Sting to Release a New Album in September

Sting will release an album of new songs next fall, his first full-length LP of original material since 2003’s “Sacred Love,” his publicist said.

The album, “The Last Ship,” grew out of the songwriting Sting has been doing for a musical of the same name, which the producers hope will run on Broadway in 2014. That play is set in a shipyard in Wallsend, England, near where Sting, born Gordon Sumner, spent his youth.

“The Last Ship” will contain several songs used in the musical, as well as a few others Sting wrote for the play but decided not to include. It will be released on Sept. 24 by a consortium of three labels â€" Cherrytree, Interscope and A & M Records.

Sting, 61, has been working on the musical for nearly three years, collaborating with the writers John Logan (“Red,” “Skyfall”) and Brian Yorkey (“Next to Normal”). It is a homecoming story set against the backdrop of the decline of the shipbuilding industry in Newcastle during the 1980s. The show will be directed by Joe Mantello, the actor and director best known for “Wicked” and “Other Desert Cities.” It had a closed-door workshop and presentation in May for theater producers and other potential investors.

One of the best rock songwriters of his generation, Sting has a string of 17 Grammy Awards to his credit for songs like “Every Breath You Take,” “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “Brand New Day.” But in recent years he has been in a prolonged writing slump. Since releasing “Sacred Love,” he has released greatest-hits compilations and a few unusual recording projects: an album of covers of a Renaissance lute master in 2006, a holiday album in 2009 with a few originals and a symphonic album in 2010 with orchestral arrangements of his previous work.

The songs on “The Last Ship” were written to advance the play’s plot, and so they hew to story-telling needs. The title song is a waltz-time folk tune, heavy with Christian imagery and told in a Northern English dialect. It freights the launching of the last ship from the yard with spiritual significance. Another song, “And Yet,” is a jazzy funk number, sung from the point of view of a sailor arriving in his home port and wondering about a woman he left behind. “Dead Man’s Boots,” meanwhile, is a tense dialogue between a father who works in the shipyard and a son who wants to do something else with his life.

Step Aside, Jon Stewart: John Oliver Prepares to Host ‘The Daily Show’

Martin Crook John Oliver, the comedian and “Daily Show” correspondent, fills in as its host starting June 10.

For a little while on Thursday, while “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” was on hiatus, John Oliver had the offices all to himself. In an otherwise deserted conference room on Manhattan’s West Side, Mr. Oliver, 36, the British-born comedian and “Daily Show” correspondent, was dressed casually and lounging beneath a giant National Geographic map of the world. Asked how he was doing, he replied, “I’m fine.” He paused. “I’m excited.” Another pause. “I’m nervous.”

These were among the last moments that Mr. Oliver would have for quiet reflection before he takes Mr. Stewart’s chair as guest host of “The Daily Show” for a three-month span that begins on June 10. It’s a rare arrangement, and only one of a few times that this Comedy Central late-night series has put anyone else but him behind the desk (necessitated this time by the fact that Mr. Stewart is directing a movie over the summer).

For Mr. Oliver, who joined “The Daily Show” in 2006, this guest-hosting job is an honor, a career opportunity and, when he allows himself to acknowledge his feelings, no small source of anxiety either. He spoke about about preparing to fill in for Mr. Stewart and his continuing efforts to book Queen Elizabeth II as a guest. Here are edited remarks from that conversation.

Q.

What have you been doing in these final days before you take over as host?

A.

I’m on an extremely strict physical workout regimen. I want to get ripped. I guess nothing in particular. Everything will fundamentally stay the same, in terms of the way that the show runs. Jon built it to operate in a certain process, so that process really has to stay. It’s like a Nascar driver giving keys to his car to a member of his pit crew. I fundamentally understand how the engine works â€" I just never have driven it that fast before.

Q.

How did Jon Stewart approach you about this?

A.

