A Song for the Girl in the White Jacket

Dear Diary:

It was a cold day, so I was wearing my new white winter jacket as I stepped onto a not-too-crowded train car with my mom and my sister. Someone was playing guitar. After playing his last chord he began asking for donations.

Just as he finished asking the lady next to him for a donation, his eyes locked on mine. He smiled. He said, “The next song I'm playing is dedicated to … the girl in the white jacket.” My mouth dropped. He started to sing:

“You better not shout, you better not cry, GIRL IN THE WHITE JACKET, you better not pout, I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town, GIRL IN THE WHITE JACKET….”

He went on and on, randomly screaming “girl in the white jacket.” People on the train started smiling and giving me sympathetic looks. My mom was laughing. People thought it was funny, but they didn't think it was that weird.

I was mortified. He sang the whole song, staring at me for most of it. Again, he went around asking for donations. It was finally our stop. We got off without giving a donation. “Bye bye!” the guy said to me.

On the platform, we discussed what had happened. My mom thought the whole thing was hilarious. However, my sister looked very confused. “Wait,” she said. “We're Jewish.”

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The Art of Getting Bloomberg \'Super PAC\' Money

Are you a politician looking for a bit of cash from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's “super PAC”?

Here's a tip: Don't talk to the mayor.

In an interview this week, Mr. Bloomberg disclosed for the first time that he had rejected the entreaties of two candidates seeking his financial support after they asked him directly to spend money on their behalf.

“One of them called me and said, ‘Can't you use some of your PAC money to help me?'” the mayor recalled, sounding amused. “I said, ‘You don't understand the law, but after this call - no, I cannot!'”

The problem, Mr. Bloomberg said, is that federal rules prohibit super PACs from coordinating directly with campaigns. Supporting a candidate after an overt solicitation, the mayor believed, would be a violation of the law.

Another candidate, who enlisted a mutual friend to approach Mr. Bloomberg at a dinner, was also turned away. (The mayor declined to identi fy the politicians. “Don't ask who,” he said, “because I won't tell you.”)

The funny part, Mr. Bloomberg added, was that the politicians would have received his support had they simply kept their mouths shut.

“We were going to, in both of these cases, give them money!” the mayor said, incredulously.

There are strict rules governing the conduct of super PACs, although many campaign-finance experts believe the laws can be easily circumvented. Political satirists had a field day this year when the presidential candidates insisted they were not coordinating with super PACs run by former aides and trusted advisers.

Mr. Bloomberg, who often presents himself as above the political fray, could not resist a dig at fellow financial benefactors.

“I don't know what other people do with PACs; my assumption is they would never pay attention to these rules,” he said. “But we follow the rules.”

After His Home Was Flooded and His Music Lost, the Maestro Returns

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times Irwin Meyer, 93, the conductor of the Kings County American Legion Headquarters Band, this week returned to his Brooklyn home, which was flooded by Hurricane Sandy.

Irwin Meyer was never afraid of the sea. He joined the Navy and was on a combat-crippled destroyer off Omaha Beach on D-Day for the invasion of Normandy, and on three subsequent invasions in Europe.

So when Hurricane Sandy approached, Mr. Meyer, 93, scoffed at friends' entreaties that he heed flood warnings and abandon his one-bedroom apartment on East 21 st Street in Sheepshead Bay.

“I thought maybe the electricity might go out, but never that the water would come in,” he recalled. “Who ever heard of a hurricane flooding Brooklyn?”

He finally agreed to stay with friends farther inland in Brooklyn, just before the seawater surged through Manhattan Beach, past the Belt Parkway and up his street. It flooded his ground-level apartment waist-high, claiming his furniture and most of his belongings.

“The whole neighborhood looked like a war zone, including my apartment,” said Mr. Meyer, whose losses included photographs of his childhood growing up in the Bronx, and others of his wife, Minnie, who died 11 years ago, and his son, Stewart, 65, a writer. The water floated his fridge across the kitchen and ruined his three trombones as well as the large collection of obscure sheet music that included roughly 100 hard-to-find band charts â€" as varied as Mozart and Irving Berlin â€" that formed most of the repertory of the Kings County American Legion Headquarters Band, which Mr. Meyer has conducted for the past 35 years.

“I cried when I saw the music was ruined,” Mr. Meyer said. “I can't replace it. I'm too old. It's hard to even find people who want to play this stuff.”

His “old” claim is an exaggeration. Mr. Meyer still drives a 1994 Toyota and drinks three glasses of wine a day. His dejection was short-lived.

“I finally said, ‘Hey, I've seen worse than this,'” said Mr. Meyer, who as a member of the Floyd Bennett American Legion Post in nearby Old Mill Basin, has spent decades visiting veterans in hospitals. When his home was devastated, his good deeds were returned by relatives and friends, who cleaned out, renovated and refurnished his apartment for free.

