The Ad Campaign: Lhota Issues Warnings and Makes Promises

First aired: October 31, 2013

Produced by: Wilson Grand

for: Joseph J. Lhota

Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican nominee for mayor, released his latest television ad on Thursday. Titled “Promises,” it is airing on broadcast channels across New York City.

Fact-Check

0:06

“…but we are one bad mayor away from unsafe streets, failing schools, and fiscal chaos.”

Many who lived in New York City through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s would probably agree that bad policies and unsteady leadership could result in rising crime rates and the deterioration of the city’s school system. With large deficits on the horizon and ballooning health care and pension costs, wise financial stewardship from City Hall in the coming years is also critical.

0:11

“I’ve been tested during difficult times, and I am ready to lead.”

Mr. Lhota has indeed been tested under the worst circumstances: Besides running the M.T.A. during Hurricane Sandy, he was Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s deputy mayor for operations on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. He had planned meticulously for such a disaster, and his preparation and calm demeanor were seen as having been crucial to the administration’s deft response.

0:15

“This is my promise to you.”

As for his promises, doubling the number of charter schools would require legislation from Albany. Creating good-paying jobs is any mayor’s goal, but is easier promised than done. Much of the job growth in New York City in recent years has been in low-wage service jobs.

Scorecard

Mr. Lhota tries to meld warnings of what would befall New York if his Democratic opponent, Bill de Blasio, became mayor, with a positive message about what he himself would do in the job. His warnings may not resonate with voters who never experienced New York as a dangerous city on the brink of bankruptcy. And his effort to define himself may be too little, too late: Polls show that more voters have a negative view of Mr. Lhota than a positive one, and he is lagging behind Mr. de Blasio with just a few days remaining until the election Tuesday.

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Trick-or-Treating, Honestly

Dear Diary:

While nearing the end of my journey trick-or-treating last year in Forest Hills â€" I was then almost 11 â€" I came upon an unmanned house with a huge bowl of candy on the doorstep.

Picking up my jaw from the ground, I couldn’t believe my good luck. My shoulder devil immediately materialized with a poof and whispered quietly into my ear: “Take all of it! Nobody’s there … This much loot could last YEARS!”

As the possibilities of mouthwatering candy crept into my brain, I sprinted for the doorstep. Only as I came to a halt at the base of the worn brown stairs did I notice the security camera’s blinking red light and the small, handwritten sign above the candy that said “ONLY TAKE ONE, BECAUSE GOD WILL KNOW!”

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Li’l Lhota vs. De Blasio Jr.

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times High schoolers impersonated the candidates at a pre-Halloween debate.

We wanted to cover Halloween today. And mayoral politics.

Could we do both?

Yes. We just had to travel to Queens.

There, at Townsend Harris High School, seniors were costumed as politicians on Wednesday to enact a mayoral debate.

Joseph J. Lhota, played by a lanky Samuel Schrader, donned a striped red and blue tie.

Bill de Blasio, otherwise known as Jin Won Seo, was more relaxed.

He wore his older brother’s suit and black tennis shoes.

It was clear that both teenagers had done their homework.

“Income inequality should exist in any society that’s not Communist,” Samuel thundered in his role as Mr. Lhota.

Jin, playing Mr. de Blasio, responded, “I’m taxing those people who can still afford to eat caviar and shark fin for breakfast.”

The two debated the stop and frisk practice, the soda tax and other issues.

Afterwards, two girls in the stairwell declared faux Lhota the winner.

“The only voters de Blasio is going to get are the hardcore Democrats,” said Irene Joseph. “Or the undecided freshman.”

Then they admitted their bias: they were playing Mr. Lhota’s wife and his press secretary.

Here’s what else you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

Trick-or-treating tip: go early unless your costume’s waterproof.

Chance of rain is 30 percent at sunset, rising to 50 percent by 8 p.m.

If you plan to be out after midnight, staple an umbrella to your gorilla suit.

Quite warm in any case, with a high of 66.

COMMUTE

Subways: Click for latest status.

Rails: Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today but suspended tomorrow.

COMING UP TODAY

- The real Mr. de Blasio greets voters on a Bronx corner and marches in the Park Slope Halloween parade.

- Mr. Lhota is on “Good Day New York” at 7:15 a.m., greets trick-or-treaters on Staten Island and City Island in the Bronx, and hits two kosher supermarkets in Brooklyn.

- There are tons of Halloween festivities, but the biggest is the resurgent Greenwich Village parade, which steps off at 7 p.m. at Avenue of the Americas and Spring Street.

- Senior Halloween parade: at the Sirovich Center on East 12th Street. Indoors. 1:30 p.m. [Free]

- Gowanus dog parade: muster outside the Yuppie Puppy/Green Pup store at 544 Union Street in Brooklyn at 4:30 p.m. [Free, with prizes]

- Last day for people whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Sandy to register for the city aid program NYC Build it Back.

- A Halloween-themed light show on the Empire State Building. 8:30 p.m. [Free. Just look up.]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The City Council raised the age for buying cigarettes to 21. [New York Times]

- At their final debate, the real Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Lhota mocked each other’s qualifications. [New York Times]

- Mr. Lhota is chipping away at Mr. de Blasio â€" but still trails by 39 points, a poll shows. [Politicker]

- Someone took a photo of a boy on a subway who resembles Avonte Oquendo, the missing autistic 14-year-old. [Daily News]

- In other subway photograph news: it’s the New York City Subway Operators’ Photography Club. [Atlantic Cities]

- Scoreboard: Knicks shoot down Bucks in Garden debut, 90-83. Nets fall to Cavs, 98-94.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

The Ad Campaign: De Blasio’s Tone Poem to a Diverse City

First aired: October 30, 2013

Produced by: Acres and Co. and AKPD Message and Media

For: Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for mayor, on Wednesday released his latest television ad. Titled “Our City,” the 30-second commercial is running on broadcast and cable channels across New York City.

Fact-Check

0:02

“This is our city. A city that understands that greatness is not measured by the height of our skyscrapers, but by the strength of our neighborhoods…”

Nothing in this ad is inaccurate. It is more of an expression of hope than a polemical packed with facts or accusations. Besides, how can one prove whether Mr. de Blasio actually understands what is best for people in Soundview, on the Lower East Side, or anywhere else?

Scorecard

This ad was already available online, so there is no element of surprise, with Election Day just under a week away. But barring something cataclysmic, the ad is likely to be the last one that voters will see from Mr. de Blasio, who is the overwhelming favorite against his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota.

So perhaps it is appropriate that in a campaign anchored by the “Tale of Two Cities” slogan, his closing argument is essentially a tone poem to a city of incredible diversity, filled with regular people, some hopeful, others determined, going about their everyday lives.

It is striking that Mr. de Blasio does not appear or say anything in the ad. Nor does his family, even though they have been central to his campaign. The only hint that it is a campaign ad, before the reminder that supporters should vote next Tuesday, is the small print noting the addresses of Mr. de Blasio’s website and Twitter feed.

But the imagery and tone are unmistakable here, in what could almost double as the first draft of an inaugural address: The candidate is, in effect, saying, “I am Bill de Blasio, and I want to be an inspiring and inclusive leader for all New Yorkers.”

