onslaught. He said he took a photograph of the menorah, one of two that were located on the upper floor of the temple's sanctuary, and sent it to a White House official.

“The next thing I know I'm talking to the White House curator and the Secret Service,” he said. “It's an incredibly humbling experience.”

The White House was led to Rabbi Bauman's congregation by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, an organization that helped communities in New York City and on Long Island in Hurricane Sandy's aftermath. The group informed the White House about t he menorah at Temple Israel.

Rabbi Bauman, 41, who is also a reserve chaplain in the Marine Corps, will travel with the menorah to Washington for the Hanukkah party, which will be held on Thursday.

The White House has a tradition of selecting menorahs with some kind of meaningful history. Last year, the menorah displayed at the Hanukkah party was one built at a displaced persons camp in Europe after World War II. In 2010, officials selected a menorah salvaged from a synagogue destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

“The Hanukkah story and the story of recovery from a hurricane are not dissimilar,” said Jarrod Bernstein, the White House director for Jewish outreach and a Long Island native, who helped arrange this year's selection. Though not entirely the same, he said, “the spirit of reconstituting and re-sanctifying is still there.”

The seven-foot menorah will honor not only the 200 or so congregants of Temple Israel, but also everyone affected by th e storm, Mr. Bernstein said.

The party will be a brief respite for Rabbi Bauman from the continuing cleanup work at his temple. The structure, which opened in 1923, sustained about $5 million worth of damage. He said it took 72 hours to pump out the seawater and another six weeks to clean up. There is still no power, though Rabbi Bauman has now installed generators allowing him to open the temple to congregants on Saturday mornings.

After attending the White House party, Rabbi Bauman will return to continue restoring his synagogue, juggling insurance claims and seeking donations for repairs. It is a daunting task, he said, but one he said he was committed to completing.

“The story of Hanukkah is about the underdog becoming victorious,” he said. “And that's our goal. We will rebuild.”

Detainee Was Held Longer for Rejecting Voluntary Iris Scan, Suit Claims

Updated, 6:26 p.m. | An Occupy Wall Street protester who said she had been held in custody by the police longer than was normal because she did not allow officers to photograph the irises of her eyes, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming her constitutional rights had been violated.

The protester, Claire Lebowitz, 29, was arrested in January while lying on a granite bench in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. She was charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. Ms. Lebowitz's suit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, described events that she said took place after she was taken to Central Booking to await arraignment.

“When it came time to be arraigned, police asked her if she would cooperate in having her inner eye scanned and photographed,” the complaint says. “She did not give consent for that, and, as a punishment, they kept her locked up for an extra 14 hou rs.”

The New York Police Department began taking iris scans of people arrested in Manhattan in 2010, saying that the images, which function like fingerprints, would help prevent suspects from escaping by posing as prisoners facing lesser charges - something that happened at least twice that year. Iris scanning spread to the other four boroughs.

A law mandating the iris photos was never passed, and high-ranking police officials have said that compliance is not compulsory. But early this year, Ms. Lebowitz and other people who had been arrested i n Manhattan complained that they were held longer than usual after they refused to allow the iris photographs â€" in effect, they said, they were punished without due process for refusing to participate in a voluntary program.

Ms. Lebowitz's lawsuit appears to be the first in the city to make this claim. Around 5:45 p.m. on Jan. 11, “when in the ordinary course of events she would otherwise have been arraigned,” the lawsuit says, she declined to let officers photograph her eyes and was told that she had no choice in the matter.

The says she spent the night in the Manhattan Detention Complex, then was released on Jan. 12 without agreeing to the photograph, after more than 30 hours in custody.

“The police cannot deprive you of your personal liberty and detain you as a form of punishment,” said Ms. Lebowitz's lawyer, Paul Mills. “And that is exactly what they were doing.”

The chief of the city Law Department's special federal litigation divi sion, Muriel Goode-Trufant, said she was still awaiting service of
Ms. Lebowitz's papers and added, “We will review the case thoroughly.”