He moved back in this week and picked through a few still soggy piles of sheet music not yet thrown out, including an 1893 march by John Philip Sousa called “Manhattan Beach.”

Mr. Meyer, who retired about 15 years ago from his electrolysis practice, always played in semiprofessional symphony orchestras, including the Brooklyn Doctors' Symphony. The American Legion concert band has an 85-year history. When Mr. Meyer took it over in the 1970s, most members were military veterans, and there were a few old-timers who had played in Sousa's own band.

South Brooklyn is still recovering from the hurricane, and there are few things as reassuring as this spry 93-year-old, who lives independently alone, moving back into his home and, as he did Thursday night, hopping into his Toyota and driving to the American Legion post to lead his band in its holiday concert.

The band, which rehearses regularly and plays nearly a dozen concerts a year, has about 32 current members, including students, retirees, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, teachers and police officers. There are only a few veterans now, including the manage r, Jim Buchanan. Several band members were flooded out by the hurricane, including Frank Manfredi, an alto saxophonist whose Breezy Point house was damaged.

Mr. Buchanan introduced Mr. Meyer and noted to the 25 or so listeners that “the maestro” was back in his apartment.

“When you're 93 and you've lost everything you have in life, it's hard to imagine,” said Mr. Buchanan, who said he believed Mr. Meyer was the oldest conductor with his own band in New York City.

Mr. Meyer gave a spirited performance, leading his band through standards, marches and Sousa favorites, and ended with a medley of military tunes.

Afterward, he said he was happy to be back in his apartment, even with few belongings.

“As long as I got a bed to sleep in and clean underwear, a shower,” he said, “everything falls into place.”

For the Holidays, a Nostalgia Trip on a Bus Like Ralph Kramden\'s

Everett Collection For the holidays, the transit system is rolling out vintage crosstown buses in Manhattan, including one like Ralph Kramden's - right down to the No. 2969 on the side.

“I'm in a time machine right now,” John Davies said from his seat beside a window that, like the people on the bus in the nursery-school lyric, went up and down. A “drop-style window,” to those in the know.

And what a time machine it was: A bus like the one Jackie Gleason was pictured in when television was new, “The Honeymooners” was a top-rated show, Gleason played a loudmouthed bus driver named Ralph Kramden and the fare was 15 cents. Unless it was 13 cents, the amount on the sign on the bus when Gleason posed for pictures.

The bus is one of several vintage buses that have come out of retirement as part of a holiday promotion by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They have been assigned to the 42nd Street crosstown line in Manhattan on weekdays until Dec. 28. (Rain and snow keep them from their appointed rounds. “We don't send our babies out in bad weather,” said Charles Seaton, a spokesman for the transit agency.)

The bus, No. 2969, does not have air-conditioning. It does not have a passenger-operated exit door - the driver opens and closes it by pushing a silver handle to his left that also controls the front door. It does not have a windshield with a panoramic view. It does not have flashing lights on the front, the way “select bus service” buses do. It does not wear the blue-and-white uniform of modern New York buses. Its colors are green and silver, just as they always were.

For some passengers who are serious about buses - passengers who consider the real star of the 1994 runaway-bus movie “Speed” to have been not Sandra Bullock nor Keanu Reeves, but the bus - riding No. 2969 was a treat worth waiting at the bus stop for. They brought cameras to snap photographs of the old bus, one of 400 that joined the fleet in 1948 and carried passengers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island but not the Bronx, according to the transit agency. For some of its life, it carried schoolchildren.

No. 2969 is older than the bus in “Speed.” Mr. Davies, 25, an art director at an advertising agency, said the look inside No. 2969 was “industrial, but it's cozy.”

“You can really sense these buses were sculpted, made by someone,” he said. “The current buses look generic, make me think ‘airport.'”

< p>And he liked the soft green seats in No. 2969. “They're more comfortable than seats in current buses,” he said.

It was long for its day, inside and out. No. 2969 and its garage-mates were longer than earlier buses - 40 feet long, even though they were built on the same chassis as their 35-foot-long predecessors.

Otto Yamamaoto, 53, said he remembered riding similar buses in San Diego in the 1970s, when he was in junior high school. “The new ones are a lot bigger and not quite so noisy,” he said. “But the buses like this have a little more character.”

One woman on her way to the Upper West Side - “I won't give my name; I have a record,” she declared - said the old buses were an improvement. She complained about poor service on 42nd Street, especially since the transit agency shortened the M104 route. It once ran along 42nd Street to First Avenue, but now goes only as far east as Seventh Avenue.

The result, she said, was that buses on 42nd Street seem few and far between. “You can stand and wait 20, 25 minutes” before one comes, she said. When the old buses are running, she said, the waiting times are shorter.

In the driver's seat was Gary Kull, who is 56 and has spent 26 years as a bus driver. “No power steering,” he said. “It brings back the old days, when I started. We didn't have power steering.”