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Hurricane Sandy Haiku

Dear Diary:

A beach house, rebuilt
after Superstorm Sandy
the sign reads, “Now Broke”

One year since the storm
hundreds of willows sprouting
where the old willow fell

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Fall Colors

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times No need to leave the city to peep leaves. This is Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan.

Updated 6:06 a.m. | Foliage season in the Catskills has come and gone. Vermont maples are brown or bare.

But you’re in luck: New York City’s leaf-peeping season is hitting its peak.

This weekend should be the most colorful of the year in much of the city, said Tim Wenskus, a natural resource manager with the city parks department.

One of his favorite spots is the Aqueduct Trail in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

“You have a little bit of topography, where you can get something close to a vista,” Mr. Wenskus said.

New York City is big enough and varied enough that a place like Alley Pond Park in Queens might peak a week after Van Cortlandt.

At High Rock Park on Staten Island, Mr. Wenskus said, early-turning ash and elm are being joined by the yellows of persimmon and tulip tree, orange-tipped oak and the deep blood-scarlet of red maple

But with 2.5 million trees on public land in the city, you probably have your own favorite.

Tell us: Where do you go in this town to see the leaves turn?

Here’s what you need to know for Wednesday.

WEATHER

Eh. Just a cloudy day with a high of 60. Clearer tonight, but Halloween might be drippy.

COMMUTE

Subways: No delays. Click for latest status.

Rails: Fine so far. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: No major delays. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today and tomorrow but suspended Friday.

COMING UP TODAY

- The final mayoral debate between Bill de Blasio and Joseph J. Lhota, at 7 p.m. Watch on WNBC-TV. Listen on WOR-AM 710.

- Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway speak at a panel, “The Measured City: Using Data to Improve New York City Government” at New York University this morning.

- The New York Review of Books presents a two-day conference on privacy and the Internet, at the Scandinavia House on Park Avenue. [Free, registration required]

- It’s Mexican Day of the Dead. Build an altar, learn how to make a sugar figurine and dance, at a daylong celebration in East Harlem. 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. [Free, though you can buy food]

- The citywide architecture festival Archtober is almost over. Tour the building of the day, the Queens Central Library. 1:30 p.m. [Free, click to register]

- That’s no pumpkin, it’s a basketball. The Knicks open at home against the Bucks. The Nets start the year in Cleveland.

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The former of home of a company in Ridgewood, Queens, that sold radioactive material for atomic bombs may become the city’s next Superfund site. [New York Times]

- A rabbi at a youth center in Beverly Hills was arrested on charges that he sexually abused boys as a youth worker in Brooklyn in the 1990s. [KABC]

- A City Council measure to raise the age for buying cigarettes to 21 now covers e-cigarettes, too. [Daily News]

Scoreboard: Rangers beat Islanders, 3-2. Devils beat Lightning, 2-1.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

A Departed ‘21’ Club Fixture, Known for His Stories, Inspires a Few

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times Lorenzo Robinson, a bathroom attendant at “21,” in a 2004 photograph.

As soon as Tip O’Neill came back from the men’s room at the “21” Club, Nicholas Verbitsky knew that Mr. O’Neill had fallen under the charms of the Rev.

“Tip came back to our table with a big smile and said, ‘I just met the nicest guy in the bathroom - he really knew his stuff,’” recalled Mr. Verbitsky, chief executive officer of United Stations Radio Networks, after finishing lunch on Tuesday in the dining room at the “21” Club, the venerated Midtown restaurant on West 52nd Street that was once a speakeasy.

This was in the 1980s, and the elated restroom user was, at the time, the speaker of the House of Representatives, something that the savvy bathroom attendant knew instantly, addressing him as Mr. Speaker and offering him a hand towel.

This was no ordinary restroom attendant. It was Lorenzo Robinson, who since 1989 served the rich, famous and important customers of “21” during their most private moments.

Mr. Robinson, known to scores of “21” customers as the Rev, died Thursday at 71, shortly after delivering the eulogy at a service in Connecticut for a sister, officials at the restaurant said. The officials did not know the cause of death, and Jerelene Robinson, Mr. Robinson’s widow, did not immediately return a phone call on Tuesday afternoon.

“The Rev was an amazing raconteur - he would be up to date on the economy, world affairs, and he could just wax poetic about a myriad of issues,” Mr. Verbitsky said. “It’s not often you look forward to going to the men’s room, but with the Rev there, you did.”

Mr. Verbitsky’s dining companion, Marty Weisberg, another longtime “21″ customer, nodded.

“He wasn’t a washroom attendant - he was your friend, and he was an essential part of the ’21’ experience,” Mr. Weisberg said.

Mr. Robinson was as much a part of “21” as the cast-iron jockeys guarding the door, the red-checkered tablecloths, and the steak tartare. And restaurant employees said he was still working in the days before he died.

Dressed in his smart white uniform, Mr. Robinson would greet restroom users while turning on the faucet and offering a towel. He would also offer a once-over of a gentleman’s clothing with a little brush.

Mr. Robinson, an ordained Baptist minister, would keep current by reading several newspapers every morning while commuting by train from his home in Stamford, Conn.

In 2004, Mr. Robinson told The New York Times that he came from an extended family of Baptist ministers and his father, uncle and nephew all worked in the bathroom at “21.” He took over the job after the 1989 death of his uncle Otis Cole, who had worked the restroom at “21″ since the 1940s, he said.

According to an obituary placed by Mr. Robinson’s family in The Stamford Advocate on Tuesday, Mr. Robinson was active in community service, served as pastor at multiple churches and headed several civic organizations. The Robinsons had one child, a daughter.

Two of his favorite interactions were with Nelson Mandela and Ronald Reagan, said Shaker Naini, a longtime greeter at “21.”

“The Rev met Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton and he had conversations with them,” Mr. Naini said, offering an anecdote about Mr. Reagan trying to turn on the faucet to wash his hands, only to have Mr. Robinson say, “Please, Mr. President, I have to do that for you.”

Then Mr. Reagan handed Mr. Robinson his cufflinks with the presidential seal. Mr. Robinson wore the cufflinks to work every day after that, Mr. Naini said.

Mr. Robinson performed wedding ceremonies for several customers and employees, including Ed Kennelly, a bartender at “21.”

“The Rev insisted on doing my wedding,” Mr. Kennelly said on Tuesday, wiping down the bar. “He was a true character. Men would bring him out of the restroom to meet their families.”

“We have CEO’s coming in here crying, learning that the Rev died,” he said. “The Rev took that job, and he elevated it.”

Matthew Barney Film in the Lineup at Australia Arts Festival

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In Performance: Kristen Sieh and Libby King of ‘RoosevElvis\'

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Life to Go On, But Jonas Brothers Call It Quits

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A Concert of Sad Songs, Delivered Anywhere in the World

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Beck to Release New Album After Signing With Capitol Records

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My Morning Jacket Plans a Resort Rock Festival, Yoga Included

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for CBGB My Morning Jacket performing in New York this month.