Ms. Lebowitz said she had filed the suit partly in the hope of examining the iris photographing program more closely.

“I'm concerned about the way the police are using this technology,” she said.

Cuomo Names Commissioners to Tax-Reform Panel

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at the State Capitol last week.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday named a former state comptroller, H. Carl McCall, and an investment banker, Peter J. Solomon, to lead a new panel charged with proposing reforms to the state's tax code.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said last December that he had created the commission, acting amid concerns that he was moving too hastily in overhauling the state's income tax â€" an action that he announced, and then persuaded the Legislature to approve, in a span of several days that month. But it was not until Tuesday that Mr. Cuomo appointed members to the commission; Mr. McCall and Mr. Solomon were among 10 people Mr. Cuomo named to the panel; additional members are to be appointed by legislative leaders.

“This commission will now undertake a broader review of the state's complex tax code to find ways to make it simpler, and more fair, and help reduce the tax burden faced by New Yorkers and businesses,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. The commission will be charged with reviewing the state's corporate, sales and personal income taxes. The recommendations are supposed to be revenue-neutral; a spokesman said no deadline had been set for the commission to report back to the governor.

In 2002, Mr. Cuomo and Mr. McCall were riv als; Mr. Cuomo dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor facing defeat by Mr. McCall. But they have since made amends; Mr. McCall was a co-chairman of Mr. Cuomo's transition team, and last year the governor appointed him chairman of the board of trustees for the State University of New York. Mr. McCall was also a co-chairman of the Committee to Save New York, a lobbying group that has supported Mr. Cuomo's agenda.

Mr. Solomon is the founder and chairman of the investment bank Peter J. Solomon Company. He was a deputy mayor under former Mayor Edward I. Koch and is a member of another panel that Mr. Cuomo assembled, the Spending and Government Efficiency Commission, which is tasked with strea mlining the state's bureaucracy. Mr. Solomon has also been a donor to Mr. Cuomo, contributing $35,000 to his campaign since 2010.

Proof of City\'s Wholesomeness: New Yorkers Live Longer

New Yorkers continue to live longer than Americans as a whole by an increasingly wide margin, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Tuesday.

A New Yorker's life expectancy at birth in 2010 was 80.9 years, 2.2 years longer than the national life expectancy in 2010 of 78.7 years, according to new data released by Mr. Bloomberg and the city health department. That is up from a 2.0-year lead the year before.

And across the board, the city's blacks, whites, Hispanics, men and women, young and old continue to see their life spans increase, the data show. A black New Yorker's life expectancy at birth has increased by nearly four years since 2001.

While Mr. Bloomberg has been accused of enacting nanny-like public health measures, he trumpeted his antismoking policies for hel ping to widen the life expectancy gap between the city, which has annually had record life-expectancy highs, and the United States. He also credited the city's aggressive H.I.V. prevention measures, drops in traffic fatalities and violent crime, and a decline in the infant mortality rate.

“All New Yorkers should feel that we've done something wonderful together,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference at the health department's headquarters in Queens. “I didn't do this. Everybody did it. Some people complained. There's always some people who don't like things. But together, the city supported these initiatives.”

Mr. Bloomberg said he believed that people who complain don't live as long anyway. He and Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the health commissioner, encouraged people to move to New York if they wanted to live longer.

Other notable findings in the report:

â€"New Yorkers' life-expectancy lead over the nation as a who le grew from 1 year in 2001 (77.9 years vs. 76.9 years) to 2 years in 2009 (80.6 years vs. 78.6 years) to 2.2 years in 2010.

â€"Hispanics in New York continue to have higher life expectancies than non-Hispanic blacks and whites, but their lead is narrowing. In 2001, Hispanic life expectancy at birth was 79.7 years, vs. 78.5 years for whites and 73.4 years for blacks. In 2010, the figures were 81.9 years for Hispanics, 81.4 for whites and 77.2 for blacks.