He’d written this movie a while ago. We talked about what would happen if the money came through to make the movie. Then he called me up and said, “We’ve got the money â€" I’m going to shoot it this summer. Would you do it?” To which I guess the only answer is yes.

Q.

There was no hesitation?

A.

I’ll do anything for him, whether it’s hosting this show or disposing of a body. I guess I was just happy it was the first of those two choices, and I wasn’t taking a trip to the East River under the cover of darkness. On the phone with him, I was saying, I’ll do it. It was only upon hanging up that my legs started to buckle. I thought, What have I just agreed to? But it was long enough away that it didn’t really seem real.

Q.

And now that it’s nearly here, are you feeling any different?

A.

I’m British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything. I don’t think it’s going to hit me until I sit down at the desk and the music starts. That’s probably where there will be a couple of seconds of panic.

Q.

Is there anything you’ve had to learn from Jon about running the show, as opposed to being a player on it?

A.

I guess I’ve not learned anything about individual aspects of the show â€" I knew them. But in terms of how he’s able to oversee the writing and the production of what the script needs every day, that has been interesting. What he’s always told us is you want to make sure that the spine of the argument is in shape. You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn’t be when it is literally your job. It’s harder to shift the point of view of a headline later in the day. That’s the kind of thing you need to keep an eye on early. You’d think you’d come in early in the day and go, “What jokes should we tell?” And that’s not always the case.

Q.

Do you have supreme authority to decide what stays and what goes?

A.

I definitely like the term “supreme authority.” It has a Kim Jong-un ring to it. It’s an intensely collaborative workplace. It’ll be about continuing that collaboration throughout the day. At some point, one person has to make a decision, so that will be the point at which the Supreme Leader, for three months shall he reign â€" that is when I’ll be that point man.

Q.

Will the voice of “The Daily Show” change when you’re its anchor?

A.

The voice is going to change, in so far as words are going to be pronounced accurately. And there are going to be a lot more u’s on the prompter. I don’t want to see c-o-l-o-r on the prompter or there’s going to be hell to pay. I’ve been here seven years, so the voice of the show has moved into my DNA as well. I don’t know if it’s going to be particularly recognizable, other than there’s going to be a different face and a different sounding voice saying it.

Q.

I see that in your first week, you’ve got guests like Seth Rogen, Armando Iannucci and Fareed Zarakia. Are these people you chose?

A.

Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had. The only way I may be able to say thank you is to invite him on a television show, where we’re both one step removed from having to directly deal with each other on a human level. Hillary Kun, the guest booker, and I have been talking about who might be interesting to have come on and trying to get a balance of people. And trying to get the Queen.

Q.

How are those discussions coming along?

A.

It’s early stages. Until I hear a hard [high-pitched Queen’s voice] “No,” then it’s going to be worth pursuing.

Q.

Have you looked at past instances in which other correspondents have guest-hosted the show?

A.

There’s two instances. Once for each child that Jon has. I watched Rob Corddry host, and I think Colbert and Carell hosted together. I think that’s it. So it’s relatively uncharted territory. Next week, just before rehearsal I’ll probably run the previous day’s show, just for technical stuff. But otherwise, no, I’ll just dive in. There’s not going to be any practice guest interviews or anything. Seth Rogen is going to be the experimental bunny rabbit. Unfortunately for Seth Rogen he is going to be my first.

Q.

You do have interviewing skills.

A.

But this is different, because all of my interview training is built around trying to take someone down. When you have, say, Seth Rogen in front of you, the point is not to destroy him and the construct of beliefs he’s built up over his lifetime. It’s going to be talking to him about his new movie. It will be nice just to have a broader conversation where jokes can occur, but the primary focus is to have an interesting interview. It’ll be nice to be nicer to people.

Q.

Maybe now you can get some of the guests who didn’t want to be on when Jon was hosting.

A.