Remember when going to a rock show meant packing into a crowded, grungy club, where the music was loud and the air was filled with smoke (various kinds), sweat and the aroma of beer? If you're happy to have all that well behind you, but still have a yen to rock out - perhaps with some ritzy conveniences - the Southern rock band My Morning Jacket has a deal for you.

The band is presiding over One Big Holiday, a four-day festival that the group is calling “an all-inclusive musical adventure,” an hour south of Cancún, Mexico, near Playa del Carmen, Jan. 26 to 30.

At prices that range from $1,249 to $2,599, tickets to the festival - which the band is calling “an all-inclusive musical adventure” - include a room at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, as well as meals, drinks, activities (yoga classes, tennis, kayaking, snorkeling, tequila tastings and dance parties are among those promised). And, of course, concerts.

My Morning Jacket plans to play three full sets. Also on the bill are the Flaming Lips, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mariachi El Bronx and the D.J. Rob Garza, from Thievery Corporation.

Bolshoi Dancer Pleads Not Guilty in Attack on Artistic Director

MOSCOW - Pavel Dmitrichenko, a soloist with the Bolshoi Ballet, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded the troupe's artistic director. The man accused of carrying out the attack admitted his guilt but said he had been acting alone.

That man, Yuri Zarutsky, 35, pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit assault because he alone had mixed and used a caustic mixture of acid and urine in the January attack, Russian state media reported.

Mr. Dmitrichenko, 29, said in March during a taped interrogation that he had authorized the assault on the artistic director, Sergei Filin, but “not to the extent that it occurred.” The attack exposed bitter rivalries among the world-famous ballet company, and Mr. Filin has not fully recovered despite 23 surgeries to restore his eyesight.

On Tuesday, Mr. Dmitrichenko told the court that “I never asked Zarutsky to carry out an attack on Filin and cause serious harm to his health.” A man suspected of being the getaway driver, Andrei Lipatov, also pleaded not guilty.

All three men could receive a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison if convicted.

Dutch Website Catalogs Art Looted in Nazi Era

A four-year review by more than 400 Dutch museums and galleries has turned up a list of 139 artworks that may have been forcibly taken from Jewish families during the Nazis' reign, the BBC reported on Tuesday. The works, which include a Matisse and several by Dutch artists, are listed on a special website. (An English version of the site won't be available until 2014.)

Heirs can file claims with the Dutch Restitutions Committee, an independent advisory panel. A previous review of museum collections examined only transactions that took place between 1940 and 1948. The new review, which was initiated in 2009, is an acknowledgment by the government that previous efforts to return looted property were incomplete. This latest search goes back to 1933, with an eye to gaps in provenance.

Speaking to the BBC, Siebe Weide, the director of the Netherlands Museums Association, said, “We know that there were doubtful transactions concerning works acquired before 1940, after Kristallnacht,” referring to the coordinated attacks on German and Austrian Jews that occurred in 1938.

Seeking Students\' Short ‘Hamlet\' Videos

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” declares Polonius in William Shakespeare's “Hamlet.” And perhaps short videos of lines from one of the Bard's most-loved plays will expose the souls of their performers, too. So The New York Times invites student actors and actresses to submit their performances of lines from “Hamlet” using Instagram.

The Times's critics have been cataloging the recent bounty of professional performances of Shakespeare's plays. And with several stagings of “Hamlet” opening soon, we'd like to see how high school and college students interpret key lines from the play using the cameras and apps on the smartphones they might be carrying.

To prove that you can fit plenty of Shakespearean pathos into 15 seconds - the maximum length of an Instagram video - we invited a professional actor, Michael Urie, to The New York Times to perform a few lines from the play:

If you are a high school or college student, use Instagram to record one short video of your performance of lines from “Hamlet.” (“To be or not to be” is only an example.) Then fill out the form and submit the link to the video below. You can also add the hashtag “#MaximumShakespeare” on your Instagram post.

The deadline to submit a video link is Dec. 1, 2103. The best videos will be featured on nytimes.com later in December. If you cannot see the form below, it is also available at this website.

By submitting to us, you are promising that the content is original, doesn't plagiarize from anyone or infringe a copyright or trademark, doesn't violate anybody's rights and isn't libelous or otherwise unlawful or misleading. You are agreeing that we can use your submission in all manner and media of The New York Times and that we shall have the right to authorize third parties to do so. And you agree to the rules of our Member Agreement, found online at our website.

College Painters to Face Off Onstage

The gladiatorial side of the art world is usually kept under wraps, in the jockeying for prominence among artists, gallery owners and curators. But ArtBattles U wants to get the sparring out in the open. The company, which specializes in finding opportunities for student artists to show their work, is presenting what it is calling a Live Art Battle - painters create works while audiences watch - on Nov. 14 in the Marlin Room at Webster Hall, the rock club on East 11th Street.

ArtBattles U staged a similar contest at Webster Hall in April, and another in Spartanburg, S.C., in September. But it is expanding its approach. The Nov. 14 battle is open to college students in the tristate area. Four winners will be selected by the audience and will compete in the spring against winners of three other battles. One is to be held at Underground Arts in Philadelphia on Nov. 21; the other two cities have not yet been announced.

The contest will offer its student competitors marketing opportunities as well. All the work created at the battles will be available for sale, and some will be incorporated into an ArtBattles U line of iPhone, iPad, laptop and gaming console skins.

Cellphone-Hater in the Subway

Dear Diary:

I was waiting for the No. 1 train on the underground platform at the 79th Street station when a cellphone rang. The faces of nearby people expressed annoyance, but only the man sitting next to me complained.

“I hate phones that work in the subway. Maybe it’s hard to believe, but this is my quiet time. My reading time.”

I stifled a laugh.

It was his phone that had rung.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Mayoral Misfits

Click on the video above for more on the minor-party candidates.

Bored by the mayoral race?

You haven’t met the lesser-known candidates on the ballot.

There’s the “political impressionist” Randy A. Credico of the “Tax Wall Street Party.”

“I’m the mimic,” Mr. Credico said. “But de Blasio picked up a lot of my rhetoric, about taxing Wall Street and changing the criminal-justice system.”

To run for mayor, a candidate must submit petitions with at least 3,750 signatures.

Fifteen people have made it onto next Tuesday’s ballot.

They include Jimmy McMillan of the “Rent is Too Damn High” party.

Then there is Michael J. Dilger, founder of the “Flourish Everyone Can Shine Like the Sun” party.

Asked about his party’s name, Mr. Dilger paused.

He was ordering a slice of pepperoni pizza. It had been a long day selling comedy tickets in Times Square.

The name, he said, came from his Jesuit education, and a belief that every person’s potential is limitless.

Still, Mr. Dilger expressed confusion about whether his petitions had been certified.

“I’m on the ballot â€" are you sure?” he asked.

(Yes, we’re sure.)

Here’s what else you need to know for Tuesday, the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.

WEATHER

Patchy sun, with a high of 53. But enjoy it. The rest of the week looks gloomy.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: O.K. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect through Thursday but suspended Friday.

COMING UP TODAY

Hurricane Sandy Anniversary

- Entrances to the R train in Brooklyn and to A-train stations south of Howard Beach in Queens will be free all day. You’re on your honor not to get on any connecting trains.