â€"Female New Yorkers are expected to live 83.3 years, compared to 81 years for female Americans as a whole. For males, it's 78.1 years in New York vs. 76.2 years nationally.

â€"New York City's infant mortality rate has decreased 23 percent since 2001. The national rate dropped 12 percent in that time.

â€"At age 40, New Yorkers can expect to live 42.3 more years.

â€"At age 70, New Yorkers can expect to live 17 more years, compared to 15.5 years for the country as a whole.

â€"The city's H.I .V. infection rate is down 11.3 percent from 2009, and the city's death rate from heart disease has decreased 27.1 percent from 2001.

Life expectancy figures are calculated using formulas based on current mortality rates and death probability estimates.

Life Expectancy Charts (PDF)

Life Expectancy Charts (Text)

In Queens Mexican Communities, Mourning a Voice Gone Silent

Librado Romero/The New York Times Guadalupe Perez, a worker at a store in Jackson Heights, said Jenni Rivera, the Mexican singer who was killed in a plane crash on Sunday, wrote lyrics that spoke honestly about the kinds of struggles many Mexican women face.

Reed Saxon/Associated Press Jenni Rivera

It was only after her death in a plane crash that Jenni Rivera attracted significant attention in the English-language news media, introducing her to a broad audience that may have known little about her.

But in the neighborhoods in Queens where Mexican immigrants have settled, Ms. Rivera's life story is well known and celebrated, not just for her accomplishments as a singer and a reality television star, but also for the example she set for determination and pride in her Mexican roots.

On Tuesday, inside many stores and businesses along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights and Corona, televisions were tuned to Spanish-language channels where image after image of Ms. Rivera played. Many who were interviewed lamented the death of Ms. Rivera, 43, who was known as “the Diva of Banda” and who was killed on Sunday in the crash of a private jet outside Monterrey, Mexico.

Women in particular considered Ms. Rivera a role model because she was a star in a Mexican music genre that is dominated by men and because she was honest about the troubles she had faced in her personal life.

“She was an example for all Latin women,” said Guadalupe Perez, 50, a worker at a shop called Decoraciones Lupita in Jackson Heights.

Ms. Perez, who was born in Mexico, said she identified with the singer's candid lyrics.

“She never shied away from her problems,” she said. “She shared with us, her audience, a message to keep going for our children. I think it was a way for her to vent to other women.”

Ms. Rivera was born in Long Beach, Calif., a daughter of Mexican immigrants and one of six children. She rose to fame in banda, a genre of music that has not attracted many women, and was known for touchi ng on delicate topics, like domestic abuse.

In 2010, Ms. Rivera was named a celebrity spokeswoman for the organization National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She also founded the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation, a support organization for single mothers and victims of domestic violence.

“She stood up for a lot of people - women and children in poverty, and children of immigrants,” said Diane Moreno, 55, a hair stylist at a beauty salon in Corona.

Ms. Moreno said she was also deeply moved by Ms. Rivera's music.

“She didn't only talk about her problems, she talked about how she would solve them,” Ms. Moreno said. “She achieved the American dream, but she had to work very hard just like all the women and men who have come here to achieve something better for themselves.”

Ms. Moreno said it was the singer's ties to American and Mexican culture that contributed to her popularity.

“Jenni Rivera was an ambassador here for Mexica n music,” she said.

Ms. Rivera also gained fame recently as a reality television star, appearing with her five children in programs that were broadcast on Mun2, a Spanish-language cable channel. She was also a coach on the Mexican version of a singing competition show, “The Voice.”

But to many of those interviewed, Ms. Rivera, despite her celebrity status, was someone just like them, with the same dreams, facing the same challenges.

“Like so many women,” said Ana Maricela Lopez, 25, a worker at a taqueria in Corona, “a lot of us go through the problems she spoke about.”