Or who think, “Yeah, I could steamroll him, no problem. I’m not going to get elegantly butchered by Jon Stewart, but I can definitely steamroll a Brit.” That would be a problem, if we end up having a series of political guests who will not speak to Jon â€" if he comes back and I say, “Guess what? We had Cheney, W. Bush and Palin in one week.” “How did they go?” “They seemed to have a great time.”

Q.

Will there be any time during this three-month run when you can step back and evaluate how you’re doing?

A.

We have two two-week breaks in that time. Those will be the times to pause and reflect on, “O.K., in what particular ways did I screw up?” Probably over the July 4 week, as those fireworks are going off, I’m going to be sitting in a darkened room, trying to work out what I just did.

Q.

Do you see this as a chance to prove your mettle as a late-night host, for some future day when Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert moves on, or perhaps when some other opportunity comes up?

A.

I’ve never taken that kind of larger perspective look, partly because this show is such a sausage factory, that you are only concerned with the next day. I find it hard in my general life to think further than the week ahead.  So I’ve not really taken any big-picture thought about it, other than survival. But I’ve never had a regular job till I moved here. So I still can’t imagine not working here. It really is just a process of trying to get each show on. You’re just trying think about Seth Rogen’s show, getting through to Fareed Zakaria at the end of the week.

Two Principal Dancers to Leave Royal Ballet

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Mr. Kobborg and Ms. Cojocaru performing in “Romeo and Juliet” with the American Ballet Theater in New York in 2012.

Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, two of most admired principal dancers on the roster of the Royal Ballet, in London, announced on Monday that they would leave the company at the end of the current season. Their final performance at the Royal Opera House will be in “Mayerling” on Wednesday, although they will remain with the company for a visit to Japan, with performances in Tokyo on July 11 and 12.

Ms. Cojocaru, 34, was born in Bucharest, trained in Kiev, and joined the Royal Ballet in 1999. Mr. Kobborg, a Danish dancer, joined the company in 1991 and became a principal dancer in 1994. The two first worked together in 2001, when Ms. Cojocaru filled in for an ailing Miyako Yoshida in a production of “Romeo and Juliet,” in which Mr. Kobborg was dancing Romeo. That collaboration was the start of a storied partnership onstage and off, and that year Ms. Cojocaru was named a principal dancer.

Their work at the company has not been uneventful. In 2008, Ms. Cojocaru was seriously injured when she was handled awkwardly in a lift, but she was dancing again the following season. That same year, there was talk of Mr. Kobborg succeeding Monica Mason as the company’s director, when she stepped down in 2012, although in the event, Kevin O’Hare was appointed to the position.

The two have danced with other companies, including the American Ballet Theater, with increasing frequency in recent seasons. In 2012, John Neumeier’s “Liliom,” which had its premiere at the Hamburg Ballet, was created for Ms. Cojocaru, who won the Prix Benois de la Danse for her portrayal of the lead role.

“We have had wonderful experiences with the Royal Ballet over the years, and feel fortunate to have worked alongside so many inspiring artists,” Ms. Cojocaru and Mr. Kobborg said in a statement.

Sharon Jones Postpones Tour to Seek Cancer Treatment

The soul singer Sharon Jones has been diagnosed with cancer and has postponed a tour and the release of her next album, she announced on her band’s Web site. The singer said she has stage 1 bile duct cancer, which has yet to spread, and will have surgery immediately to remove the tumor.

“It is expected that the immediate proposed surgical solution will lead to a full recovery, but because of its invasive and complex nature, will necessitate a rather lengthy convalescence,” said the announcement, posted on Monday. The group has canceled all its summer dates and pushed back indefinitely the release of its sixth album, “Give the People What They Want,” which was to have come out on Aug. 6.

“Over the last few weeks I haven’t felt good and I didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. Jones, 57, said in a statement on the site, adding she had canceled shows earlier this year to undergo tests. “Luckily we caught it really early and fast and the doctors say it’s operable and curable,” she wrote.