- Volunteers will plant beach grass on dunes at Breezy Point in the Rockaways to help them withstand storm surges, from morning till afternoon.

- Joseph J. Lhota is on the John Gambling radio show on WOR-AM (710) at 7:10 a.m. Then he helps plant beach grass at Breezy Point and attends remembrance services in Staten Island and Queens.

- Bill de Blasio speaks at storm remembrances in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and on Staten Island.

- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg visits shoreline-hardening projects in Staten Island and Queens and speaks at the site of a new levee in Coney Island at 11:30 a.m.

- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tours places damaged by the storm in Lower Manhattan and Queens, then speaks at a gas station on Long Island.

- Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey leads a prayer service at a Baptist church in Newark at 10 a.m.

- A exhibit of more than 200 photos, “Rising Waters,” opens at the Museum of the City of New York.

- A mural by senior citizens commemorating the storm is unveiled on the Coney Island boardwalk.

- There will be candlelight vigils along the shoreline all around the region. Manhattan’s begins at 6:45 in East River Park in the East Village.

- Staten Island’s vigil is at 7:45 p.m., all along the South Shore. But before, people will walk, eat, pray.

- Brooklyn will be lit up, too. Get to one of these spots by 6:30 p.m.

- A vigil on Beach Channel Drive in Far Rockaway at 7:30 p.m.

- At 8 p.m., there will be a moment of silence across the state.

Non-Hurricane

- The Landmarks Preservation Commission votes on whether to extend the Park Slope Historic District.

- A State Senate education committee public hearing on changes to the Regents tests, at 250 Broadway Downtown.

- The New York Civil Liberties Union releases a report on the provocative theme “How School Discipline Feeds the School-to-Prison Pipeline.”

- The fledgling and still-unhoused Filipino American Museum has its first event, a sound-and-light performance at Third Streaming gallery in SoHo. 7 p.m. [Free]

- Foreign-policy panels at N.Y.U. one on relations with Iran, at 6 p.m., one on drone strikes at 6:30 p.m. [Free]

- Will Self and Martin Amis converse at McNally Jackson Books in SoHo. 7 p.m. [Free]

- The noted partying authority Andrew W.K. delivers a “special party lecture” at the Bedford + Bowery Newsroom in Williamsburg. 7 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The state attorney general’s office sent letters to Barney’s and Macy’s seeking information on their security procedures, after accusations of racial profiling of shoppers. [Daily News]

- Poll: New York City voters favor casino expansion in the state, but not in their backyards. [New York Times]

- Mr. de Blasio’s tenants seem to like him as a landlord. [New York Times]

- A Jewish deliveryman won a $900,000 verdict against a Midtown restaurant for years of anti-Semitic harassment. [New York Post]

- An appreciation of Staten Island pizza from the food critic Robert Sietsema. [New York Times]

- Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the demolition of the original Penn Station. Atlantic Cities has a photo tribute.

- Scoreboard: Rangers lose belated home opener to Canadiens, 2-0.

AND FINALLY…

This time last year, Hurricane Sandy was heading for New York.

By mid-morning the city was shutting down. Trains had stopped running.

Union Square was deserted.

There, we came across a man holding a cup of coffee.

Instead of gloves, he wore socks on his hands.

We asked who he was.

Karem Kosse, 40. He had come from Mali, in the hold of a ship.

This was scarier, he said.

He had nowhere to go.

We wrote the address of the nearest shelter on a business card, wished him luck.

A day later, we received this voicemail:

“You give me the address to look for some place to sleep. You were very kind. We’ve stayed there for awhile.”

We could hear voices in the background. A crowded room.

“I pray for you,” he said before hanging up.

“You pray for me.”

Joseph Burgess and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

A Boy’s Life With Cerebral Palsy, Revealed in Tumblr ‘Aaronverse’

James Estrin/The New York Times Aaron Philip, at his home in the Bronx, is scheduled to speak on Tuesday at the Manhattan offices of Tumblr, the website where he writes about his experiences living with cerebral palsy. His younger brother Erin is in the kitchen.

Hidden in Tumblr’s bottomless trove of illustrated quotations, posts debunking falsely attributed illustrated quotations, pornography and obsessively composed photos of huckleberry muffins, is a blog written by a twelve-year-old from the Bronx named Aaron Philip.

The earnest voice of his Tumblr blog, Aaronverse, caught the attention of Tumblr’s 27-year-old chief executive, David Karp. In June, Mr. Karp met with the young blogger at the company’s office in the Flatiron district for an hour and a half, to talk about his blog and his life with cerebral palsy.

As the meeting drew to a close, Mr. Karp clicked through Aaron’s Tumblr site and asked, “Do you like public speaking?”

Aaron answered, “No, not really.” At school, being on stage had been humiliating for him. “One time, during a class dance performance at school, we went over, ‘Make sure, at the end of the dance, Aaron gets wheeled with you guys offstage.’ The teacher went over that again and again. But the dance performance ended. No one wheeled me off. I got left on stage,” he said.

Mr. Karp said he was very sorry to hear that. He then invited the boy to address his entire staff, on Tuesday. Despite his past embarrassment, Aaron thanked him and said yes. Mr. Karp did not respond to a request for an interview and a spokeswoman did not provide any information regarding how and why he had been drawn to Aaron’s blog.

Aaron’s family lives in subsidized housing in the Bronx, but their relative poverty is a recent development. “I was born 12 years ago, a premature 7-month baby on the beautiful island of Antigua. I was so tiny, that my parents had to cut newborn pampers in half just to fit me,” he wrote in an email. “Wow, I was an ant.”

In Antigua, his father was a customs officer and his mother worked for a utility company. When Aaron was a toddler, his cerebral palsy emerged. “His left side was already folded in. His neck was down to his left shoulder and his leg was pulled in,” said Lydia Philip, his mother.

Antigua provided only limited care for children with cerebral palsy. When Aaron was 3, the family decided to seek more extensive medical care for him and so split up, with he and his mother emigrating to New York and leaving behind his father and healthy little brother, Eren. But after Aaron’s mother used up her six-month leave of absence from work, she returned to Antigua, switching places with Aaron’s father, Petrone Philip.

Aaron and his father moved into a homeless shelter in Manhattan in 2010, where they lived until they were able to move to their Bronx home last year. Eren then joined his father and brother in the new apartment. His father works in a school cafeteria and recently earned his American citizenship.

“My family are like a group of candles lighting a room. There are only three candles in the room, which light up the room partially,” Aaron said. “In order to fully illuminate the room, we need a fourth candle. That fourth candle is my mother.”

Despite his father’s diminished income, Aaron has been able to get the treatment he needs: A double-hip surgery was paid for by state-subsidized insurance, and at his school, Public School 333, he is assisted by a paraprofessional and an occupational therapist, Debra Fisher, who has been working with him for the last seven years.

Ms. Fisher first met the boy as a kindergartner. On their first excursion out of the school, she escorted him as he rode in his electric wheelchair along a sidewalk on the Upper West Side. He blurted out, “Refinance. Bikini Bootcamp.” She feared that in addition to his physical disability, he might be mentally disabled. “Easy money, easy money,” his deadpanned, looking straight ahead. It took her a minute to understand: he was reading the surrounding shop signs aloud. Though just starting kindergarten, he had already taught himself to read on his Leapster, an educational tablet.

