The Week in Pictures for Feb. 22

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include a book signing, the end of a citywide school bus strike and a conference on gun violence in Connecticut.

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 A.O. Scott, Eleanor Randolph and Clyde Haberman. Also, Sal Albanee, a mayoral candidate, and the author Christopher Cerf. 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.

Flashy Meteors Fall on Us, Too

The New York Times 1936: Dr. Clyde Fisher (left) of the American Museum of Natural History and Abram M. Decker of Red Bank, N.J., examined an object believed to be a meteorite that fell on Mr. Decker’s barn.

“On Friday evening, a few minutes before 10 o’clock,” the account begins, “I was standing with a friend in Thirty-fourth-street, near the southwest corner of Madison-avenue, when we observed a luminous body rising rapidly from behind the houses on the southerly side of the street.”

The author believed the light at first to be “a fire-balloon, made of geen tissue paper, and quite near us.”

But within moments, the apparition that appeared in the heavens on a July evening in 1860 Manhattan showed its true self.

“The meteor soon emerged from the clouds and came on rapidly eastward,” the anonymous author wrote to The New York Times. “It lost its greenish color, and broke up into four parts, which continued their journey all in the same line. The first two had the appearance of blazing torches whose flames are driven backward by the wind.”

One of the most striking things about the Russian fireball last week was how impossibly improbable and exotic it seemed. Who would ever witness such a thing

But from 1807 â€" only 13 years after science recognized the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites â€" wh! en a 300-pound space boulder screamed across the Connecticut sky and burst open across farmers’ fields 50 miles northeast of New York City, to the modern day, when a football-size projectile shot through a car trunk in Westchester County, the New York region has seen more than its share of meteors and meteorites, including some of literature’s most significant landings.

Dan Haar/Hartford Courant. A firefighter, John S. McAuliffe, examined meteorite damage at a home in Wethersfield, Conn. in 1982. Click to enlarge/a>.

Statistically speaking, of course, the odds of a heavenly body falling are spread evenly across the entire planet. But the local population density means more potential witnesses to any cosmic debris that passes this way.

The heyday of local fireball sightings would appear to have been the 19th century: The Times of its latter decades carried such reports on a semi-regular basis.

“This morning at 1:40 the most beautiful meteor seen in this vicinity for years flashed across the northern sky nearly from horizon to horizon,” read an 1875 dispatch from Utica, N.Y. One from Schroon Lake, N.Y., in 1880 began, “Lake-side cottage in this pleasant Summer resort had a narrow escape from destruction by a meteor last night.”

Eight of the 14 officially recognized meteorites in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut listed in the Meteoritic! al Societ! y’s database were collected in the 1800s.

Not to mention all the mistaken sightings, and even hoaxes. A fist-size “curious meteorite” of “bright vivid green” that was “soft and plastic” upon landing at Troy and Fulton Avenues in Brooklyn during a storm in 1887 does not seem to have made it into the record books. (Nor has the object mentioned in a Times article in 1897 that began “Prof. Wiggins believes that the aerolite that fell near Binghamton a few nights ago, and is alleged to have contained a piece of iron with hieroglyphics, was really a message from Mars.”)

A “curious meteorite” reported to have fallen on Brooklyn in 1887 was curious indeed.

Denton S. Ebel, a cosmochemist who curates the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites at the American Museum of Natural History, theorized that meteor and meteorite sightings are to some extent a casualty of the modern age.

“People’s habits have changed,” he said on Tuesday. “And there’s more light pollution. Also there’s more noise pollution. People spend more time watching TV, especially in the night. I just think that people aren’t as in touch with the natural world as they used to be and that includes meteorites.”

This is not to say that the 20th century w! as withou! t its highlights. In 1936, after a blinding light flashed over New Jersey, Abram M. Decker of Red Bank found a 13-ounce fragment that had apparently fallen through his work shed, bent a screwdriver and buried itself 20 inches in the ground. It gave him, The Times reported, a “bad fright.”

