A Bug’s Life in Central Park

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

As trains rumble underground and cars honk their horns and people rush in every direction, the park quietly grows and thrives and moves in the breeze.

Flowers blossom as far as the eye can see - a veritable paradise for a bumblebee. He moves mechanically from flower to flower, collecting sweet nectar under the warm beating sun. The air is heavy and moist and the grass reaches ever taller into the sky.

Ants march through an endless forest and cower as the metallic skin of a dragonfly shimmers in the sun and soars by.

The dragonfly climbs higher and higher into the sky, and the forest no longer seems so endless. It is a blur of green as she darts left and then right. She flies quickly over the water, over boats and fountains, and swiftly disappears from view.

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

A Bug’s Life in Central Park

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

As trains rumble underground and cars honk their horns and people rush in every direction, the park quietly grows and thrives and moves in the breeze.

Flowers blossom as far as the eye can see - a veritable paradise for a bumblebee. He moves mechanically from flower to flower, collecting sweet nectar under the warm beating sun. The air is heavy and moist and the grass reaches ever taller into the sky.

Ants march through an endless forest and cower as the metallic skin of a dragonfly shimmers in the sun and soars by.

The dragonfly climbs higher and higher into the sky, and the forest no longer seems so endless. It is a blur of green as she darts left and then right. She flies quickly over the water, over boats and fountains, and swiftly disappears from view.

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

A Bug’s Life in Central Park

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

As trains rumble underground and cars honk their horns and people rush in every direction, the park quietly grows and thrives and moves in the breeze.

Flowers blossom as far as the eye can see - a veritable paradise for a bumblebee. He moves mechanically from flower to flower, collecting sweet nectar under the warm beating sun. The air is heavy and moist and the grass reaches ever taller into the sky.

Ants march through an endless forest and cower as the metallic skin of a dragonfly shimmers in the sun and soars by.

The dragonfly climbs higher and higher into the sky, and the forest no longer seems so endless. It is a blur of green as she darts left and then right. She flies quickly over the water, over boats and fountains, and swiftly disappears from view.

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

2 Award-Givers’ Thumbs Turn Up for Durang

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times David Hyde Pierce in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.”

Two associations of theater writers and reviewers, the Outer Critics Circle and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, have named Christopher Durang’s comedy “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” with David Hyde Pierce, as the best play of the 2012-13 season. They did not agree, though, on best musical: The Outer Critics gave that award to “Kinky Boots,” and the New York Drama Critics went with “Matilda the Musical.”

The musical revival of “Pippin” won the most awards from the Outer Critics with seven, including best musical revival, director of a musical (Diane Paulus) and actress in a musical (Patina Miller). That group also named Nathan Lane best actor in a play for his work in “The Nance,” beating out Tom Hanks (“Lucky Guy”).

The New York Drama Critics (who do not name acting awards) announced special citations for the set designer John Lee Beatty (“The Nance”), City Center’s Encores! and Soho Rep. No staff members of The New York Times are part of either organization.

A Strong ‘Gatsby’ and Stronger ‘Iron Man 3’

Moviegoers ignored naysaying critics and swarmed to Baz Luhrmann’s stylized 3-D adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” over the weekend. But “Iron Man 3” (Walt Disney Studios) repeated as the No. 1 box office draw in North America, taking in $72.5 million, for a two-week total of $284.9 million. “Gatsby,” adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel and starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, sold about $51.1 million in tickets in second place â€" an astounding result for a period drama.

Although “Gatsby” received mixed-to-negative reviews, Mr. DiCaprio remains a “Titanic”-sized draw among women, and Warner Brothers backed “Gatsby” with a highly effective marketing campaign. Still, the film was not cheap: Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow spent more than $150 million to produce it (about $100 million after factoring in tax credits), according to trade media reports. And 3-D sales were soft: Only about 33 percent of ticket buyers opted to see “Gatsby” in that format.