The buses in the fleet when he was a novice were newer than the long-retired vehicles like No. 2969 that are back on the street for the holiday promotion. But there is some revisionist history about the No. 2969 that he was driving. It began life as No. 4789. Later it went through an identity change and was given the number of the bus that Gleason was pictured in, with Audrey Meadows, Art Carney and Joyce Randolph hanging out the windows.

The original No. 2969 did not last until “The Honeymooners” was delighting a new generation. Mr. Seaton, the transit authority spokesman, said the original No. 2969 “would have been a New York City Omnibus (private operator) vehicle” and “may or may not have been absorbed” by the transit authority in the 1962 takeover of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines.

So what happened to the original No. 2969? It was “definitely scrapped,” he said.

Big Ticket | Sold for $39,000,018

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times 730 Park Avenue

The stealth sale of a duplex penthouse at 730 Park Avenue coveted by an elite assemblage of suitors - people with the requisite liquidity to part with nearly $40 million in cash in a heartbeat and a backup portfolio capable of impressing the building's extraordinarily selective board - was the biggest sale of the week, according to city records.

The strategically situated 12-room penthouse, No. 18/19C, with five terraces and westward views of Central Park, was never formally listed, but when word got around this spring that its owner, Joann Walker, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was in whisper-sale mode and entertaining offers in the $35 million range, a biddin g war ensued. The winning bid, at $39,000,018, belonged to Ms. Walker's own neighbor, Daniel C. Benton, the founder of Andor Capital Management, a technology hedge fund, and his wife, Anna. Clearly, they were already shareholders in good favor with the board.

In 2007, the Bentons paid $21 million for a lower-floor duplex at 730 Park, a 1929 brick beauty designed by Lafayette A. Goldstone and F. Burrall Hoffman Jr., and in 2008 Mr. Benton shut down his hedge fund and retired. But the lure of the trophy penthouse proved impossible to resist. Coincidence or not, Mr. Benton and his fund came out of retirement in 2012 just in time to make a play for No. 18/19C, where even the maid's room has a terrace with an East River view.

There are four master-of-the-universe-size bedrooms and baths, a solarium, a statement-making 37-foot-by-28-foot living room, and a glass-ceilinged greenhouse breakfast room off the kitchen; the maintenance is $13,45 1. The neighboring penthouse on the Park Avenue side belongs to Karen Lauder, the former wife of William Lauder, a grandson of Estée Lauder. A 10-room duplex, No. 15/16A, owned by the estate of Mike Wallace, of “60 Minutes” fame, entered the market in October for $20 million.

Along with a Stribling & Associates agent who preferred anonymity, Meredyth Hull Smith and Serena Boardman of Sotheby's International Realty represented the seller of the penthouse. In April, the two sold Theodore J. Forstmann's penthouse at 2 East 70th Street for $40 million, $4 million above asking price. Mr. Forstmann, a founder of the private equity firm Forstmann Little, died last year.

Ms. Smith described the penthouse at 730 Park as “a discretionary listing that honestly was just so special, it sold itself. It was a spectacular apartment that caught the resurgent uber-upper-end market perfectly.”

Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.

City Rejects Proposal to End Fight Over Bike Lane

Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times A cyclist shared the Prospect Park West bike lane with pedestrians in March.

The group behind a lengthy campaign against a bike lane on Prospect Park West said this week that it had laid the framework for its clash with the city to end.

If an independent expert confirmed the city's claims that the lane had improved safety, the group said, then a lawsuit aimed at eradicating the lane would be dropped.

But if a study showed that traffic and safety conditions had not improved, then the city's Transportation Department would have to remove the lane.

On Friday, the city issued its rejoinder: No thanks.

“The Prospect Park West bike lane has already been subjected to the most thorough analysis and review of any bike lane in history,” Michael A. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel, said in a statement. “The petitioners simply reject and misrepresent the results of these reviews, and are now seeking to move the goal posts yet again.”

In March 2011, the plaintiffs, a group of well-connected New Yorkers with ties to Iris Weinshall, a former city transportation commissioner, accused the Transportation Department of misleading residents about the benefits of the lane by cherry-picking statistics.

On Wednesday, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed a lower court's ruling that th e statute of limitations had expired for the case to be filed, and the appellate court ordered a new hearing. The court did not weigh in on any arguments concerning the lane itself.

Jim Walden, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the city “has made it clear they'd rather spend your tax money on litigation than safety. Everyone should be disgusted. The fight goes on at D.O.T.'s insistence.”

The tussle over the lane has been seen as emblematic of the broader debate over one of the Bloomberg administration's most notable legacies: the expansion of bike culture throughout the city.

In his statement, Mr. Cardozo reiterated the city's argument that the lane had “dramatically reduced” speeding, curbed sidewalk cycling and “made the road safer for everyone.”

