The State of the Block Response

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Michael R. Bloomberg delivered his 12th and final State of the City address last week, which turned into a celebration of sorts of his three terms as mayor of New York. Because such speeches are, by nature, broadly cast, City Room reached out to readers for a more granular assessment, asking, “What’s the state of your block”

Readers, perhaps unsurprisingly because they were not boasting of their own accomplishments, were far less cheery than Mr. Bloomberg was.

Their responses included dispatches from blocks upended by Hurricane Sandy, where residents are still struggling to return to normality. But most complaints were of the more prosaic sor; potholes, noise, homelessness and traffic all made the list. One Bronx resident, feeling particularly besieged, even theorized that dog owners “from miles around” were going to his block to have their pets deposit their daily business.

Many readers touched on the downside of perhaps the dominant theme of the Bloomberg era, gentrification, describing how rising rents and shifting demographics were transforming their streets, though a few saw some benefits in the changes.

And, finally, there were acknowledgments of small and large pleasures of life in this city. The sighting of a rare bird. The comfort of a corner coffeehouse. The pride in a neighborhood.

Here is a sampling of the comments, lightly edited.

Dekalb Avenue between Clermont and Vanderbilt Avenues, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
The state of my block is: Gentrifying. And almost quintessentially so. In just the last year or two we’ve seen housing turn over rapidly, n! ew outposts from multiple trendy Williamsburg restaurants, and the conversion of the one-man dental practice into a(nother) wine store. Good food, corner recycling cans and new bike routes are perks. And fortunately Barclays has had less of an impact than feared. Of course, as residents of the area for less than five years and with a child on the way, my partner and I are very much part of this change, even if simultaneously, as renters with a modest income, we wonder how long we’ll be able to stay. - Gordon

West 173rd Street between Audubon and Amsterdam Avenues, Washington Heights, Manhattan

Karsten Moran for The New York Times High Bridge Park, Washington Heights, Manhattan.

My area in Washigton Heights, like every neighborhood in New York City has been at one time or another, is a diamond waiting to be polished and reset. At the end of my block is an exquisite escarpment overlooking the Harlem River, High Bridge Park. It has fruit trees and many rare birds that I’ve never seen, such as a scarlet tanager and a giant downy woodpecker. Cool. There are workmen on High Bridge as I write this, preparing for a mega-makeover that will open it to both Bronx and Manhattan residents, after 20 years of closure. We will have access to the West Bronx, where plans include a new and much-needed shopping area, and will also make walking to a Yankee game, well â€" a walk in the Park. How did I get so lucky - Max Cornise

East 73rd Street between Second and First Avenues, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Potholes still here, garbage still strewn about negligently by the Sanitation Department on pickup days, the north-south avenues still essentially nothing more than express! ways with! stop lights. So, all in all, no change. â€" Smotri

Avenue L between Ocean Avenue and East 19th Street, Midwood, Brooklyn
The state of my block is unfortunately terrible. Since the peak of the market that brought me here in 2006 from Manhattan, the quality of life on this block in Brooklyn has only declined. Ocean Avenue is a raceway with little to no regard to the speed limit, or red lights; I have witnessed countless accidents. Avenue L is one of the few east/west two-way streets from Ocean Parkway, and therefore a thoroughfare of endless honking, radio blasting, and again little regard for the color and meaning of the traffic lights; only double-parked cars seem to slow down some. Real or ill-gotten handicapped placards show in every car window that disregards alternate-side parking rules, to ensure that the street is never cleaned properly, without threat of receiving a ticket; likewise, parking by a hydrant. Trash accumulates on the street and sidewalks, never to be cleanedby property owners, or the city. Graffiti is ever increasing despite the city program to curb it, as are illegally placed posters and handbills, the rules seemingly ignored and unenforced. Children over the age of 16 and adults careen on bicycles down the sidewalk without warning, especially at night, unseen until the last moment. Those sidewalks are never shoveled by most property owners when snow and ice make it treacherous to walk. That honking, it never ends, it seems obligatory, people honk to say “hi!” - David

East End Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets, Upper East Side, Manhattan

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times First Avenue at 79th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan.

I live i! n Yorkville, a beautiful middle-class and family-friendly neighborhood. It is soon to be absolutely devastated by the building of the Marine Transfer Station at East 91st Street, a plan implemented by our current mayor. We had severe flooding and damage from Sandy and now, sadly, we are to be inundated with garbage. It’s absolutely horrifying how one powerful person can destroy such a wonderful place to live. - Nina Kassman

Bell Boulevard between 75th and 77th Avenues, Oakland Gardens, Queens
I can say without hesitation that I am very, very happy to live where I do. Firstly, this area is in School District 26 â€" one of the best in the city. The public transportation is superb with M.T.A. buses running on 73rd Avenue (No. 88), Union Turnpike (No. 46) and Springfield Boulevard (No. 27). There is express bus transportation to Manhattan and the L.I.R.R. close by. The shopping is excellent, with a new Fairway in Douglaston. All in all, Oakland Gardens is just great. - Stepen Folkson