Teenager Charged in Opossum\'s Beating Death

An 18-year-old was arrested in connection with a fatal attack on an opossum in a park in Queens, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals announced on Tuesday.

The teenager, Jordan Heuer, had made and posted online a video of the attack last year, the society said. The video, recorded at Peck Park in Fresh Meadows, shows young men smashing the animal's head with a rock repeatedly as it tries desperately to escape. One of them is Mr. Heuer, the society said.

The video was spotted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which alerted the A.S.P.C.A., and the society began a criminal investigation in September, it said.

“This is a disturbing case of violent abuse in which the suspect went out of his way to not only inflict pain on a helpless animal victim by smashing it repeatedly on its head with a rock, but to also record and post the brutal event on the Internet,” Stacy Wolf, a vice president of the society, said in a statement.

Mr. Heuer, who was arrested Dec. 3, is charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. While cruelty to pets is a felony in New York State, cruelty to wild animals is only a misdemeanor.

“This is precisely the sort of case that supports making the more callous acts that cause serious injury or death to wild animals into felony offenses,” Ms. Wolf said.

A bill before the State Assembly would make cruelty to wildlife a felony in New York.

Its sponsor, Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal of Manhattan, renewed her call for the bill's passage on Tuesday.

“Though these animals may not sleep in bed with us or jump into our laps, they are no less deserving of legal protection than are our pets,” Ms. Rosenthal said in a statement.

Some Charges Dropped Against Masked Protesters

The Manhattan district attorney's office dismissed some charges Tuesday against three women who were arrested in August while wearing masks during a demonstration outside of the Russian Consulate on the Upper East Side.

The women had been protesting prison sentences handed down in Moscow to members of the punk band Pussy Riot while wearing the same type of colorful balaclavas often worn by the band members.

When they did not heed police orders to remove the masks, the women were arrested and charged with loitering under a provision that makes it unlawful for three or more people to wear ma sks in public during a political demonstration. The legality of the 150-year-old mask law has been challenged. The women were also charged with disorderly conduct.

The women - Rachel Weldon, Esther Robinson and Rebekah Schiller - had filed a memorandum of law in criminal court saying that wearing the balaclavas was a form of protected expression and that the stated purpose of the mask law, “deterring violence and facilitating the apprehension of wrongdoers,” was not served by applying it to peaceful protesters.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, Erin Duggan, said the loitering charges were dismissed “in the interest of justice.” Dismissal in the interest of justice is a legal move that can be used by prosecutors to dismiss a charge without addressing arguments made by an opponent.

“Although it is clear that the defendant wore a mask during this protest, with others wearing masks, and did refuse to comply with police instructions to remove it, the People are moving to dismiss the lone count related to this conduct,” a prosecutor told the judge as each of the three women made a court appearance.

The women still face the disorderly conduct charges.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer representing the women, said that he and other lawyers were “committed to challenging the legality of the anti-mask laws in peaceful protest situations where the mask conveys a particularized message and is integral to that message.”

In Performance: Shuler Hensley of \'The Whale\'

This week we'll be featuring two videos as part of In Performance, our new theater series in which actors perform excerpts from their new shows.

The first is with Shuler Hensley in a scene from “The Whale,” a new play by Samuel D. Hunter that runs through Saturday at Playwrights Horizons. Mr. Hensley plays Charlie, a homebound, morbidly obese gay man who teaches an online writing course from his small apartment in northern Idaho. In this scene Charlie recites a passage from one of his prized possessions: a book report on “Moby Dick.”

Coming Thursday: Michael Learned performs a scene from Bruce Graham's “Outgoing Tide.” Previous videos include Aasif Mandvi in “Disgraced” and Joaquina Kalukango in “Emotional Creature.”

Bo Bice Is Broadway Bound in \'Pump Boys and Dinettes\'

Evan Agostini/AGOEV, via Associated Press Bo Bice

The Broadway revival of “Pump Boys and Dinettes” will begin preview performances March 19 at Circle in the Square Theater, the producers announced on Tuesday, and the ensemble of six actors will include Bo Bice, who was runner-up to Carrie Underwood on the fourth season of “American Idol.”