I first met Aaron earlier this year, on his final day of sixth grade. It was a clear June day. We were in the Blue Sky Room, a therapy space in his school where he develops his motor skills three times a week. It resembles a compact gymnasium crowded with thick mats, pull up rings, and big inflatable balls. Ms. Fisher works with him on grasping, raking, and releasing small objects, training his muscles to function so that he can hold a pencil to write and draw like other students.

He types with just one finger, swooshing it from key to key to compose Aaronverse, which mixes childish enthusiasm with candor and the metaphors he is constantly inventing. “When I read, the biggest moment pops up like a hologram in the sky, and I have a locker in my head, and I lock that image up,” he said. As he spoke, his small elbow got trapped in the space between his lap desk and his wheelchair; Ms. Fisher removed it. “When I’m done, I just want to lie there for days to recover. I’m exhausted. And then my brain has to return to my body,” he said.

In the living room of Aaron’s home, Skype, the Internet videoconferencing service, is perpetually on, revealing the family’s home in Antigua with the ramps and widened doors that were built to accommodate Aaron’s wheelchair. “On the western side of our house there is a beautiful view of the Caribbean Sea,” Aaron’s father said, of the house he hasn’t entered in seven years. “It’s a small inlet with a mangrove swamp. The most beautiful.”

His mother walks through the home, on-screen and off. She steps out of view to prepare a meal and do the laundry. She comes back into the picture to help her two sons with their homework. For Aaron, the Skype connection is not enough. “I wish that I was sleeping peacefully,’’ he wrote in an email. “I hear my bedroom window collapse into crystals. I look around abruptly, until I see feathers on the ground. Then, I look up. It’s a lady with wings. It’s not just a lady. It’s my mother. She flew from Antigua. She shows me her visa. I automatically know that the pain and suffering is gone.”

On Monday, Aaron, now a seventh grader at Public School 333, was back in school, preparing his remarks on life with cerebral palsy and creating art about disability, despite his disability, for the coders and designers of the website he shares his stories on.

New York Today: Sandy, One Year Later

Michael Nagle for The New York Times On a Queens beach, 3,000 people held hands to  commemorate Sandy.

Updated 6:20 a.m. | A human chain, wiggly and windswept, formed on Rockaway Beach in Queens on Sunday.

Three thousand people joined hands and fell silent as a fire boat pivoted offshore, spouting like a whale.

The occasion was the first anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, which walloped our region on Oct. 29 last year.

Lily Corcoran, 56, who had organized the event through a Facebook group, “Rockaway Rising,” turned back to look at her creation and wept.

“I lost it,” she said. “I had to go down to the water so nobody would see me.”

A wave rippled through the crowd, then a cheer rose. The chain broke.

Children placed glowing Chinese lanterns and daisies on the water, symbols of those lost to the storm.

The hurricane left more than 100 people dead and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage around the region.

Places like the Rockaways have faced a long recovery.

For the next few days, Sandy-related events will spring up all over the city and region.

Today, Ellis Island will reopen to visitors for the first time since Hurricane Sandy.

Beginning on Tuesday, 300,000 special “I Love New York” MetroCards will go into circulation, part of a statewide, “Come See the Comeback” campaign.

Here’s what else you need to know for Monday.

WEATHER

Step out for lunch: pure sunshine today, with a high of 61. No clouds till nightfall.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: O.K. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect through Thursday but suspended Friday.

COMING UP TODAY

- Joseph J. Lhota is on “Geraldo” on WABC-AM (770) at 10:20 a.m. Then he holds a news conference to criticize Bill de Blasio’s record on Atlantic Yards and goes to a New York Young Republican Club gala.

- Mr. de Blasio protests the layoffs of 500 nurses and health care workers from Long Island College Hospital.

- Mayor Bloomberg announces the allocation of more Hurricane Sandy rebuilding money.

- The President’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force unveils ideas by 10 design teams. 8:30 a.m. at N.Y.U. [Free. Also on live stream]

- Climate scientists and a FEMA coordinator offer advice on disaster management at the Peace Islands Institute in Midtown at noon. [Free. R.S.V.P. here]

- The city’s chief urban designer, Alexandros E. Washburn, speaks at a forum, “Urgent: New York Perspectives on Resilience,” at the Museum of the City of New York. 6:30 p.m. [$12, reservations required]

- A sociologist who has walked 6,000 miles in New York City, William Helmreich, gives an illustrated lecture at the New York Public Library. 6:30. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The final mayoral debate, scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed to Wednesday at the candidates’ request, to honor victims of Hurricane Sandy. [New York Times]

- Mr. de Blasio’s lead in the polls has shrunk slightly but is still a dauntingly large 45 points. [New York Times]

- The state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, filed court papers to unseal a secret report on the state’s handling of the 1971 Attica prison uprising. [Buffalo News]

- A 25-year-old man was charged with Saturday’s fatal stabbings of his cousin’s wife and her four children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. [New York Times]

- New York is the first state to open its own emergency gasoline reserve, with a capacity of three million gallons. [Reuters]

- The New York Times endorsed Mr. de Blasio. The free daily amNewYork has endorsed Mr. Lhota.

AND FINALLY…

Lou Reed, who died on Sunday at 71, made his debut in The New York Times on Jan. 13, 1966.

In a curious way.

He and his band, the Velvet Underground, appeared with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry’s black-tie dinner at Delmonico’s Hotel.

The Times said the band played “a combination of rock ‘n’ roll and Egyptian belly-dance music.”

Reviews were not mixed.

“A short-lived torture of cacophony,” pronounced one psychiatrist.

Another said, “It was ridiculous, outrageous, painful.”

Many fled before dessert.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, e-mail us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

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Bless This Food Delivery Guy

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

About 50 of us were assembled in a narrow loft space in the meatpacking district. The chuppa, the canopy at a traditional Jewish wedding, stood at one end of the room, just beyond a short corridor leading to the freight elevator.

As the rabbi started the ceremony, the couple in his literal embrace under the chuppa, the elevator doors clanked open just out of sight.

A canonical small, helmeted food delivery guy, carrying a canonical large brown bag, stepped unhesitatingly between the chuppa and the audience.

He asked the rabbi who had ordered the delivery.

A low murmur of amusement reverberated.

The rabbi, after brief consultation with the couple, quickly recovered control of the proceedings.

He explained that this was food for the band, and directed the delivery man to a door behind the chuppa.

The food messenger was not seen again.

Recall the Postal Service’s heroic creed regarding wind, rain and other impediments. We know what has happened to mail delivery.

New York City has new heroes.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

Bless This Food Delivery Guy

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

About 50 of us were assembled in a narrow loft space in the meatpacking district. The chuppa, the canopy at a traditional Jewish wedding, stood at one end of the room, just beyond a short corridor leading to the freight elevator.

As the rabbi started the ceremony, the couple in his literal embrace under the chuppa, the elevator doors clanked open just out of sight.