In 1971, a 12.3-ounce meteorite came to rest in the ceiling of Paul and Minnie Cassarino’s home in Wethersfield, Conn., south of Hartford. Her son used a handkerchief to pick it up. In 1982 in the same town, Robert and Wanda Donahue’s evening television viewing was interrupted by a meteorite that bounced around the living room.

A compilation of amateur videos taken in several states in 1982 as a meteor zoomed overhead. It fell to earth at Peekskill, N.Y.

And on a Friday night in 1992, camcorder-wielding high school football fans across several states tracked the voyage of a fireball of nickel, iron and stone that eventually found its way to 207 Wells Street in Peekskill, N.Y. Its 27-pound remnant smashed through the trunk of Michelle Knapp’s 1980 Chevrolet Malibu at a speed of about 160 miles an hour.

Things continue to fall from local skies in the 21st century. In 2007, a metallic meteorite described by a Rutgers scientist as “a good candidate for the core of an asteroid” crashed into a house in Freehold Township, N.J. and damaged a bathroom.

Or did it Dr. Ebel and several colleagues at the museum and the City University of New York concluded that the object was man-made, and it is not recognized in the Me! teoritica! l Society database.

“It was probably a piece of airplane debris that was tumbled around on a runway, then caught in tire treads, and then dropped when landing gear was deployed over Northern NJ,” Dr. Ebel wrote in an e-mail. “Air bases and airports in abundance. A nice story.”

Big Ticket | Spacious for Artwork, Sold for $21 Million

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times The postwar co-op building at 733 Park Avenue, on the corner of 71st Street, has just 28 residences.

An opulent and meticulously renovated Manhattan duplex penthouse owned by the same family of Impressionist art connoisseurs for decades at 733 Park Avenue sold for its $21 million asking price and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records. The amenities at the co-op building, a white-glove establishment with just 28 residences, include a wine cellar and a gym.

The brown-brick building, at 71st Street, one of a few postwar structures on this stretch of the avenue, was erected in 1972 on the site of a 0-room mansion designed by Carrère & Hastings in 1905; it was aggressively positioned to capture park and city views. The 4,250-square-foot penthouse, on the 30th and 31st floors, is further enlivened by 1,250 square feet of lushly planted terraces, one of them an east-facing Zen-style terrace accessible from the wood-paneled library, which like the corner living room has parquet de Versailles floors and a carved marble fireplace.

A private elevator landing opens onto a two-story foyer with double-height windows that face Central Park; a curving staircase connects the two levels of the nine-room residence. There are three bedrooms and three and a half baths, as well as a staff room with a bath. The formal dining room, which opens onto a terrace, seats 20, and the French country kitchen and adjoining breakfast room were recently remodeled. An indulgent master bedroom suite has its own private terrace, a marble bath and a double dressing room. The monthly maintenance is $14,420.07.

The apartment was sold by the estate of Ethel Strong Allen, a philanthropist who died in June. Mrs. Allen was the widow of Herbert A. Allen Sr., a Wall Street investor and a partner in Allen & Company, which was founded in 1922 by his older brother, Charles. In the 1980s Allen & Company was one of the earliest firms to develop an expertise in, and reap huge rewards from, corporate takeovers. Mr. Allen died in 1997.

The ceilings of the penthouse top out above nine feet, making the home an inviting showplace for the Allens’ extensive art collection. Mrs. Allen bequeathed three important works â€" a Sisley, a Pissarro and a Monet masterpiece, “Nymphéas” â€" to the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., which was attended by three generations of the family. When the paintings were sold in November at a Christie’s auction, a buyer paid $43.76 million for the Monet, at the time believed to be the second-highest price ever paid for a work by that artist.

Barbara Fox and Bra Loe of the Fox Residential Group were the listing brokers for the Allen estate, and Bruce Rabbino of Halstead Property represented the buyer, identified in city records as Park Avenue Family Trust Agreement. The buyer listed an estate in Short Hills, N.J., as its current home address.