Berry Street between South Third and South Fourth Streets, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
To the visitor it probably looks O.K., but to residents, we have been enduring one construction project after another while we wait for the biggest one yet. Dust, dirt, noise, pounding, trucks, obstructed sidewalks. And Realtors, tourists and folks from out of the neighborhood moving in, displacing existing folks and raising the price of everything. The development of Kent Avenue as a boulevard, rather than the truck route it was, is of benefit to the big condos, but it has pushed all manner of heavy traffic and trucking and attendant pollution away from the waterfront, and right into a residential area. - Ellen

Greene Avenue between Classon and Franklin Avenues, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Block is a mixed bag. Five years ago it was kind of a no-man’s land. Vacant lots. Empty buildings. Realtor called it Clinton Hill. Took six months to real! ize it wa! s Bed-Stuy.

But that was then. Today Bed-Stuy has cred! In ’07 there were no services within a half mile, apart from two ratty bodegas. Today a vegan bakery across the street, wine bar on each corner, hipster coffeehouse, Zagat-rated restaurant with wood-burning stove, an offensively overpriced artisanal cheese/grocery joint. In ’07 I felt conspicuous. One of the only white people on the block. Now it has flipped. Where did they go The older families (who own) are still here. But the renters have been washed away like ants with a garden hose. Turns out they were black, and have been replaced by renters who are white and in their 20s.

We even have a frat guy who, shortly after arriving, got a vanity plate for his giant Hummer that says King of Brooklyn. - Jon Greene

West End Avenue south of 70th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times 79th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan.

It is sad. Definitely worse over the Bloomberg years, particularly since about 2005. It is dirtier, more crowded, more high-rise luxury building and much more expensive. More homeless people. Neighborhood stores forced out due to rent increases and replaced by chains. (Many nail stores but hardly any bookstores â€" sad commentary on our priorities.) Bus service has been reduced and bus routes have been eliminated, seemingly in deference to Bloomberg bike lane implementation. Bike lanes have wrecked Columbus Avenue and other places in Manhattan. Trader Joe’s moved in and completely transformed and impacted a multiblock area â€" in a negative way: Much more garbage on the streets, many shoppers who overwhelm the sidewalks (many hipsters from out of the neighborhood who shop there! and look! ing at their phones, bump into old people on the sidewalk) and much more traffic. The mayor’s goal has been to ensure a city that is attractive for the very wealthy and young yuppies, and he has implemented policies and focused city spending to do so. - Kate

Jackson Avenue between 44th Drive and 43rd Avenue, Long Island City, Queens

Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times Long Island City, Queens.

I live on a block between the Citibank building and Queens Plaza. It’s what is supposed to become the commercial center of Hunters Point in Long Island City, Queens. My building is one of the only properties not owned by Rockrose at this point. Now a 400-family high-rise is going up behind our little walk-up. There ar two condos being built across the street next to the Sculpture Center. Dutch Kills Bar is bumpin’ and has a new kitchen, a new art organization called Art Wanted has just moved in, and I am told M. Wells will be coming here soon too. So all in all, yeah, a lot is happening in my neck of the woods. I just hope I can stay to see it all. - Holly

A Citywide Retrospective for the Poet and Playwright Sekou Sundiata

Sekou Sundiata, the poet, playwright, performer and educator who died in 2007 after a career featuring his signature themes of race, power and identity, will be the subject of a seven-month citywide retrospective, set to begin in April.

The retrospective, titled “Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited” (after the title of a Sundiata poem), is being curated and produced by MAPP International Productions, which produced Mr. Sundiata’s last three major pieces. To be officially announced on Tuesday, the retrospective is a collaboration among more than 50 artists, educational institutions and 18 cultural organizations, including Lincoln Center, Harlem Stage, the Apollo Theater and Summer Stage at Central Park. A schedule of performances and events can be found at www.sekousundiata.org.

Meant to honor Mr. Sundiata’s work and his legacy ofmarrying activism and art, the retrospective includes dialogues, performances and restaging of such work as “The Circle Unbroken is A Hard Bop,’’  from 1992, and his final work  “the 51st (dream) state,” from 2006.  That last work presented a mosaic of poetry, music, dance and videotaped interviews that explores what it means to be an American after 9/11.

“This year would have been his 65th birthday,” Ann Rosenthal, the executive director of MAPP International, said Monday of the retrospective’s timing. “Since he passed, we‘ve continued working with other artists interested in working in the intersection of civic engagement and high-quality art making.  He embraced it all - it’s not just his performances but what he did as an activist and educator.”

The retrospective will include poetry and music performed by Craig Harris, Carl Hancock Rux, Regina Carter, Nona Hendryx, Tamar Kali, Will Powe! r and Rakim among others.  A catalogue will feature selections of his work and commissioned essays and poems by Greg Tate, Kimiko Hahn Amiri Baraka and Jane Lazarre. Many of the events are free, although some will require advance reservations.

At the time of his death, at the age of 58, Mr. Sundiata was a professor in the writing program of Eugene Lang College of New School University. His work was performed widely in this country and abroad, staged by organizations like the Brooklyn Academy of Music and theSpoleto Festival U.S.A.