A canonical small, helmeted food delivery guy, carrying a canonical large brown bag, stepped unhesitatingly between the chuppa and the audience.

He asked the rabbi who had ordered the delivery.

A low murmur of amusement reverberated.

The rabbi, after brief consultation with the couple, quickly recovered control of the proceedings.

He explained that this was food for the band, and directed the delivery man to a door behind the chuppa.

The food messenger was not seen again.

Recall the Postal Service’s heroic creed regarding wind, rain and other impediments. We know what has happened to mail delivery.

New York City has new heroes.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

A Thrill Now Sadly Rare

Dave Taft

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, bats were common. They roosted in abandoned homes, in attics, in little-used garages or behind decorative window shutters in both the most affluent and the poorest neighborhoods. My summers were filled with bat sightings, as were fall evenings after my homework was done. That bats were familiars, or consorted with the dead, never occurred to me. I only wanted to see one up close.

To make that happen, I used a trick. My brother and I would begin the evening filling our pockets with carefully selected, irregularly shaped stones â€" the best were no larger than half an inch long. These were our insect decoys.

Positioning ourselves in empty lots near street trees or in fields where we had seen bats hunting, we would thumb-flick these stones as high as we could when we spotted one nearby. As the spinning stone reached its maximum height, the bat’s radar would detect the tiny “insect” and sometimes sweep in to investigate.

If we got the timing and the trajectory exactly right, the stone and the bat would intersect at eye level, a great view, illuminated by the city streetlights, and close enough for us to hear the faint flutter of wings. Every now and again, the bat would sweep its wing or tail under to intercept the stone, rejecting it at once as fraudulent.

I am anxious that my daughter may never have the chance to play this harmless game with me. Bats are scarce these days. Since the discovery of white nose syndrome in a New York State cave in 2006, millions of bats have died throughout the Northeast. The disease is caused by a previously unknown fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that reaches its morbid worst when bats are most susceptible, during their winter hibernation. The highly contagious disease spreads through densely packed, sleeping bats at will.

Though the exact means of death is unknown, infected bats rouse more often in winter, depleting critical energy reserves. The disease may afflict the bats’ brains, or it may simply be starvation, but sick bats occasionally emerge from hibernation to search the bleak February skies for flying insects. In either case, the disease is a death sentence. February’s cold is unforgiving.

In my experience, the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) is the most frequently seen in our area, especially around water, but I have also encountered silver-haired, hoary, Eastern red, and big brown bats in New York City and its vicinity. If you want to get fancier than flinging rocks, join one of several local nature centers or bat conservation groups for an evening foray. Leaders often carry devices that can decipher the bats’ echolocation, since different bat species hunt using different frequencies and cadences â€" many too high-pitched for unaided human ears.

I miss bats. I know I am not the only one. Each Halloween, as the parade of princesses, pirates, bats and black cats gets under way, I wish for better days for these small, furry marvels.

When ‘Frankenstorm’ First Caught Our Eye

From time to time, the weather-forecasting authorities issue warnings of some type.

Sometimes we write about them. Sometimes we don’t.

A year ago today, the National Weather Service’s highly technical Extended Forecast Discussion veered off into a digression about something it dubbed a Frankenstorm, “an allusion to Mary Shelley’s gothic creature of synthesized elements.”

We suspected something might be different about this one.

We had no idea.

Big Ticket | A Nascar Star Sells for $25 Million

Edward Caruso for The New York Times 15 Central Park West

An elegant apartment at 15 Central Park West with treetop vistas of Central Park just outside and a host of sophisticated customizations inside â€" like a built-in sushi bar in the great room overlooking the park â€" sold for $25 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records. The asking price for the 3,454-square-foot unit when it entered the market in May was $30 million, and the monthly carrying charges are $7,221.80.

A three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath condominium, No. 7C, it had been owned since 2007 by the Nascar superstar Jeff Gordon, who paid $9.67 million and was one of the first buyers at 15 Central Park West. He and his wife, Ingrid Vandebosch, commissioned extensive renovations and upgrades to the home, which was used as their urban pied-à-terre.

The couple recently moved to a $10 million four-bedroom, full-floor unit at the freshly converted Whitman on Madison Square Park, where one of their three neighbors (the Whitman has just four residences) is the former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky. The buyers of No. 7C are Mr. Gordon’s former downstairs neighbors; they elected to make a slight vertical move to gain a superior amount of living space. Nora Ariffin and Christopher Kromer of Halstead Property were the brokers for the seller, listed in public records as Carolina Real Property. The buyers, who used a limited-liability company, Mossullo, were represented by Noel Berk of Mercedes/Berk, also a resident of 15 Central Park West. The buyer’s apartment, No. 6E, a two-bedroom unit, is listed for sale with Ms. Berk for $10.3 million.

The week’s second-most-expensive sale also involved property belonging to a celebrity, if not a legend: Harold Prince, the most decorated Broadway producer/director in show business, whose 21 Tony Awards constitute a record. His robustly decorated Upper East Side town house sold for $19.1 million. The most recent asking price of the home, between Madison and Park Avenues, was $19.95 million.

The six-story neo-Georgian residence â€" built in 1910 but fully renovated in 2007 with the entire back wall replaced by glass â€" has 7,350 square feet of interior space; a 2,000-square-foot finished basement with a gym and a staff suite; a rear garden; a roof deck; a four-story atrium; and a south-facing terrace. Taxes are $128,000 a year, and there are no fewer than three powder rooms.

Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens represented Mr. Prince and his wife, Judith. The buyer of the five-bedroom, five-bath home used a limited-liability company, 48 East 74th Street.

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

Big Ticket | A Nascar Star Sells for $25 Million

Edward Caruso for The New York Times 15 Central Park West

An elegant apartment at 15 Central Park West with treetop vistas of Central Park just outside and a host of sophisticated customizations inside â€" like a built-in sushi bar in the great room overlooking the park â€" sold for $25 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records. The asking price for the 3,454-square-foot unit when it entered the market in May was $30 million, and the monthly carrying charges are $7,221.80.

A three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath condominium, No. 7C, it had been owned since 2007 by the Nascar superstar Jeff Gordon, who paid $9.67 million and was one of the first buyers at 15 Central Park West. He and his wife, Ingrid Vandebosch, commissioned extensive renovations and upgrades to the home, which was used as their urban pied-à-terre.

The couple recently moved to a $10 million four-bedroom, full-floor unit at the freshly converted Whitman on Madison Square Park, where one of their three neighbors (the Whitman has just four residences) is the former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky. The buyers of No. 7C are Mr. Gordon’s former downstairs neighbors; they elected to make a slight vertical move to gain a superior amount of living space. Nora Ariffin and Christopher Kromer of Halstead Property were the brokers for the seller, listed in public records as Carolina Real Property. The buyers, who used a limited-liability company, Mossullo, were represented by Noel Berk of Mercedes/Berk, also a resident of 15 Central Park West. The buyer’s apartment, No. 6E, a two-bedroom unit, is listed for sale with Ms. Berk for $10.3 million.