“Pain & Gain” (Paramount) was third, taking in $5 million, for a three-week total of $41.6 million, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box office data. “Peeples” (Lionsgate), a new African-American comedy that counted Tyler Perry as a producer, was a distant blip on the cultural radar, taking in about $4.8 million, for fourth place, though it cost only about $15 million to make. “42” (Warner) was fifth, selling $4.7 million in tickets, for a five-week total of $84.8 million. Of note overseas: “Star Trek Into Darkness,” working to overcome a terrible foreign track record for the franchise, arrived in seven countries and took in $31.7 million, compared to the opening-weekend total of $19.2 million in those same markets for “Star Trek” in 2009, for an increase of 65 percent.

At N.Y.U., a Mysterious Gift of Pigs

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Some of the hundreds of donated pig figurines that were discovered at the business school of New York University.

Joe Diaz remembers the call on his two-way radio. About eight years ago, he was beckoned down to the crawlspace under the auditorium at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His team of facilities workers had found something he needed to see: a box full of little ceramic pigs.

Among the cast-off cleaning products and outdated office supplies in the all-but-forgotten storage area were crates full of pig-shaped tchotchkes: salt and pepper shakers, gravy boats, ash trays, and all manner of figurines. There was a wax candle piglet, a terracotta souvenir from Mexico, a beer stein molded in a pig’s likeness, even a few marzipan pigs.

“It went on like an archaeological dig,” Mr. Diaz, a facilities manager, wrote in an e-mail recently. “The boxes containing the pigs were not all together and they kept appearing.”

And so a mystery was born. Where had the pigs - well over 200 of them - come from? And why were they there?

Mr. Diaz was met with confused looks when he told his higher-ups about the cache. But the order came down quickly: toss the boxes.

Luckily for the pigs, Paul Affuso was in the room. Mr. Affuso, now an associate dean at the business school, had worked at the university since 1973 and had heard about the pigs. “I was told they were left as a gift to the undergraduate college, and that this woman had collected them all her life, just as a hobby,” Mr. Affuso said. “I think she was an alum. I assume she passed away.”

Mr. Affuso believes that the collection was appraised when it was first donated. More than that he does not recall.

Under Mr. Affuso’s direction, the pigs were moved to a supply closet on the seventh floor of the business school’s Tisch Hall.

“I went through the exercise of unpacking them, just for fun, and put them up on bookcases,” said Mr. Affuso. There they remained, to be forgotten again, in a small dark, windowless room, behind a locked door.

One day about four years later, the door was left ajar, and John W. Asker, an assistant professor of economics, happened to peek inside.

“I was stunned,” said Mr. Asker, now an associate professor, “and then deeply amused.”

Word of the strange treasure in the seventh-floor storage space got out, and real estate in New York being what it is, the pigs’ new habitat was soon threatened.

“There were a lot of people who coveted the pig closet,” said Barbara Allbrecht, the school’s head of facilities. “We used to not let anybody in there. Somehow people got in there. And I have these notes like, ‘We really could use that space.’”

Professional movers were called by the facilities team to consolidate the hogs. Each one was wrapped in white paper, and they were packed into 16 fresh cardboard moving boxes. Ms. Allbrecht said the boxes were not stored in one place, but scattered in large crates in various storage places on campus.

To this day, the provenance of the pigs remains completely obscure. At the request of The New York Times, the Stern development office searched its records for any notes regarding this distinctive in-kind contribution, to no avail.

One day last month, university officials pulled some of the pigs out of a closet in Tisch Hall to allow a reporter to see them. The Stern School’s executive budget director, Ellen Axelrod, happened to be nearby. She had had no idea of their existence.

“I’m excited!” Ms. Axelrod said. “I want to look at them! Of all the animals, they’re pigs, which I love. This is exciting for Stern!”

Despite Ms. Axelrod’s enthusiasm, Ms. Allbrecht said there were no plans to display the pigs any time soon.

“It’s possible that we might consolidate all of the pig crates into a single closet, however, we might just leave the crates stored in the various locations where they are now,” Ms. Allbrecht said in an e-mail. “They are safe and secure as they are.”