As the New York Times wrote in his obituary, Mr. Sundiata’s work “ranged from poems performed in the style of an oral epic to musical, dance and dramatic works infused with jazz, blues, funk and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. In general, as he once said in a television interview, it entailed “the whole idea of text and noise, cadences and pauses.”’

Paul McCarthy\'s Take On Snow White Among Armory\'s New Season Highlights

A phantasmagorical Snow White forest, a play about Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue and an electronic music opus staged in an idealized lunar landscape (the audience will slip on white robes) are a few of the highlights announced Monday by the Park Avenue Armory for its 2013 season.

The armory, which converted itself into a performance, concert and art space in 2007 and is now in the midst of a $200 million renovation, is drawing heavily this year on visual artists. Paul McCarthy, the Los Angeles sculptor and filmmaker, will mount - beginning June 19 - his largest United States exhibition to date, “WS,” a raw reimagining of the Snow White story set in a huge artificial forest that will seem to float like a sound stage in te armory’s cavernous drill hall.

On March 20, the armory will host the premiere of “OKTOPHONIE,” 
part of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 
major electronic work “Licht,” with a moonscape set designed by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija. Beginning Sept. 4 in previews, the up-and-coming British playwright Matt Charman will present “The Machine,” chronicling Garry Kasparov’s 1997 mighty chess battle against IBM’s super-computer. Later that month, Robert Del Naja, of the British band Massive Attack, and the documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis will present a new work.

And, ending the year, performance art will assume operatic proportions with Robert Wilson’s new staging of “The Life and Death of Marina Abramović,” beginning in previews Dec. 12 with Ms. Abramović playing herself, joined by Willem Dafoe and the musician Antony. The season will also feature the debut of a chamber-music recital series in the armory’s mahogany-clad Board of Officers period room, featuring the! baritone Christian Gerhaher, the violinist Vilde Frang and the pianist Anton Batagov.

Rebecca Robertson, the armory’s president and executive producer, said the season is intended to “blur the line between high art and popular culture” and “ask tough questions about the world in which we live.”

Rattlestick Adds \'Buyer & Cellar,\' With Michael Urie, To Its Season

Michael Urie, who has become something of a New York stage regular (“Angels in America,” “The Cherry Orchard”) since the conclusion of TV’s “Ugly Betty” (not to mention the quick cancellation of his recent “Partners”), will be back this spring in a new play by Jonathan Tolins (“The Twilight of the Golds,” “Secrets of the Trade”).

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater announced on Monday that Mr. Urie will star in “Buyer & Cellar,” a new comedy by Mr. Tolins about a struggling actor who bonds with a superstar while cataloging the collectibles she keeps in her Malibu basement. (Similarities to Barbra Streisand are by no means discouraged.)

It will begin performances March 20 at Rattlestick, with opening night scheduled for April 3. Stephen Brackett is the director.

“Buyer & Cellar” replaces “The Correspondent,” by Ken Urban, which was postponed because of “scheduling conflicts” according to a Rattlestick spokesman, who said it would “definitely happen next season.”

Christie\'s Raises Its Commissions for First Time in Five Years

It’s about to get more expensive to shop at Christie’s. On Friday the auction house sent an e-mail to its clients announcing that it was upping its so-called buyer’s premium â€" the fee it charges buyers â€" for the first time since 2008.

It had been charging 25 percent for the first $50,000; 20 percent on the amount between $50,001 and $1 million, and 12 percent on the rest. As of March 11, it will charge 25 percent for the first $75,000; 20 percent on the next $75,001 to $1.5 million and 12 percent on the rest. Historically when one auction house increases its fees the others follow, but so far there has been no word from Sotheby’s, Phillips or Bonhams.

Christie’s last month announced that its sales in 2012 reached £3.92 billion ($6.27 billion), up 10 percent from 2011 (figures include buyer’s premium).

\'War and Peace\' to Get BBC Miniseries Treatment

For anyone who cannot get enough of “War and Peace,” the BBC on Monday announced that its latest drama project is an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel. The long novel will become a long series: six hour-long episodes scheduled to be broadcast on BBC One in 2015.

Andrew Davies (“House of Cards”) will write the script, which will be faithful to the novel’s setting in war-torn 19th century Russia but focus more on romance and family conflicts than its philosophical elements, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He is reportedly hoping to cast an unknown actress to play Natasha and two established actors as Pierre and Andrei. Mr. Davies is currently working on the Jeremy Piven series “Mr. Selfridge,” the period drama he created and adapted from the book “Shopping, Seduction and Mr. Selfridge,” which is broadcast on ITV, a rival of the BBC.

Mr. Davies wrote a 1995 TV adaptation o “Pride and Prejudice” starring Colin Firth, as well as the 2008 BBC adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility.” He has also collaborated on the screenplays for the Bridget Jones films based on Helen Fielding’s novels. The BBC broadcast a “War and Peace” series with Anthony Hopkins from 1972 to 1974.