Mr. Bice and the rest of the cast â€" Alexander Gemignani, Erik Hayden, Justin Hosek, Jane Pfitsch, and Leenya Rideout â€" will also double as the show's band, playing guitar, piano, bass, fiddle accordion, harmonica, and va rious kitchen utensils. The director is John Doyle, a Tony Award winner in 2006 for the revival of “Sweeney Todd,” who is known for having his actors play instruments.

Conceived and written by its original Broadway company, which included Debra Monk and Cass Morgan, “Pump Boys and Dinettes” is a tribute to small-town American life as rendered at a gas station and roadside eatery on Highway 57 in North Carolina. The original production opened in 1982 and was nominated for a best musical Tony; it ran for 573 performances.

The revival will officially open on April 8.

Finalists Named for Kennedy Theater Prize

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Tonya Pinkins in a scene from “Hurt Village” at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

Two recent Off Broadway plays and two works produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival are among the five finalists for the new $100,000 theater award established to honor Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his interest in American history, the Columbia University Libraries announced on Tuesday. The winner of the annual prize, to be chosen by a jury of writers and academics, will be announced on Feb. 22, Mr. Kennedy's birthday. The f inalists are:

- “All the Way,” about Lyndon Baines Johnson's first year as president, by Robert Schenkkan (a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright for “The Kentucky Cycle”) and produced at the Oregon festival.
- “The Body of an American,” about the responsibilities and challenges of reporting on war, by Dan O'Brien and produced at the Portland Center Stage in Oregon.
- “Hurt Village,” about an African-American family in a housing project in Memphis, by Katori Hall and produced at the Signature Theater in New York.
- “Party People,” about former 1960s activists looking back on that era, by the performance ensemble Universes and produced at the Oregon festival.
- “Rapture, Blister, Burn,” about the evolving attit udes of women toward marriage and careers, by Gina Gionfriddo and produced at Playwrights Horizons in New York.

The finalists for the award - formally titled the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History - were chosen through nominations from about 20 theater professionals in the United States. One of theater's most lucrative prizes, it was established in September by Mr. Kennedy's sister Jean Kennedy Smith, a former United States ambassador to Ireland, with the assistance of the Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner and officials at Columbia.

According to its mission statement, the award will go to a play or musical that “enlists theater's power to explore the past of the United States, to participate meaningfully in the great issues of our day through the public conversation, grounded in historical understanding, that is essential to the functioning of a democracy.” The Columbia University Libraries will collaborate with prize recip ients to create online study guides related to the winning works, incorporating historical research and scholarly discussions.

Corcoran Gallery of Art Will Stay Put

After the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington alarmed fans of its spectacular Beaux-Arts home near the White House by announcing this summer that it was considering a relocation, the board said on Monday that its members had decided against a move. According to a news release, the board voted on Dec. 5 to “now focus only on approaches that keep the museum in the building,” including the possibility of a collaboration with another “like-minded institution.”

The need for $130 million worth of renovations on the Corcoran's 17th Street building is what precipitated the idea of a sale and a move of the museum and its associated College of Art and Design. Harry Hopper, the chairman of the board, told the Washington Post that “the process of publicly exploring this idea has generated not only noise and indigestion, it has also generated an inflow of opportunities and information.” The Post mentioned George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art as potential partners.

Save the Corcoran, a group that sprang up to oppose the move, applauded the announcement, saying it hopes to work with the museum's leadership as it faces “several critically important decisions over the next several months about the future of this great institution.”

Those decisions include what will happen to the school, which sorely needs space. The Corcoran's announcement did not specifically mention where the college would be located.

Zosia Mamet\'s Winter Plans: On \'Girls\' and Off Broadway

Chad Batka for The New York Times Zosia Mamet.