Most of Gifts Made by Lhota and Wife Were to Republicans

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Joseph J. Lhota

If Joseph J. Lhota had his druthers, A. Gifford Miller would be serving out his second term as mayor, and David S. Yassky would be entering his fifth term as a Brooklyn congressman.

Or so one could reasonably surmise, based on a review of campaign contributions made by Mr. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and his wife, Tamra, a Republican fund-raiser.

Mr. Lhota is stepping down from his job at the end of December in order to explore a bid for mayor as a Republican. And, befitting someone who was a zealously loyal budget director and deputy mayor under Rudolph W. Giuliani, he has been an active political donor.

A vast majority of the Lhotas' donations have been to Republicans, which is why their modest contributions to Mr. Miller, a former City Council speaker ($500 in 2003 toward his 2005 mayoral campaign), and Mr. Yassky, a former councilman who is now the city's taxi commissioner ($250 for House campaign in 2005), stand out as exceptions.

(Mr. Miller lost the Democratic nomination in 2005 to Fernando Ferrer, former Bronx borough president. The Republican candidate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, did not accept campaign donations.)

Over all, of the Lhotas' almost $80,000 in city, state and federal political contributions since the 1980s, about 95 percent went to Republicans. Much of that went to Mr. Giuliani's may oral and presidential bids, and to federal candidates.

Recipients of their $56,000 in donations to federal races included the George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns, and to Senators Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas.

Mr. Lhota has given only once to a national Democrat: $1,000 to Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey in 2007.

On the state level, Mr. Lhota has been relatively silent. But in 2010, when he was a top executive for Cablevision, he wrote checks of $5,000 to Rick A. Lazio‘s gubernatorial bid, and $1,000 apiece for Harry Wilson for comptroller, and two West Side Democrats, State Senator Thomas K. Duane and Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried.

The Lhotas, who are Brooklyn Heights residents, have been even less active when it comes to city candidates. The last time they gave to anyone was in 2004, when Mr. Lhota donated $500 to Mr. Yassky for City Council. They did not donate to any of Mr. Yassky's opponents in that race.

The Scourge of Guns, 1866 Edition

Opening of the 1866 editorial. The entire page is reproduced below.

Lest you think that the gun-control debate is a modern-day phenomenon, the following editorial appeared a mere 53,437 days ago, on page 4 of The New-York Times of April 30, 1866, under the headline “Carrying Firearms.”

Homicide figures for 1865 and 1866 were not immediately available, but in 1868, according to the history tome “Gotham,” there were 48 murders in New York City.

Carrying Firearms

Nearly every day we are reminded by the report of some murderous affray that many men among us go armed, for we constantly hear of pistols being dropped on the floor at balls, or being exploded in very inconvenient ways. It appears, too, that Colt, and Remington, and all of the rest of the pistol-makers, have enormous factories and orders in abundance. We have recently known that a boy of 12 has his pantaloons made with a pistol pocket behind, in which he carries a loaded pistol; and this at a boarding-school filled with boys, who, we suppose, do or wish to do the same thing.

“Teaching the young idea [sic] how to shoot,” we have heard quoted, but that boarding-schools had come to this, we had not, until this revelation, supposed. Do the teachers know of this thing, and do they connive in it? If they do not know it they ought to; and we would advise parents to look into it, and learn whether shooting is to be a part of the scholastic course which may be practised on their own boys; or else we advise them to see that their boys are properly armed with the most approved and deadly pistol, and that there may be an equal chance at least of their shooting as of being shot.

It is only a few years ago that Miss Hosmer used to swagger with pistols in her belt, but it is not likely that the practice has become general with ladies. It may be so, but we may hope that it has not. Seriously, this pernicious practice is, we fear, on the increase. Who can be safe, when boys at school are furnished or allowed to carry loaded arms about their persons? Who that sits down in a car or hotel to get to his home or to wait for a friend can be sure he will not be taken to that home, or meet that friend a dead body?

It is not pleasant that this practice should prevail -â€" should be permitted. We have laws against it. Can our efficient police not be induced to apprehend one of these fools? Can our Judges not be prevailed upon to condemn one of them at least to imprisonment for life for shooting his friend, because he must enjoy the pleasure of playing with his pistol? Is the man's having been drunk any consolation to us after we are shot?

It is very clear that these horrible things could not happen if this practice was not permitted, and it is very clear that it can be and ought to be broken up. Any boy who carries a pistol should be at once ejected from any school or house or town â€" any man should be instantly punished to the full extent of the law â€" any woman, well â€" should be left severely alone by our sex at least.

We added paragraph breaks to the editorial to make it easier to read but otherwise did not alter it. The editorial can be seen in its original format beginning halfway down the fourth column in the document below. Thanks to Alec Tabak for finding this.