Live Streaming: TimesTalks With ‘The Leading Women of Broadway’

Starting at 7 p.m. tonight, ArtsBeat will live stream a conversation with six award-winning actresses on Broadway this season: Judith Light and Jessica Hecht from “The Assembled Parties”; Cicely Tyson from “The Trip to Bountiful”; Kristine Nielsen from “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”; Holland Taylor from “Ann”; and Maura Tierney from “Lucky Guy.” Click on the image above to watch the event, which will be moderated by Patrick Healy, the theater reporter for The New York Times.

Disputed Banksy Work Brings $1.1 Million at Auction

Haringey Council, via European Pressphoto Agency “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy)” was painted in 2012.

In the latest and perhaps final installment of one of the art world’s most amusing controversies of 2013, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” the satirical work stenciled by the graffiti artist Banksy on a wall in North London, was sold at a private auction held by the London-based Sincura Group â€" which describes itself as “concierge specialists who pride themselves on obtaining the unobtainable” â€" on Sunday for what the BBC reported was more than £750,000, or about $1.1 million.

The work, in which Banksy depicted a young boy in black and white, sepia and grey, sewing rea, white and blue bunting on an antique sewing machine, was taken as a tart comment on Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations when it appeared on the wall of a discount shop in the Wood Green section of North London last May. Like many of Banksy’s works, it was created in the dead of night, and quickly became a focus of interest.

That interest was rekindled in February when the mural vanished, resurfacing in Miami as part of an auction of contemporary works. The auction house, Fine Art Auctions Miami, expected it to fetch between $500,000 to $700,000. That led the Haringey Council, which represents the district where Banksy created the piece, to undertake an international campaign to have the work returned, and though the Miami auctioneers backed down, “Slave Labor” did not find its way back to Haringey.

Instead, the Sincura Group announced last month that it would sell the piece, along with works by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol, at an auction at the London Film Museum, in Covent Garden. Not surprisingly, the Haringey Council and others - including Lynn Featherstone, a member of Parliament who represents Wood Green - took up the cause again.

Their protests, at least, yielded some clarifications. The sellers, Bloomberg reported, were Robert Alan Davis and Leslie Steven Gilbert, the proprieters of Wood Green Investments, which owns the building on which the work appeared. Because a piece of graffiti becomes the property of the owners of the wall on which it is drawn, Mr. Davis and Mr. Gilbert were free to dispose of it as they saw fit - which explains the contention by both Fine Art Auctions Miami and the Sincura Group that they had no problem with the work’s provenance.

“It should be noted,” Sincura said in a statement, “that both Scotland Yard and the FBI have issued statements that there is no evidence of criminality involved in the removal of this illegally painted mural and therefore no case to answer.”

Sincura also presented both the show in which it displayed the Banksy work, and the auction that followed, as a public service, of sorts, arguing that its goal was to find a British buyer for the piece, which would otherwise become “an integral part of an important private collection of Banksy street works” in the United States.

The buyer of the work, and its eventual destination, were not revealed on Sunday.

A New Baton for the Little Orchestra Society

James Judd, a British conductor who has been music director of the Florida Philharmonic - with which he made an acclaimed recording of Mahler’s First Symphony - and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, has taken over his first New York ensemble, the Little Orchestra Society. He succeeds Dino Anagnost, who led the orchestra from 1979 until his death in 2011, and is the third director in the ensemble’s history, which goes back to 1947, when it was founded by Mr. Anagnost’s predecessor, Thomas Scherman.

Mr. Judd, 63, began his career as an assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Cleveland Orchestra in the 1970s, and in addition to his positions in Florida and New Zealand he has been the associate music director of Claudio Abbado’s European Community Youth Orchestra, and was a founder of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with which he has toured widely.

He has also conducted many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra. And he has built an impressive discography that includes works of Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

The orchestra was best known during Mr. Anagnost’s tenure for offering concerts that would appeal to children as well as adults, mainly through clever thematic programming. In addition to its regular concerts the orchestra performs in public school classrooms around New York. Mr. Judd has music education on his resume as well: he founded the Miami Music Project, which offers music instruction and performing opportunities to students.