Across town, a loftlike duplex sold for $15.575 million at the Trump International Hotel and Tower at 1 Central Park West. The 4,266-square-foot apartment, No. 4950C, was owned (and made over) by the fashion mogul Andrew Rosen, a founder of the Theory label. The unit was originally listed last year by Kyle W. Blackmon of Brown Harris Stevens at $18 million. The asking price was recently reduced to $16.4 million. Presumably the buyer, identified as a limited-liability company, Huddygirl, prefers river and city views, which the duplex offers in magnitude, to park views, which it lacks.

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

The Week in Culture Pictures, Feb. 22

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times Tom Morello performing as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series at the Allen Room. Mr. Morello invited audience members on stage for an encore.

Photographs of cultural highlights from this week.

More Photographs

Aerosmith and Foreigner Songwriters to Join Hall of Fame

The Songwriters Hall of Fame will honor members of Foreigner and Aerosmith during the 2013 induction ceremony to be held in New York this summer.

Joe Perry and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and Mick Jones and Lou Gramm of Foreigner are among seven songwriters being named to the hall at a gala dinner on June 13. The others are J.D. Souther, who co-wrote several Eagles hits like “Heartache Tonight” and “New Kid in Town;” Holly Knight, the songwriter behind Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield;” and Tony Hatch, perhaps best known for the Petula Clark hits “Downtown” and “My Love.”

Mr. Jones and Mr. Gramm, of Foreigner, created some of the best-known anthems of 1970s and 1980s rock, among them “I Want to Know What Love Is,” “Feels Like the First Time” and “Cold As Ice.”

Aerosmith’s duo of Mr. Perry and Mr. Tyler also penned several hits that have become staples of classic rock stations, including “Walk Thi Way” and “Same Old Song and Dance.” Mr. Tyler also wrote the Aerosmith hit “Dream On” alone.

A Bleak Winter for Hourlong Series

It’s been a long, cold winter for the broadcast television networks, for which almost every new series has been met with an equally chilly reception in the ratings.

Start with NBC. Its Jekyll and Hyde medical drama “Do No Harm” was canceled this month after only two episodes because of dismal ratings. If you blinked, you probably missed it. But its other new show, “Deception,” is dangerously close to matching that performance. “Do No Harm’s” premiere drew 3.1 million viewers, compared with 3.2 million for the most recent episode of “Deception.”

On ABC, “Zero Hour” starring Anthony Edwards, opened Feb. 14 with 6.4 million total viewers, but that number is already falling fast, with 5.3 milliontuning in for the episode on Thursday night, accompanied by a low rating in the 18-to-49 category. The network will hope for better results when its next drama, “Red Widow,” starts March 3.

On the CW, “Cult” could not even garner 1 million total viewers for its premiere last Tuesday and “The Carrie Diaries” has averaged 1.3 million viewers over six episodes.

Even CBS has not been immune. Its new reality series, “The Job” was pulled from the schedule this week after it averaged just 3.7 million viewers over two episodes.

Of course, there is always the exception to the rule: “The Following” on Fox, which stars Kevin Bacon, made its debut on Jan. 21 with 10.4 million total viewers and has held a large portion of that initial audi! ence. The most Feb. 18 episode was watched by 8.4 million viewers.

The Sweet Spot: Watching the Oscars With …

David Carr and A. O. Scott talk about what they’ll be doing on Sunday night for the Academy Awards. Care to join them for the glamour, the glitz and the upsets

Qualcomm Agrees to Reveal Donations to Tax-Exempt Groups

Qualcomm, Inc., the country’s largest maker of computer chips for mobile devices, will voluntarily disclose previously secret political contributions to tax-exempt groups under a settlement announced Friday with the New York State comptroller.

New York’s suit marked a new tactic in the growing battle by officials and activists nationwide to bring more sunlight to tax-exempt groups that they believe help corporations spend money on political influence outside the jurisdiction of federal campaign disclosure laws.

The comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, filed a suit against Qualcomm last month in Delaware Chancery Court on behalf of New York’s public employee retirement fund, asserting the fund’s right as a Qualcomm shareholder to inspect records of the company’s political spending.

In reaching the settlement, Mr. DiNapoli agreed to drop he lawsuit, leaving untested the proposition that activist shareholders could use Delaware’s unique corporate governance laws to force more political disclosure on the hundreds of large corporations that are based in the state. But Qualcomm immediately posted on its Web site a new list of previously undisclosed political contributions to tax-exempt groups, along with a new corporate disclosure policy that transparency advocates hailed as one of the most complete in the nation.

“Qualcomm’s disclosure policy sets a high standard for transparency in corporate political spending disclosure, and the company deserves praise for its actions,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a statement. “This is a significant milestone in greater transparency in corporate political spending.”

With efforts to legislate more disclosure showing little progress in Congress, shareholder groups and corporate transparency advocates! have pushed many large companies to voluntarily share more information about their political spending. Mr. DiNapoli is among a small group of public officials who have tried to leverage their own jurisdictions - in Mr. DiNapoli’s case, as sole trustee of one of the country’s largest pension funds - to take even more aggressive action.

Qualcomm’s founder, Irwin Jacobs, is a major donor to Democratic super PACs, politicians and tax-exempt groups, and the firm’s employees were generous donors to President Obama. But the new disclosures reveal that the company’s contributions to politically active nonprofit groups, lobbying outfits and trade associations rival its previously disclosed contributions to candidates and party organizations.

The largest single contribution, $1 million, went to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a business-backed group that has lobbied for a so-called grand bargain on losing the deficit, restructuring Social Security, and closing tax loopholes. Tens of thousands more went to center-left or nonpartisan advocacy groups, like No Labels or Third Way.

Additionally, $1.8 million went to a variety of trade groups, including $385,000 to the United States Chamber of Commerce.

“Qualcomm agrees with the New York State Common Retirement Fund that increased transparency for election-related activities by corporations is very beneficial,” said Paul E. Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chief executive. “While Qualcomm has been developing a new policy on disclosure of political expenditures for some time, engaging with the Common Retirement Fund has been helpful.”

Popcast: Johnny Marr, Inveterate Sideman, Takes the Spotlight

Tina Fineberg for The New York Times Johnny Marr, above performing with Dinosaur Jr. in December, releases his first solo album on Tuesday.

In this week’s popcast, Ben Ratliff talks to Larry Rohter about his recent encounter with Johnny Marr, the guitarist and songwriter for the Smiths during the first half of the 1980s, and finally â€" at age 49 â€" in charge of a record under his own name, “The Messenger.” Mr. Rohter explains an unusual guitar hero, or “Godlike Genius,” as per the award just bestowed on him by England’s New Musical Express: one who has built his reputation around rhythm and texture rather than solos, around collaboration rather than leading, and around constant change rather than the creation of a static brand.

Listen above, download the MP3 here, or listen on iTunes here.

RELATED

Larry Rohter on Johnny Marr and “The Messenger”

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)

Book Review Podcast: An 11-Year-Old Heartthrob

Illustration by Rex Bonomelli. Photographs: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images (Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson at the British premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn â€" Part 1″); Greg Gorman (Jackie Collins); Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press (George Clooney); Warner Brothers, via Associated Press (Jack Nicholson).

This week in The New York Times Book Review, Jess Walter reviews “The Love Song of Jonny Valentine,” Teddy Wayne’s new novel about an 11-year-old singing heartthrob. Mr. Walter writes:

Wayne made his comic bones writing for The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and his satirist’s eye is impeccable. As in “Kapitoil,” his first novel, “The Love Song of Jonny Valentine” also shows Wayne to be a gifted ventriloquist. In fact, so limpidly does Wayne imitate the voice of a preteen celebrity, he risks making it look easy.