The New York Times, April 30, 1866 (PDF)

The New York Times, April 30, 1866 (Text)

The Week in Pictures for Dec. 21

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include the shootings in Newtown, Conn.; the plight of an apartment complex after Hurricane Sandy; and a program that matches nurses with low-income mothers.

This weekend on “The New York Times Close Up,” an inside look at the most compelling articles in Sunday's Times, Sam Roberts will speak with The Times's William McDonald, obituary editor, and Seth Kugel, who writes the Frugal Traveler series. Also appearing, Joseph J. Lhota and Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. Tune in at 10 p.m. Saturday or 10 a.m. Sunday on NY1 News to watch.

A sampling from the City Room blog is featured daily in the main print news section of The Times. You may also browse highlights from the blog and reader comments, read current New York headlines, like New York Metro | The New York Times on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Second Avenue and East 19th Street, 4:58 P.M.

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

\'Silence,\' \'Tribes\' and \'Fuerza Bruta\' Aren\'t Closing Just Yet

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Russell Harvard in “Tribes.”

Three long-running Off Broadway shows that were slated to close have extended their runs due to audience demand, the producers of each have announced.

Citing an uptick in ticket sales after they scheduled a closing date, producers of “Silence! The Musical” - a parody of the 1991 film “Silence of the Lambs” - said on Friday that the show will resume its run at the Elektra Theater on Jan 18. (It will be dark between Dec. 30, the previously announced closing date, and then.) The show's Web site has tickets on sale through March 31.

Originally announced as a limited engagement through August 13, 2011, “Silence” - which has a book by Hunter Bell and music and lyrics by Jon and Al Kaplan - was extended numerous times.

Nina Raine's critically acclaimed “Tribes” will get a two-week extension until Jan. 20 at the Barrow Street Theater. The extension follows a recent announcement that the show had recouped its entire investment and would end its run on Jan. 6, 2013.

The play about a deaf boy born into a hearing family opened on March 4, 2012 and at closing will have given 19 preview and 391 regular performances, an impressive total for a commercial Off Broadway run.

Also, the acroba tic spectacle “Fuerza Bruta” will extend its five-year run at the Daryl Roth Theater until Feb. 3, after first announcing that it would close on Nov. 11 and then extending until Jan. 6. Producers cited fan support on Facebook and other social media for the decision to run longer.

This Bach Suite Is Making All Local Stops

Slowly, surely, it began dawning on the G train passengers Friday afternoon. These were not ordinary subway buskers. This was no accident. Something was going on.

For an hour, musicians tag-teamed from stop to stop in the first car of the train in a continuously repeating performance of the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.

In G.

It started at the Court Square station in Queens heading south into Brooklyn. A musician would enter the first car and play as much of the prelude as time allowed. At the next stop, the player would step off, replaced by someone else. The process repeated itself.

“I'm confused,” said a 15-year-old boy named Mohammed. “Why are the musicians at every stop? I've never seen anything like this.”
If only Mohammed had known it was the day of Make Music Winter, the second annual winter solstice musical celebration that is an offshoot of the long-running Make Music New York event in the summer. Public events were happening around the city.

The performance on the G was devised by the composer James Holt. No cellos were seen playing the cello suite, but it is music often transposed for other instruments. Mostly other string players took part â€" violinists and violists, plus several guitarists, a flutist and a harmonica and accordion player.

Some musicians had the piece memorized. Others taped the music to a pole or door between cars or had someone hold it. Often, the playing was too quiet for anyone except those nearby to hear, but the performances were usually met with a smattering of applause. Every rendition had a different tempo, and the musicians rarely reached the end of the movement before having to rush off when reaching their stop, leading to some fairly imaginative made-up endings.

Brian Krinke, a violinist and teacher, led off the proceedings, with his 6-year-old daughter Meredith holding the music. He hopped off at the Greenpoint Avenue station and waved to his daughter Amelia, 8, as she got on to play the Prelude on the viola, a red-and-green mitten dangling from her fingerboard hand.

Mr. Holt declared himself satisfied. “I was trying to give riders of the subway a little gift for this hour,” he said.

The Week in Culture Pictures, Dec. 21

Chad Batka for The New York TimesThe Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen performed at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday.

More Photographs

A slide show of photographs of cultural events from this week.

This Week\'s Movies: Dec. 21

This week, Times critics look at the Kathryn Bigelow drama “Zero Dark Thirty,” the Michael Haneke film “Amour,” and Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in “The Guilt Trip.” See all of this week's reviews here.

Book Review Podcast: \'America\'s Unwritten Constitution\'

Todd St. John

This week in The New York Times Book Review, Robert P. George reviews “America's Unwritten Constitution.” Mr. George writes:

In “America's Unwritten Constitution,” Akhil Reed Amar, a commendably unorthodox and, in some ways, iconoclastic constitutional scholar at Yale Law School, bucks dominant opinions on both sides of the political spectrum. He contends that the written Constitution points to an unwritten one, and he argues that we can interpret with both intellectual honesty and analytical rigor. Aware that the idea of an unwritten constitution has been abused by judges and scholars on both the left and right, Amar insists that the idea itself is sound - indeed indispensable to the cause of constitutional fidelity - and needs rescuing from its abusers.