Mr. Judd’s tenure began officially on Saturday, although in practical terms it begins when the orchestra starts its new season with a performance of Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” with Asian puppetry, dance and special lighting, at the New York City Center on Nov. 23 and 24. Other highlights of the season are an adaptation of “Hansel and Gretel,” with a new libretto by Craig Shemin (April 5), and Lemony Snicket’s “The Composer Is Dead,” with music by Nathaniel Stookey and a libretto by Daniel Handler, sharing a program with Kenji Bunch’s “Embrace,” an electric violin concerto (May 17).

Tony Contenders in Battle of the Box Office

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Stark Sands, left, and Billy Porter in “Kinky Boots.”

The new Broadway musicals “Kinky Boots” and “Matilda” may be the front-runners for the Tony Award for best musical to be announced on Sunday, but there’s no contest between the two shows at the box office so far. “Kinky Boots” has beaten “Matilda” nine out of the 13 weeks that they have been running head-to-head, including last week, when “Kinky Boots” grossed $1,340,238 while “Matilda” took in $1,157,633.

The decisive factor for “Kinky Boots,” according to the latest Broadway box office data released on Monday, is the show’s average paid admission - $117.26, compared to $101.06 for “Matilda.” While the musicals are playing in similarly sized theaters, with roughly 1,425 seats each, the “Kinky Boots” house benefits from having about 60 more orchestra seats, which usually fetch higher prices than many seats in the mezzanine sections.

Still, neither show is the top-selling new musical of the 2012-13 Broadway season. That honor goes to “Motown: The Musical,” which grossed $1,354,876 last week. “Motown” is in the running for four Tony awards, but not for best musical.

As for the best play Tony nominees, the Tom Hanks-led “Lucky Guy” continued on top last week, grossing $1,343,042, compared to $524,082 for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and $373,576 for “The Assembled Parties.” (The fourth nominee, “The Testament of Mary,” closed last month due to poor ticket sales.)

The top-grossing shows last week, in order, were “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Motown,” and “Lucky Guy.” Overall, Broadway musicals and plays grossed $23.3 million, compared to $24.2 million for the comparable week last season. Audience attendance totaled 223,090 last week, compared to 257,495 for the same week in 2012.

Damon, Baranski Join Lineup for Delacorte Event on ‘Shakespeare, Money and Morals’

Matt Damon, Christine Baranski and Gloria Reuben will join the lineup of noted actors scheduled to appear at “What Are We Worth? Shakespeare, Money, And Morals,” a one-night free event at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park on Monday, June 17 at 8 pm.

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, and Damian Woetzel, director of The Aspen Institute Arts Program, announced the additional performers on Monday. The institutions are partners in the theater’s Public Forum, a series of performances, lectures and conversations with opinion makers across a variety of disciplines. This is the first time the forum - now in its third year - has been at the Delacorte.

The June 17 event includes readings from a variety of Shakespeare works on money and justice. Alan Alda, Hamish Linklater, Jesse L. Martin, Lily Rabe, Vanessa Redgrave and others had previously been announced as participants. The 90-minute program also includes a town-hall conversation with the audience conducted by Michael Sandel, the Harvard professor and the author of “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.”

Free tickets will be distributed, two per person, at noon on June 17 at the Delacorte or by lottery at www.shakespeareinthepark.org. Tickets are also available for a $75 tax-deductible donation apiece to the Public Forum. For information and to donate, call 212-967-7555.

Maxwell’s in Hoboken to Close in July

Maxwell’s, the Hoboken restaurant and bar that has been one of the most influential indie-rock clubs in New Jersey, is closing down at the end of July, The Star-Ledger reported.