It’s tricky enough writing a first-person novel with a character w! hose observations run along the lines of “Jane is like, Let the paparazzi take your photo but make it look like you’re not letting them take it” and “Me and Walter hit the executive hotel gym that was reserved for celebrities and superrich people.” But to create out of that entitled adolescent voice a being of true longing and depth, and then to make him such a devastating weapon of cultural criticism â€" these are feats of unlikely virtuosity, like covering Jimi Hendrix on a ukulele.

On this week’s podcast, Mr. Wayne talks about his novel; Leslie Kaufman has notes from the field; Caryn James discusses “Gods Like Us,” Ty Burr’s new book about movie stardom; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

The Sound of East Harlem, in a Hardware Store

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

With all the changes that have washed over East Harlem, it was only a matter of time before the cowbells, maracas and drumsticks that once made music echo through the fabled neighborhood’s streets ended up under glass. Just steps off Lexington Avenue and 107th Street - inside a storefront still adorned by a sign declaring “HARDWARE STORE” â€" lies an array of instruments, pictures and other mementos from the golden age of Latin music.

It feels like a museum, though the collection’s owner, Johnny Cruz, prefers to call it a gallery â€" Tiffany Music Gallery. And he is quick to add that while the instruments on display won’t be played, he is recording Latin music in the back, having just released an album in tribute tothe crooner Adalberto Santiago.

Unlike the old days, when Mr. Cruz’s own band had nonstop gigs and music was everywhere - from parks and projects to dance halls and basement clubs - it’s hard now to make a buck as a musician, never mind a gallery owner. But that’s not his motivation.

“I don’t do this for the money, because if I did, I’d be broke,” he said. “I’ve been collecting artifacts, videos and pictures for 35 years. Man, what the hell, this is my place so let me put this together. It’s been a dream of mine to do this.”

The place had started out decades ago as a hardware store founded by his father, Arcadio, who also did construction. Johnny helped out, but then embarked on a music career with a charanga band. In time, music became a sideline, as he took a job as the residential manager of a luxury building near Rockefeller Center. He returned to his East Harlem r! oots about 20 years ago to take over the hardware business from his father.

When Johnny Cruz first came back to the store, the area was hot - and not in the way real estate agents like to describe it now. Crime and drugs made parts of it rough. But his father had earned a lot of good will in the area, which his son capitalized on. He bought the building where the store was located, renting it out to locals who did not pay top dollar but were more reliable than others looking for a way station.

As the area became popular, and pricier, with an influx of people who would have shunned it a decade ago, Mr. Cruz started noticing other changes, especially in the cash register. About a year and a half ago, he closed the hardware store.

“The mom-and-pop stores are gone,” he said. “You know, Home Depot arrives, Costco, and all the things you sell for 40 they sell for 20. You can’t compete with that.”

Now music, that’s something else. Relying on his own skills in construction, Mr. Cuz remade the spot, framed dozens of pictures and hauled out everything from Hector Lavoe’s old guitar to Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez’s guiro. On one wall he displayed a set of drumsticks he said were the last ones used by Tito Puente. Nearby is a cowbell.

“You know who Jay and the Americans are, right” Mr. Cruz asked. “That’s the cowbell used by a Puerto Rican percussionist who played with them, Orlando Rodriguez. He gave me that bell.”

A few weeks ago, he hosted a small gathering for friends and fans. People milled about inside, snacking on ham and chicken and trading stories. Betty B.P. Cole, a photographer who grew up in the area, gave a big smile when she saw Mr. Cruz.

“I have pictures of this place when it was a hardware store,” she said. “I came in one day and the music was playing on a CD. Johnny said, ‘That’s my band.’ Then he started singing to it, live!”

For a ce! rtain generation, that was how the music was always done. Ms. Cole grew enthusiastic when she recalled how her father used to go to the park and play songs. She stomped out a rhythm as she recalled him singing “Aye Choferito,” one of his favorites.