This week, Mr. George discusses “America's Unwritten Constitution”; Leslie Kaufman has notes from the field; Jonathan Mahler talks about the fate of Detroit; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

Musical Moments, Part IX: Strauss

A few readers also agreed about another overwhelming moment in music, the passage toward the end of Strauss's opera “Der Rosenkavalier” when the Marschallin sings a resigned “Ja, Ja” as she walks out of the life of her much younger lover, Octavian, and out of the opera. Here is my take on it.

Simon de Pury Steps Down from Helm of Phillips de Pury

Just as the art world is disappearing for the holidays, Phillips de Pury & Company, the struggling boutique auction house, released an announcement that Simon de Pury - its chairman, principal auctioneer and the face of the company for the last 12 years - is stepping down. In a separate e-mail his wife, Michaela, who has been a senior director there, announced her departure too.

Come January the New York based auction house will be called just Phillips.

The departures come on the heels of Mr. de Pury's sale of his remaining interest in the company to Mercury Group, the Russian-owned retail giant that bought a controlling share in 2008.

“During the wonderful and exciting years I had the privilege to spend at Phillips de Pury + Company the firm has become a major taste maker in contemporary art, design and photography,'' Mr. de Pury said the statement. “I embark on new adventures comfortable with the knowledge that the company is in an excellent positi on and has been going from strength to strength.''

In her e-mail, sent to friends and clients, Mrs. de Pury, who has also been at Phillips for 12 years, said, “I together with my husband have decided the time was right to pursue other avenues.''

Phillips also announced plans to expand its presence at 450 Park Avenue at 57th Street, where it first signed a lease in 2010. (It currently has offices on West 15th Street in Manhattan.) It is also increasing its presence in London, where it now has a gallery and salesroom on Howick Place. In October it bought a larger building at 30 Berkeley Square in Mayfair for $160 million.

Two London Councils Battle Over Henry Moore Sculpture

Who really owns Old Flo?

That question â€" over the rightful municipal owner of a beloved 1957 Henry Moore bronze, “Draped Seated Woman,” long known in England by her nickname Old Flo â€" has now become central in a fight over whether the sculpture will be sold or will remain, as Moore wanted, on permanent public display.

The council of the Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, which is in financial turmoil and believes it owns the sculpture, announced plans to sell the piece, which could generate more than $30 million. Many prominent members of the London cultural establishment have vehemently opposed any sale, saying the sculpture belongs to the people of London. (Moore sold the bronze to the London County Council, which no longer exists, for a discounted price in the early 1960s on the understanding that it would be displayed in a public space in ec onomically depressed East London.)

When the East End housing project where it was on view was demolished in the late 1990s, the sculpture was moved to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Northern England. Now, lawyers for the Art Fund, a national charity, say they have uncovered evidence that the sculpture  â€" through a complex series of dissolutions and transfers among various London municipal entities over several decades â€" is actually the property of the Borough of Bromley, in Southeast London. (Tower Hamlets officials dispute the finding, according to the BBC.)

Bromley officials have pledged not to sell the sculpture and to keep it on public view. Some have advocated moving the sculpture back to East London, to Olympic Park.

Stephen Deuchar, the director of the Art Fund, said the new own ership evidence “should bring to an end Tower Hamlets' cavalier plans to sell it” and should mean “that Old Flo can stay where she belongs â€" in public ownership and on public display.”

\'Walking Dead\' Gains a New Season But Its Show Runner Becomes Latest Casualty

Gene Page/AMC Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan, IronE Singleton, Steven Yeun and Andrew Lincoln in a scene from Season 3 of “The Walking Dead.”

“The Walking Dead,” AMC's hit drama series about the survivors of a zombie apocalypse, will continue for another season, but not all the members of its creative team will continue on to fight the undead hordes: the cable channel said on Friday that its show runner, Glen Mazzara, was leaving the series.

In a statement announcing that it was renewing “The Walking Dead” for a fourth season, AMC said that th e network and Mr. Mazzara “have mutually decided to part ways.”

The statement continued: “AMC is grateful for his hard work. We are both proud of our shared success. Both parties acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about where the show should go moving forward, and conclude that it is best to part ways.”

Mr. Mazzara, a former writer and producer for “Nash Bridges” and “The Shield,” became the show runner of “The Walking Dead” beginning with its second season. He replaced Frank Darabont, the writer and director of films like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile,” who developed “The Walking Dead” from the popular comic-book series, but who was abruptly deposed from the television show amid disputes with AMC about its budget and other matters.