Todd Abramson, the club’s booking agent and co-owner, said the bar’s business was declining as Hoboken has become a more upscale town, dominated by pricey condos and sports bars. When the bar and restaurant opened, rents were affordable and Hoboken attracted artists and musicians, nurturing a vibrant rock scene, he said. “The culture in Hoboken is driven by reality TV now,” Mr. Abramson told The Star-Ledger. “A lot of the bars downtown are fighting with each other for who has the most giant TVs. That’s what Hoboken nightlife has become.”

Mr. Abramson said the club would stage a concert on its last night â€" July 31 â€" featuring the band “a,” which was one of the first groups to play at Maxwell’s back room in the 1980s. That group included members of the Bongos and Glenn Morrow, who went on to found Bar/None Records. “I think we’re going to go out the way we came in,” he said.

Kafkaesque Customer Service

Dear Diary:

My wife, Stacy, was having a problem with her computer, so she went to visit a computer service store on the East Side. After more than 20 minutes in line, Stacy’s turn came.

The employee started to listen to her computer problem but was soon interrupted by a telephone call. The call lasted a few minutes, then 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, with no sign of abating. She finally sought to get his attention with a loud “excuse me!”

He told the other party to hold on, cupped the mouthpiece and said, “What seems to be the problem?”

Stacy said, “I am standing here in person, and you yap with the guy on the phone? I was with you first.”

The employee responded: “I am sorry. Our policy is to give time and deference to call-ins.” He then went back on the phone.

After about five minutes, the employee was paged over the in-store intercom. He told his other caller to hang on, while he answered the page. “How can I help you?” he asked on his second line’s speaker phone.

“Hi. It’s me, Stacy, standing right here. Can you help me with my problem by telephone?”

The crowd in line roared with laughter, but the employee was not amused.

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.

In a Rooftop Gym, a Fitting Tribute to a Beloved Priest

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

In the final years of his life, when his memory was fading but his strength remained solid, the Rev. John C. Flynn paced the halls of a Bronx nursing home, talking with the lonely, smiling to all - and swinging an imaginary golf club.

“The nurses thought he was crazy,” recalled his sister, Mary Ellen Loveless. “He was not. He just was practicing his swing, pretending to hit the ball!”

Father Flynn was nuts about sports. Through willpower, practice and hope - something of which he was in no short supply - he transformed himself from an asthmatic youngster into an athletic young man. Hockey, tennis, skiing, football or basketball, he loved them all.

There are still people from St. Raymond’s Roman Catholic parish in Parkchester, where he served in the 1960s and ’70s, who recall the tall, young priest darting about the court with a big grin and a spot-on shot. It was never just a game. On the court - or on the streets he loved - he was always talking and listening, learning who was in need, pain or trouble.

Father Flynn died last year, after 83 years of a life well-lived. And now, decades after he left Parkchester, he is being honored there - with the “Rev. John C. Flynn Rooftop Court” at St. Raymond Academy for Girls, where he once was a guidance counselor. It’s a simple space, fittingly, and just a half-court, actually, since boxy air-conditioning units had already taken up a good part of the roof.

That’s O.K. Father Flynn knew how to improvise his way around obstacles, and probably would have chuckled at the half-court honor. He then would have taken a jump shot or two.

“It makes me happy to think of him playing all those things that he loved,” his sister said. “He just thoroughly enjoyed himself when he did it. He was so happy, and really good.”

He wasn’t even a teenager when his asthma forced him to leave his family’s Yonkers home to live with friends in Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. The air was clean and cold - and good for ice hockey. When it was warmer, he played tennis. He returned to New York healthier, sporty and ready for high school, then went to college and entered the seminary. After his ordination in 1955, he served north of the city before arriving at St. Raymond’s.

Ms. Loveless said her brother loved being a parish priest in the then-heavily Irish-American neighborhood. But as in many love stories, a heart was broken.