“When I walk around now, you don’t hear it so much,” she said. “There used to be a garden across from here where they had music, and people could just come out and relax. I got beautiful pictures of people playing congas there. But the landlord sold it to developers. Now the people who used to play there have to find another place.”

She grew serious. Then she smiled.

“It was a wholesome time,” she said. “Even if nobody had money.”

Furthur to Play Eight Shows at Capitol Theater

Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press Images Furthur’s Phil Lesh, left, and Bob Weir performing in 2010.

It is a sad fact that the Grateful Dead can never return to the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y., where they gave memorable concerts in the early 1970s, because the guitarist Jerry Garcia has joined the ranks of the actual dead.

But something close to such a homecoming is about to take place: Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, founding members of the Dead, announced on Friday that their band, Furthur, will do a series of eight concerts at the theater starting on April 16.

r. Lesh and Mr. Weir formed Furthur in 2009 as a jam band following the Grateful Dead model, doing matgerial from the Dead’s songbook as well as some more recent originals. They named the band after the bus used by the novelist Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters for a celebrated psychedelic tour of the United States in the mid-1960s.

In the early 1970s, the Capitol Theater, which at the time was a crumbling movie house built in 1926, was one of the the Dead’s favorite concert halls because of its unusually good acoustics. The group played 18 concerts there in 1970 and 1971. “It’s no secret that the Grateful Dead loved playing at the Capitol Theater,” the band’s archivist, David Lemieux, said in the announcement.

Last year, the theater was refurbished as a music hall with up-to-date lighting and sound systems. The new owner, P! eter Shapiro, has tried to re-establish it as a rock mecca, playing up its history.

Tickets for the Furthur shows can be purchased after noon on Friday through the Web sites for the theater and for the band.

Found-Footage Nixon Documentary Will Conclude New Directors/New Films Series

Just in case Richard M. Nixon was not doing enough documenting of his own presidency (with the occasional gap in the archives), his confidants H. R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and Dwight Chapin were also filming him, his family and his White House using Super 8 cameras. Now this footage has been used to create a new documentary that will be shown as the closing night feature of New Directors/New Films, the annual series presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, those organizations said  Friday.

The documentary, called “Our Nixon,” is directed by Penny Lane and draws from hundreds of rolls of film footage (as well as Nixon’s notorious audio recordings and news footage of the day) to chronicle his presidency as well as events like his visit to China; the Apollo moon landing; and Tricia Nixon’s wedding at the White Houe. “Our Nixon” will be shown on March 31 at the Walter Reade Theater.

The New Directors/New Films series will open on March 20 with “Blue Caprice,” the debut feature from Alexandre Moors. This fiction film stars Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond as two snipers who go on a shooting spree from their beat-up Chevrolet Caprice car.

Promotions at New York City Ballet

The New York City Ballet has reconfigured its roster with the promotion of 11 dancers, the company announced on Friday morning. Three of the dancers - Adrian Danchig-Waring, Chase Finlay and Ask la Cour - become principal dancers, and eight members of the corps de ballet are now soloists.

All the dancers were told about their promotions in meetings with Peter Martins, the company’s ballet master in chief, just before the Thursday evening performance of Mr. Martins’s staging of “The Sleeping Beauty.” The dancers have all held featured roles within the production, which runs through Sunday, and closes the company’s winter season.

The dancers who have been promoted to soloist are Lauren King, Ashey Laracey, Megan LeCrone, Lauren Lovette, Georgina Pazcoguin, Justin Peck, Brittany Pollack and Taylor Stanley.

The company’s spring season at Lincoln Center opens on April 30 at the David H. Koch Theater.

Kids Draw the News: Tiny Apartments, in 3-D

The city of New York may have picked a winning design, but the submissions we received for this special 3-D assignment of Kids Draw the News would have given any of the architects a run for their money. Thanks to all who answered our call, and to those who were willing to have their masterpiece pictured at the Museum of the City of New York. Your pictures may be seen in the slide show that accompanies this post, and even more can be viewed here.