Under Mr. Mazarra, “The Walking Dead” broke num erous ratings records, drawing nearly 11 million viewers for the Dec. 2 episode that concluded the first half of its third season. Mr. Mazarra will continue as show runner and an executive producer of “The Walking Dead” for the remainder of its third season, which resumes on Feb. 10.

In a statement, Mr. Mazarra did not offer specifics about his disagreements with AMC about the show. He said: “My time as showrunner on ‘The Walking Dead' has been an amazing experience, but after I finish season 3, it's time to move on. I have told the stories I wanted to tell and connected with our fans on a level that I never imagined. It doesn't get much better than that. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey.”

On Television, Holiday Specials Draw Plenty of Eyeballs

In keeping with a long-standing holiday tradition, the television networks filled the airwaves with Christmas-themed specials and movies this year. While some classics, like “It's a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” will not be broadcast until Monday, viewers have had plenty of holiday programming to choose from throughout the month.

Some of the highlights include ABC's Hallmark Hall of Fame movie “Christmas With Holly,” which drew 7.7 million total viewers on Dec. 9 and was the franchise's highest-rated presentation in the 18-to-49 category since moving to ABC last year. The stop-motion animated feature “It's a SpongeBob Christmas” also fared well, with 4.8 million total viewers tuning in for the Dec. 8 cable telecast on Nickelodeon, which outpolled the 3.6 million who watched the CBS broadcast on Nov. 23.

More recent entries in the holiday canon like CBS's “Elf on the Shelf: An Elf's Story,” an animated special from 2011 based on the similarly titled children's book, drew 6 million total viewers on Dec. 14 while “Elf,” the 2003 family film starring Will Ferrell, drew 5.1 million for CBS on Dec. 15.

Older animated classics attracted their typical levels of viewership. ABC garnered 5.8 million total viewers on Dec. 18 for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and 5.6 million for “Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town” on Dec. 11, while the CBS telecast of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on Dec. 14 had 6.6 million.

Musical specials also performed to expectations: CBS's “A Home for the Holidays With Rascal Flatts” on Dec. 19 tallied 5 million viewers while NBC's “Michael Bublé: Home for the Holidays” on Dec. 10 had 5.7 million. But they were both upstaged by “Blake Shelton's Not So Family Christmas” on NBC which drew 8.9 million on Dec. 3.

Graphic Books Best Sellers: Pogo Possum and Friends

Volume two of “Pogo,” by Walt Kelly, which continues the deluxe reprinting of the newspaper strip starring Pogo Possum and set in the Okefenokee Swamp, is at No. 4 on the graphic books hardcover best-seller list this week. This volume introduces some cool characters: Tammanany the Tiger, Uncle Antler the bull moose, and three bats named Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred. Carolyn Kelly, the cartoonist's daughter, designed and edited the book, as well as restoring some of the strips. This volume also features annotations and commentary by the comic historians R.C. Harvey and Mark Evanier.

Lavish collected editions of comic strips have been in vogue for a while now. Fantagraphics, which is publishing “Pogo,” has been steadily releasing “The Complete Peanuts.” The publisher promises 25 volumes over 12 years. The series began in 2004, and volume 17 came out in April. (Ben Schwartz wrote about how much collectors crave these compilations.)

As always, the complete best-seller lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.

The Sweet Spot: Dec. 21

David Carr and A. O. Scott talk about Steven Spielberg's latest offering, and whether moviegoers prefer rollicking tales or history lessons.

Popcast: Best Songs of 2012

Mario Anzuoni/ReutersCarly Rae Jepsen performing in July at the Teen Choice Awards. Her “Call Me Maybe” was one of the year's most ubiquitous songs.

This week, in part two of our year-end music discussions - last week we covered the best albums of 2012 - the Times pop critics Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Nate Chinen and Ben Ratliff discuss the best songs of 2012.

Topics unpacked: freak hits by Psy and Carly Rae Jepsen; internet commotions from Riff Raff and Kittie Pryde; the Taylor Swift effect; the resigned ballads of Bonnie Raitt and Alan Jackson; Usher and Miguel's Art&B; the rampaging of Reivers.

Listen above, download the MP3 here, or subscribe in iTunes.

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SPOTIFY PLAYLIST (Spotify users can also find it here.)

Brooklyn\'s Mayans Pretty Sure World Won\'t End Friday

Uli Seit for The New York Times Balbino Antoño Say Garcia, behind the counter at a Guatemalan bodega in Brooklyn, said that neither he nor other Guatemalans of Mayan descent whom he knows were worried the apocalypse would come on Friday.

If the world is ending Friday, as many earthlings say the ancient Mayans predicted, there were no signs of panic, prophesying or much else out of the ordinary on Thursday on the streets of New York's most densely Mayan neighborhood, Bath Beach in Brooklyn.