“When black people started moving into Parkchester, Johnny suggested they welcome them and whatever,” his sister said. She paused and started crying. “And someone said, ‘If you like them so much, why don’t you go live with them?’ He said, ‘O.K., maybe I’ll do that.’ That’s when he left to learn Spanish and live in Venezuela. Many of the people at St. Raymond’s loved him. But some of them were angry with him.”

He spent much of the 1970s in Venezuela, ministering in the slums and perfecting his Spanish. He got sick, returned stateside, convalesced and went back to the Bronx. The South Bronx. When arson, indifference and drugs ravaged his parish, he walked the streets. He buried those who died too young, comforted those who had seen too much and worked alongside a generation of grass-roots leaders.

He did this six days a week. But Monday was off-limits - that was golf day. Rumored to have a single-digit handicap, Father Flynn took golf seriously (though, of course, with a smile). In fact, he first learned he had a heart problem a few years ago when he collapsed while playing with some priest friends.

That condition led to his retirement. It did not however, dim his love for walking the neighborhoods of the Bronx. And as far as St. Raymond’s, there had never been a dimming of his love even decades after those angry words from a misguided soul.

Sister Mary Ann D’Antonio, the girl’s academy principal, witnessed this when he returned to a gala a few years ago at Maestro’s catering hall.

“He was amazing,” she said. “He walked in and whole tables got up. He had a great time, talking and dancing.”

He died last September. During his funeral Mass at St. Martin of Tours Church in Crotona - his last posting - many St. Raymond alumni filled the pews. Soon, they talked about how to honor this man who had graced their lives with friendship and faith. Early this month, some of those same mourners were toasting his memory at the new rooftop gym.

Last week, girls from the academy filed in for a physical education class. They moved about their kickboxing class, sparring, sweating and laughing. A picture of Father Flynn, smiling, was perched on the windowsill.

“What do you say when somebody is just youthful and happy?” his sister had asked a few days earlier.

Ms. Loveless, you say this: In life, your brother Johnny found a simple joy as a priest on the streets of the Bronx. And now, whoever climbs those four flights to a modest gym will be that much closer to his spirit.

A version of this article appeared in print on 06/01/2013, on page A15 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Fatherly Gaze Presides Over New Rooftop Gym.

Ask an Orchestra Manager

Next up in Metropolitan’s Q. and A. series is Carl R. Schiebler, personnel manager for the New York Philharmonic.

Chris Lee Carl Schiebler

Mr. Schiebler keeps rehearsals running on time, tracks down extras and substitutes, and serves as the symphony’s go-to fixer.

Wondering which is the hardest musician to schedule? (Hint: ever hear of a theremin?) The most common injury among the orchestra’s 106 official players? About life offstage and behind the curtain at Avery Fisher Hall?

Share your questions in the comments section below. We will pass on the best to Mr. Schiebler, with some of our own, and publish the answers next week. Also, let us know if you have ideas for future interview subjects â€" we’ll keep them in mind.

Week in Pictures for May 31

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 Memorial Day parade in Queens, the bike-share program in Brooklyn and the reunion of President Obama and Gov. Chris Christie on the Jersey Shore.

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 Michael Kimmelman, Eleanor Randolph and Kate Taylor. Also, Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, and Walter Mosley, an author. 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 read current New York headlines, like New York Metro | The New York Times on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Spared Demolition, an 1889 Building Gets a Second Life

To create a modern subway interchange in Lower Manhattan, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority first had to contend with an exquisite antique, one that stood eight stories tall.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times The Corbin Building.

Ten years ago, the dilapidated Corbin Building, completed in 1889 at Broadway and John Street, seemed destined for demolition. It was in the way of the authority’s planned Fulton Street Transit Center, intended to impose order on the chaotic convergence of subway lines at Fulton Street, thereby helping downtown recover from the 2001 attack.