The actress Zosia Mamet will be playing two characters this winter who, apart from being lovelorn, could not be more different temperamentally. Just as she is returning to the HBO series “Girls” in January as the bubbly naïf Shoshanna Shapiro, Ms. Mamet will also make her Off Broadway debut as the downbeat, enigmatic Leigh in Paul Downs Colaizzo's “Really Really,” a drama about sexual politics and culture clashes among college students. The MCC Theater production will be staged by David Cromer, the Obie-winning director of the recent Off Broadway productions “Our Town” and “Tribes.”

The play, which begins performances on Jan. 31 and opens on Feb. 19 at the Lucille Lortel Theater, had a critically acclaimed production last winter at Signature Theater in Virginia.

Starring opposite Ms. Mamet as her campus-crush-turned-antagonist will be Matt Lauria, who played a high school football star in the later seasons of “Friday Night Lights.” The cast also includes Evan Jonigkeit (who starred opposite Kathleen Turner in “High” on Broadway) as Leigh's boyfriend, and Lauren Culpepper reprising her role from the Signature production as Leigh's roommate. The cast also includes David Hull, Kobi Libii and Aleque Reid.

The MCC Theater production marks Mr. Colaizzo's New York playwriting debut.

Shia LaBeouf to Star Opposite Alec Baldwin in \'Orphans\' on Broadway

Anthony Dixon/WENN.com Shia LaBeouf.

Shia LaBeouf is better known for performing high intensity heroics (the “Transformers” movies, the last Indiana Jones picture) than limning cold fury, but his new career move will give him a chance to play a bad boy â€" a very bad boy.

Mr. LaBeouf, 26, will make his Broadway debut this spring opposite Alec Baldwin in “Orphans,” Lyle Kessler's 1983 drama about two troubled brothers who kidnap a mobster. Mr. LaBeouf, whose recent movies include “Lawless” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” will play Treat, a petty thief who wields strong control over his younger brother Phillip in their dilapidated Philadelphia row house. Casting for the role of Phillip will be announced later; Mr. Baldwin will play the mobster Harold, a man with surprising emotional layers.

A critically acclaimed Off Broadway production in 1985 starred Terry Kinney as Treat, Kevin Anderson as Phillip, and John Mahoney as Harold.

The production is to begin preview performances on March 19 at the Schoenfeld Theater, and will officially open on April 7. It will be directed by the Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan, whose latest Broadway outing, a revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” is running at the Schoenfeld.

Rush, Public Enemy and Heart to Join Rock Hall of Fame

Michael Falco for The New York Times Alex Lifeson of Rush at Madison Square Garden in 2007.

Rush, Heart and Public Enemy are among the six acts to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum at a ceremony in Los Angeles next May. The other honorees will be the bluesman Albert King, the disco queen Donna Summer and the songwriter Randy Newman.

The decision to give Rush, the Canadian progressive-rock power trio, a berth in the hall rectifies what some in the music industry have considered a glaring oversight in past years. Since its 1976 breakthrough album “2112,” the band has released almost nothing but gold and platinu m albums, even though its album-oriented style only produced a few hit singles, chief among them “New World Man” in 1982.

Donna Summer's elevation to the hall just months after she died of cancer also appeared intended to make up for ignoring her in the past. She had been nominated several times but never chosen. When she died in May, many influential figures in pop music, among them Elton John, said it was shameful that she had not been recognized.

Steve C. Mitchell/European Pressphoto Agency Chuck D. and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy.

Indeed, after her death, Jon Landau, a prominent rock manager and chairman of the hall's nominating com mittee, also said “there is absolutely no doubt that the extraordinary Donna Summer belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” and expressed the hope that the voting group would recognize her in this year's balloting.

Selecting Public Enemy, the seminal rap group known for politically charged lyrics and hits like “Fight the Power,” may also signal a turning point for the hall. (N.W.A. was also nominated but passed over by the voters.)