The week’s second-most-expensive sale also involved property belonging to a celebrity, if not a legend: Harold Prince, the most decorated Broadway producer/director in show business, whose 21 Tony Awards constitute a record. His robustly decorated Upper East Side town house sold for $19.1 million. The most recent asking price of the home, between Madison and Park Avenues, was $19.95 million.

The six-story neo-Georgian residence â€" built in 1910 but fully renovated in 2007 with the entire back wall replaced by glass â€" has 7,350 square feet of interior space; a 2,000-square-foot finished basement with a gym and a staff suite; a rear garden; a roof deck; a four-story atrium; and a south-facing terrace. Taxes are $128,000 a year, and there are no fewer than three powder rooms.

Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens represented Mr. Prince and his wife, Judith. The buyer of the five-bedroom, five-bath home used a limited-liability company, 48 East 74th Street.

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

Listening to the Roar of 1920s New York

Scenes from 1929 New York from Fox Movietone Newsreels preserved by the University of South Carolina, Moving Image Research Collections.

In 1929, New York’s Noise Abatement Commission outfitted a truck with microphones and sound recording devices to measure the city’s din. Researchers made more than 10,000 observations on the truck’s 500-mile journey past construction sites with billowing steam shovels and pounding pile drivers, underneath screeching elevated trains and past the cluster of electronics shops blaring music in Lower Manhattan’s “Radio Row.”

The commission, a short-lived agency that aggressively studied the soundscape to develop policies that would protect the health of the city’s inhabitants, concluded that a Bengal tiger could “roar or snarl indefinitely without attracting the auditory attention of passers-by.”

New Yorkers who believe the cacophony is worse today - with helicopters buzzing overhead and rumbling Fresh Direct trucks on the streets below - should put on a pair of headphones and take a tour around a new Web site that explores the sonic environment of a century ago.

“The Roaring ‘Twenties,” as it is called, was created by Emily Thompson, a historian of sound, technology and cultures of listening at Princeton University who has spent many years thinking about how best to present sonic complaints in the Municipal Archives of the City of New York and videos from the Moving Image Research Collections of the Libraries of the University of South Carolina with the hope of getting people into a 1929 state of mind.

“It’s my attempt to build a time machine,” she said.

There are hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles that chronicle the city’s struggle to contain the racket; letters from aggrieved citizens about loud ash collectors and ice cream men; plus more than 50 newsreels with synchronous sound footage that give a grainy vision of an environment defined by the growth of skyscrapers, the excavation of elevated railways, thundering internal combustion engines and whistling policemen.

Municipal Archives of the City of New York A letter from Dr. C. Burns Craig to the health commissioner asking for relief from whistles and sirens on the East River dated April 13, 1931. Click Here to Enlarge

In one letter dated Oct. 5, 1932, Mr. N. Schmuck of 137 Milton Street in Brooklyn, complained to the health department about the Colonial Pickle Works on Greenpoint Avenue. The department’s commissioner, a man named Dr. Shirley W. Wynne, responded the following day in a surprising show of government efficiency and courtesy, assuring that Mr. Schmuck’s complaint had been referred to the sanitation department “for investigation and appropriate action.”

“There was optimism that science and technology could solve the problem that isn’t present today,” Ms. Thompson said.

Though the backbone of the site is the perniciousness of sound, the Fox Movietone newsreels from 1926 through 1930 provide a portal to the vitality and exuberance of street life at the time. In one, squealing pigs slide down a chute on Coney Island as a barker announces: “Luna Park Pig Slide… three balls for ten cents… ten balls for a quarter… hear that little pig squeal…”

Voyeurs and the curious can search the vast network of content by date, keyword or by location on a zoomable Google map overlaid with a black and white map from 1933. It took more than three years to develop the site, said Ms. Thompson. She worked with Scott Mahoy, a Web designer she met through Vectors, an online journal at the University of Southern California dedicated to multimedia literacy, which sponsored the project.

How to define noise, pinpoint it and how to temper human and mechanical outbursts make it a vexing issue for policy makers; but for historians, it is an ideal topic to dissect, Ms. Thompson said.

“It’s a wonderful lens to see what a society is worried about and to understand the people more in general,” she added. “If you listen carefully, you can learn a lot about a culture.”

A taxonomy of sound as presented in the Noise Abatement Commission’s landmark study in 1930, “City Noise.”  Click Here to Enlarge

Folding a Neighbor’s Laundry

Dear Diary:

My laundry had been occupying two big dryers in the building’s basement laundry room all afternoon while I ran errands and juggled conference calls. But instead of finding it piled in a heap on a bench, as usually happens when another tenant is impatient for dryer space, I saw an older woman serenely folding my towels, sheets and underwear.

“Excuse me, is that my laundry you’re folding?” I asked, stupidly; because of course it was. “I’m very late picking it up and I’m sorry if you had to wait for the dryer.”

Layla (for that was her name) smiled and said, “I am waiting for my own laundry to dry and thought I would fold yours. I enjoy folding.”

She had already folded half of the load beautifully â€" even the corners of the fitted sheets had a crisp, military precision. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started folding alongside her, mimicking how she snapped the towels and smoothed the pillowcases.

Layla is Brazilian and a professional housekeeper who has worked in my building, on East 52nd Street in the Turtle Bay area, for 13 years. I had never met her before.

“I think the world would be a better place if everyone was just a little nicer to each other, don’t you?” Layla said.

I do, indeed. Thank you, Layla.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Obama’s Here

Uli Seit for The New York Times Shien Hunte, left, and Saquan Warlick are thrilled that the president is visiting their school.

Updated 6:22 a.m. | All week long, one Brooklyn high school has been buzzing.

The president’s coming!

It was amazing enough that President Obama used his State of the Union address to praise the school for its innovative spirit.

But today, Mr. Obama is visiting the school, the Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, in Crown Heights.

“This is the first time I’m going to meet Obama,” said Shien Hunte, 14. “It’s been hectic.”

Latifa Morris, 15, said students have been chattering constantly about his arrival.

“They say they just want to touch him,” she said.

But to get that close, they’ve had to do a lot.

A partial list: clean out lockers, open desks, straighten classrooms, hang art, and make sure to arrive at 8:35 a.m., special tickets in hand.

“I’m going to wear a suit,” Saquan Warlick, 15, said.

Parts of Prospect Park will be closed from noon to 6 p.m. (not the entire park, as it seemed at first) for the president’s arrival by helicopter.

Obama plans to address students at 3:45 p.m. for 15 minutes.

Here’s what else you need to know for Friday and the weekend:

WEATHER

Even (slightly) colder than the last couple of days, and cloudier, with a high of 53. Warming very slightly through the rainless weekend.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: O.K. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Staten Island Expressway slammed eastbound. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

The president will disrupt traffic in Brooklyn from a little before 3 p.m. till sometime after 4, said Samuel Schwartz, better known as Gridlock Sam.

Eastern Parkway from the park to Crown Heights will close, as will parts of intersecting streets, including Flatbush Avenue.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Walcott and Bill de Blasio go to P-TECH for the president’s speech. Live stream here.

- Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican mayoral candidate, critiques Mr. de Blasio’s “anti-school choice positions” in East Harlem at 11:30 a.m. He’s on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC at 7:20 a.m.