Kids Draw the News: Tiny Apartments, in 3-D

The city of New York may have picked a winning design, but the submissions we received for this special 3-D assignment of Kids Draw the News would have given any of the architects a run for their money. Thanks to all who answered our call, and to those who were willing to have their masterpiece pictured at the Museum of the City of New York. Your pictures may be seen in the slide show that accompanies this post, and even more can be viewed here.

First Winners of Kennedy Playwriting Prize Announced

Two plays, Dan O’Brien’s “Body of an American” and Robert Schenkkan’s “All the Way,” are the inaugural winners of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, Columbia University and one of the late senator’s sisters, Jean Kennedy Smith, will announce on Friday. The two writers will each receive $50,000 and collaborate with Columbia librarians to create Web sites featuring scholarly articles and discussion relating to the content of the plays.

The annual prize, endowed by Ms. Smith to honor her brother and his birthday, Feb. 22, was initially described as a $100,000 award for a play or musical that “enlists theater’s power to explore the past of the United States.” But the judges, who included Columbia President Lee Bollinger and the playwrights Lynn Nottage (a Pulitzer Prize-winner for “Ruined”) and Itamar Moses (“Completeness”), voted unanimously to divide the 2013 award between “two exceptionally deserving works,” according to a statement fom Columbia and Ms. Smith, a former United States ambassador to Ireland.

Jenny Graham Robert Schenkkan.

“All the Way” by Mr. Schenkkan, a Pulitzer winner for “The Kentucky Cycle,” focuses on the first year of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. The play is told by several real-life figures from the era, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover as well as Johnson.

“The Body of an American,” meanwhile, examines the challenges of war reporting, specifically the ethical and personal consequences of the publication of a famous photograph showing the body of an American soldier being dragged through the stre! ets of Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.

David Bornfriend Dan O’Brien.

Three other plays were finalists for the award: “Hurt Village” by Katori Hall, “Party People” by the performance ensemble Universes, and “Rapture, Blister, Burn” by Gina Gionfriddo.

The contenders were chosen through nominations from about 20 theater professionals in the United States. Ms. Smith created the award last year with the assistance of the Pulitzer winner Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) and officials at Columbia.

“My brothr loved the arts â€" museums, books, the performing arts,” Ms. Smith said in a statement. “Music was perhaps dearest to him, but he and I shared an enjoyment of theater â€"especially, for Teddy, musical theater. He was also a great student of American history and made it come alive for many of us in the Kennedy family.”

Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake Announce 12-City Tour

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Naras Justin Timberlake with Jay-Z at the Grammys.

The dapper duet that Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake performed in black tie at the Grammy Awards earlier this month turns out to be just a warm-up: the two stars announced on Friday they will do a 12-city North American stadium tour this summer, Live Nation announced. The “Legends of the Summer” tour will start at the Rogers Center in Toronto on July 17 and continue through August 16, when it wraps up in Miami at the Sun Life Stadium. The show will come to Yankee Stadium on July 19. After a few years focusing on acting and the movie business, Mr. Timberlake is returning to musicwith “The 20/20 Experience,” his first album since 2006, which is expected to be released on March 19. The album’s first single, “Suit & Tie,” which features Jay-Z, has been a Top 10 hit on pop radio since its release six weeks ago. Tickets will go on sale to the general public for all shows but New York on Feb. 28, with some presale tickets available sooner.

Cheating On the Delivery Guy

Dear Diary:

Scene: The elevator of residential building in Midtown.

Building resident enters, carrying a bag of takeout food. Another man enters, dressed in a white apron and chef’s hat, delivering a meal from a nearby restaurant. They nod at each other in recognition.

Resident, glancing at his meal, which was clearly purchased from another restaurant, says sheepishly, “I’m cheating on you.”

Chef, with a “that’s life” resignation, says, “It has to happen sometimes.”

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