The list of other acts that did not make the final cut was an eclectic bunch: Kraftwerk, Procol Harum, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Meters, the Marvelettes and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

The winners were chosen by 500 voters, mostly musicians and other music industry veterans, who belong to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. This year, the hall also took into account the results of an Internet p oll of fans in deciding the inductees, though that was given little weight in the tally.

For the first time since 1993, the induction ceremony will be held on the West Coast, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. It will be broadcast on HBO on Saturday, May 18, at 9 p.m.

Holly Hunter Withdraws From \'The Vandal\' Off Broadway

The Oscar winner Holly Hunter has withdrawn from the Flea Theater's production of the new play “The Vandal,” citing scheduling conflicts, and will be replaced by the admired theater actress Deirdre O'Connell (“Magic/Bird,” “In the Wake”), the theater announced on Tuesday. No further details about Ms. Hunter were provided.

The play, about a woman and a boy who swap stories at a bus stop one night in Kingston, N.Y., is familiar to Ms. O'Connell: She performed a staged reading of the work when it was in development.

“The Vandal” is written by the actor Hamish Linklater, best known for his stage work (“Seminar”) and his television role in “The New Adventures of Old Christine.” The play's cast also includes Zach Grenier and Noah Robbins; the director is Jim Simpson, the Flea's artistic director.

The Off Broadway production is scheduled to begin preview performances on Jan. 18 and open on Jan. 31.

Rather Than Recasting, \'Evita\' Will Close on Jan. 26

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Elena Roger and Ricky Martin in the Broadway revival of “Evita.”

The Broadway revival of “Evita” will close on Jan. 26 with the departure of Ricky Martin and his two co-stars, the producers announced on Tuesday, reversing their plans to re-cast the musical and continue running. Whether the producers will be able to earn back their investors' money with such a short run - 10-and-a-half months of performances when “Evita” closes - remains to be seen.

“Evita” often grosses more than $1 million a week but has yet to turn a profit; the producers said through a spokeswoman that they expected it to recoup after the traditionally lucra tive last half of December. The show's capitalization has never been disclosed.

Returning to Broadway for the first time since the original production, “Evita” will have had 26 preview performances and 337 regular performances at the Marquis Theater when it closes; by contrast, the original Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical ran 17 previews and 1,567 performances, and made stars of Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.

The new closing date will help the producers make as much money as possible from ticket sales in the next seven weeks without facing the costs of rehearsing new actors and taking the risk that those replacements will prove less popular at the box office than Mr. Martin, who has been the main attraction of the revival, which itself received mixed reviews. In some of the weeks when Mr. Martin was on vacation, ticket sales fell sharply. His co-stars are the Broadway newcomer Elena Roger as Eva Peron and Michael Cerveris as Juan Peron.

Ever since announcing the departures of their trio of actors on Nov. 26, the lead producers of the revival have insisted that they would re-cast the show and continue performances, as a sign of their own faith that the production was not simply a vehicle for Mr. Martin. One of the producers, Hal Luftig, said in an interview in late November that the producers had been talking for months to many actors and were confident that they would find the right threesome to take over the main roles.

But as every day went by without a casting announcement, a growing number of Broadway figures - group sales ticket agents as well as producers and casting directors not involved with “Evita” - expressed skepticism that the producers would be able to attract top-flight actors whose names could turn the show into a hot ticket like Mr. Martin did.

In a statement Tuesday night, Hal Luftig, one of the producers, said: “Our extensive search for a new cast prese nted the significant challenges of not only replacing a high-caliber trio of stars but also synchronizing the schedules of potential replacements with that of the production. Despite going down the road with a variety of artists, the planets have simply not aligned for us to engage the right talent at the right time. Therefore, we have made the decision to end this incredible journey on a high note on January 26 with our original stars intact.”

Neither Mr. Luftig nor another lead producer, Scott Sanders, were available for interviews on Tuesday evening, according to the spokeswoman.