“Everything is normal,” Bal bino Antoño Say Garcia reported from behind the counter of Tienda Guatemalteca La Chapincita on Bath Avenue, where the Mayan tongue of K'iche mingles with Spanish and Russian. “No one is talking about the end of the world here, not at all.”

Ronaldo Camacho of neighboring Bensonhurst, a representative of a Guatemalan immigrant-rights group, Migua, said that for Mayans in Guatemala, Friday is a day to celebrate, not mourn, as the winter solstice brings a 394-year cycle in the Mayan calendar known as a b'ak'tun to completion.

“An era is coming to an end, but that isn't to say it is the end,” Mr. Camacho, 36, said.

Uli Seit for The New York Times The streets are calm in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, where much of the Guatemalan population is of Mayan descent.

According to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar, the current world, in which humans have flourished, began 13 b'ak'tuns, or 5,125 years, ago, following three failed worlds, the last of which also lasted 13 b'ak'tuns. And some doomsayers have equated the end of this fourth world with the end of civilization.

But the consensus among modern Mayanist scholars is that the end of this 13-b'ak'tun period heralds only the beginning of the next.

< p>The doomsday predictions, Mr. Camacho said, are “a disrespect to the Mayan culture and the indigenous people of Mayan descent.”

Mayans are readily found in Bath Beach and Bensonhurst, the center of Brooklyn's small but fast-growing Guatemalan population, which has more than doubled, to about 9,000 from about 4,000, since 2000, according to the 2010 census. A large number of the neighborhood's Guatemalans are from the heavily Mayan Totonicapán province in the western highlands.

At Jireh restaurant on 18th Avenue, where an image of the Mayan temple of Tikal adorns the awning, the owner, Jeremias Alvarado, said last week of the apocalypse, “It's kind of funny, it doesn't affect me at all.”

Joern Haufe/Getty Images This Mayan document, known as the Dresden Codex, shows a sky caiman vomiting water and has been interpreted as suggesting that modern civilization may end on Dec. 21, 2012.

To be sure, any skepticism in Bath Beach might be due in part to the fact that most Guatemalans in Brooklyn embrace Christianity, which has its own eschatological traditions, none of which involve the world ending tomorrow.

“The Bible says we don't know when the end is going to come, but we should be prepared,” Mr. Say Garcia, 23, said.

Opposite Mr. Alvarado's restaurant, at the Jovenes Cristianos Evangelical Church, where women and children gathered in a day care room before Sunday's services, Olga Batz, 25, said she thought the doomsday idea held some appeal â€" though not to her â€" because “a lot of people like to scare themselves.”

“Not even the angels know when the world will end,” said another member of the church, Jeremiah De Jesus, adding that many Mayans first heard of the end-of-the-world theory through the American media.

“In Guatemala,” he said, “nobody that I know who is Mayan is even talking about it.”

Paterson\'s Radio Show Is Being Dropped

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Former Gov. David A. Paterson on the first day of his radio show in September 2011.

ALBANY - Former Gov. David A. Paterson's career as a radio host on WOR-AM (710) lasted little more than a year.

On Thursday, Mr. Paterson and another radio personality, Dr. Joy Browne, were dismissed as part of a takeover of the station by Clear Channel. The sale of WOR to Clear Channel closed on Thursday. Four other full-time employees were also let go.

The former governor had suggested he knew change was afoot once the Clear Channel acquisition was announced earlier this year.

Mr. Paterson's spokesman, Sean Darcy, said in a statement: “As someone who had to do significant housecleaning when he took over as chief executive, these moves by the new management come as no surprise.”

“In anticipation of this eventuality, Governor Paterson has been exploring a number of different options both in and out of the media and will be working towards finalizing some of those options after the New Year,” he added. “He has greatly enjoyed being part of the rich, proud history of WOR radio.”

Joseph M. Bilotta, the president and chief executive of Buckley Broadcasting Corporation, said Clear Channel had asked him to make the staff changes before the deal closed. Clear Channel increased by one-third the severance package for departing employees, Mr. Bilotta said.

Mr. Bilotta called Mr. Paterson “very professional and very gracious,” saying of the show's performance: “the revenue generation was probably greater than the ratings reflected.”

< p>Mr. Paterson, who is legally blind, has long talked about how natural a medium radio is for him.

“I don't have to worry about looking at the camera, whether my tie is in place, whether my hands are flying in one direction,” he once said. “I think it's the reason my conversation is a lot more fluid. In TV interviews, I have difficulty relaxing, because I'm trying not to look to one side of the room.”

One of Mr. Paterson's first guests on his show was his predecessor and onetime running mate, Eliot Spitzer, whose surprising resignation amid a prostitution scandal in 2008 shocked Albany and made Mr. Paterson the state's first black governor.

On the air, Mr. Paterson joked to Mr. Spitzer, “I finally got a job that you didn't have to give me.”

Mr. Paterson also frequently hosted as a guest his success or, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.