- Neil Degrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, explains how to defend the earth from asteroids, at 11 a.m. Watch here.

- Your big chance to jog in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It’s suspending its running ban from noon to 6 p.m. to accommodate those displaced from Prospect Park.

- Last day to feast at Madison Square Eats. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

- A Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit opens at the Brooklyn Museum. It includes mannequins with interactive faces.

- Brooklyn Fare opens a Manhattan store at 431 West 37th Street. A 45-seat restaurant is coming next month.

- The Crown Heights Film Festival continues through Saturday. 6:30 p.m. at FiveMyles on St. John’s Place. [Free]

- Attention Brooklyn: Uniqlo opens in the Atlantic Terminal mall.

- Looking for Halloween events? We listed a bunch on Thursday.

- And don’t forget The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

THE WEEKEND

Saturday

- Volunteers: help clean up Hurricane Sandy damage in Queens and Staten Island with the Clinton Foundation. [Click for info]

- Junot Diaz reads and otherwise speaks at Brooklyn Public Library. 4 p.m. [Free]

Sunday

- The Tour de Bronx bike ride. Check-in at 9 a.m. Depart at 10:30 a.m.

- Put on Google Glass and embark on, and document, a citywide scavenger hunt. [Click for info]

- Actors from the “social-impact theater company” Outside the Wire perform the Book of Job in the Rockaways, where people know something about being tested, to commemorate Hurricane Sandy. With audience participation. 4 p.m. at West End Temple, 6:30 p.m. at Rockaway Theatre Company in Fort Tilden.

- If you’ve ever wondered what happens when 15 or so basset hounds get together, check out the North Park Slope Basset Association’s meetup at Prospect Park. 11:30 a.m. Bring earplugs. [Free]

Weekend Travel Hassles: Click for subway disruptions or list of street closings.

AND FINALLY…

It’s everything that may annoy you about the new Brooklyn.

A barge from Vermont.

A crowd-sourced barge from Vermont.

Arriving in Brooklyn with produce and artisanal goods.

The Ceres has traveled 300 miles along an old trade route from Ferrisburgh, Vt., picking up cargo along the way.

It will be in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Saturday for a big party.

The goal of the Vermont Freight Sail Project is to establish “a zero-emissions food trading network that builds community.”

The barge plans to leave with cocoa beans and locally roasted coffee.

Joseph Burgess and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, e-mail us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Your Experiences in New York’s Work World

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Staff members at LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, working from their office in the Empire State Building.

Starting soon, I will be writing a new weekly column for The Times’s Metropolitan section focused on work, the workplace and the evolving economy in New York City. My reporting will highlight your stories and experiences, and I want to hear about the biggest changes that have taken place in your working life over the last few years as the city has struggled its way out of a historic recession.

If you’re an employer, how have shifts in the economy, changing technology and management affected you and your family? If you are looking for work, what has been the biggest challenge? Have you started hiring again or will you soon be forced to lay people off? Are you working in a dying industry or have you discovered a new niche in the economy?

Please use the form below to answer a few brief questions. Your comments and contact information will not be published, but I may follow up with you directly for an interview. Thank you, in advance, for contributing to my reporting. If you cannot view the form embedded below, you can find it online here.

Subway Turnstile Haiku

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Dear Diary:

Swipe again. Too fast.
Swipe again at this turnstile.
Insufficient funds.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Send in the Ghouls

Mario Tama/Getty Images Everyone is larger than life at the Village Halloween Parade.

Updated 6:35 a.m. | Jeanne Fleming is planning a very, very big party.

“When I get there, I know about 20,000 of the people,” she said. “But then there’s this other 40,000 that just show up. I never know what they’re going to do till they get there.”

It’s the Village Halloween Parade, returning after being wiped out by Hurricane Sandy.

The logistics of a celebration of mass chaos are daunting: the parade is put together on the spot.

Ms. Fleming’s field marshal surveys the crowd at the starting line.

“He throws in a thousand people, then he throws in a float,” she said. “Then another 2,000 people, then a band.

“It’s about what needs to be there at each moment.”

This year’s theme is revival â€" of the city and of the parade, which needed a fund-raising campaign for the show to go on.

Giant puppets from the parade’s 40-year history will be trotted out: The penguins. The eyeballs. The luna moth.

One float features superheroes in plain clothes: people who helped neighbors survive and rebuild after the storm.

The parade is Halloween night. We also have a guide to this weekend’s Halloween events below.

Here’s what else you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

Sun with teeth: bright and cold, with a high of 55. That’s like mid-November. Low near 40 tonight.

COMMUTE

Subways: Delays on southbound 1 train. Click for latest status.

Rails: Outbound delays on Metro-North’s Harlem and New Haven lines. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect all week.

COMING UP TODAY

- Joseph J. Lhota speaks on WFMU radio (91.1 FM) at 7:45 a.m., holds a news conference on policing on a corner in Bedford-Stuyvesant and attends the One Hundred Black Men mayoral forum in Harlem.

- Bill de Blasio is on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC at 11:20 a.m.

- Downtown business owners, children and pets march to a spot beneath the Brooklyn Bridge and pour buckets of water into the East River in memory of Hurricane Sandy. 10:30 a.m.

- Take part in an attempt to set a world record for “most participants in an apple-crunching event.” It’s as simple as biting into an apple at a city greenmarket. Noon.

- The city Sanitation Department’s anthropologist-in-residence, Robin Nagle, tells tales of the garbage men at the Mid-Manhattan Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

- The New York Arab-American Comedy Festival at the Broadway Comedy Club. 8 p.m. [$15]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS

Today

- Watch creepy cartoons from the 1920s through the ’40s in the cafe of the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg. 7:30 p.m. [Free]

- Get your Grumpy Cat on at the HallowMeme costume party at the Bell House in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 8:30 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]

Friday

- Venture, if you dare, into the haunted house at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. [Free]

- A Procession of the Ghouls at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, followed by a showing of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. [$20]

- Check out the “Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul” show at the Morgan Library, which is free on Fridays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

- Sleep over at the American Museum of Natural History. [Expensive]

Saturday

- … is dog day. There’s the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade at noon.

- And the Great PUPkin costume contest in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, also at noon.

- A pumpkin festival at the Central Park Bandshell. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. [Free]

- Wander through the haunted train tunnel on the High Line. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. [Free]

- Investigate the paranormal at Lawrence Cemetery in Bayside, Queens. 3 p.m. [$10, reservations required]

Sunday

- Halloween Kidz Karnival at Hudson River Park. noon to 6 p.m. [Free]

- A flotilla of jack-o’-lanterns sets sail on Harlem Meer in Central Park at twilight, preceded by a parade. Starts at 4 p.m. [Free]

AND FINALLY…

A menace has come to 36 of New York’s 62 counties.

It destroys crops, eats bird eggs and kills fawns.

And its population can triple in a year.

We refer to Eurasian Boars (a k a “razorbacks,” “Russian boars,” “wild boars,” “feral swine”), which have escaped many upstate hunting preserves and are notoriously hard to control.

Now, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a boar ban bill.

By the end of 2015, you will not be able to import, breed or hunt the beasts in New York.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, e-mail us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.