Today, the facade of the Corbin Building is an ornament in Lower Manhattan. Cleaned and restored, it sits like a ruddy little gem in the Broadway canyon, richly decorated with terra-cotta flora and fauna, belted by alternating bands of varied sandstone, capped at either end by pyramidal peaks. Monumental arches march down John Street like an aqueduct, enlivened by carmine-colored cast-iron window bays.

Inside, it turns out, the architectural delights continue. The centerpiece of the building is a broad semicircular stairwell down which daylight streams even on dark days. Tiny copper-plated cast-iron squirrels (or snails), hundreds of them, look as if they’re poised to hop (or crawl) all the way to the top of the elaborate balustrade. Some floors have wood paneling, others have marble wainscoting. There are fireplaces throughout, though they no longer work.

And much of the ground floor will serve an entrance to the Fulton Center (the pared-down name for the subway interchange), which is to open to the public next year. The restoration project accounted for $67.4 million of the $1.4 billion transit center budget.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Corbin Building is at the center of the diagram, showing how many subway lines converge at Fulton Street. The Fulton Building is the main transit hall of the new center, opening next year.

What stepped between the wrecking crews and the Corbin Building a decade ago were preservationists. They persuaded the authority that the old building, designed by Francis Hatch Kimball, was worth saving and would add value to the Fulton Center. It helped their cause that the Corbin Building basement offered a direct path between the transit center and an underground passageway known as the Dey Street Concourse, which runs all the way to the World Trade Center.

As the project emerged, 31,000 square feet of usable commercial space was created in the Corbin Building. There is a large corner storefront. The upper floors may be used for retail or offices. Under certain conditions, the building could also be transformed into a hotel and the rooftop could be opened for commercial use.

The space is being offered under a master lease to private developers, along with 30,000 square feet of commercial space in the abutting transit hall, a striking new structure at Broadway and Fulton Street. A request for proposals was issued last year, and the authority is negotiating with finalists now.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Michael Horodniceanu, president of the capital construction division of the M.T.A., and a salvaged parapet.

“We expect to generate enough revenue to maintain the whole complex,” said Michael Horodniceanu, the president of the authority’s capital construction division. Because that dollar amount is part of the negotiation, he declined to disclose it.

“It would be interesting if we could get a bank as the anchor tenant,” Dr. Horodniceanu said, given that the original occupant of the ground floor was the Corbin Banking Company, one of many pies in which the financier Austin Corbin had his fingers. In 1880, Corbin acquired the ailing Long Island Rail Road and built it up. “Under his wise management,” The New York Times wrote in his obituary on June 5, 1896, “the development of Long Island was very rapid.”

Rejuvenating the Corbin Building required much more than dusting off sconces. A secondary stairway was required for emergency exiting. There was no place to fit it within the existing building, so a small annex was constructed to contain it.

To install escalators that would move passengers between the Fulton Center and the Dey Street passageway, the Corbin Building had to be structurally underpinned. On such a tight lot, as little as 20 feet wide, mechanical excavators could not be used. The pits for the new foundation work were dug by hand â€" with picks, shovels and buckets. The building was rigged with motion sensors and other monitors to ensure that it did not begin to lean.

The foundations went so deep that workers unearthed a stone-lined well. In the well and around it, they found a clay pipe with an eagle carved on the bowl, a case for a pair of pince-nez glasses, two ledger books from the 1880s with handwritten accounts of stock trades in railroad companies, a 1915 invoice from the Jeweler’s Circular Publishing Company, and newspapers from 1889 with torn-from-today’s-headlines articles like: “A New Madison Square Garden.”

An unsolved mystery involves a pair of initials that appear in decorations around the building. The first pair, “AC,” is easy. The second is more cryptic. If it’s “MC,” it may stand for Macklot & Corbin, Austin Corbin’s first firm. If it’s “MG,” however, authority officials are stumped, though Dr. Horodniceanu has his own whimsical theory: My Girlfriend.

That might explain all the fireplaces.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times The central stairwell of the Corbin Building was meticulously restored.

Weiner Gets Mixed Reception at Israel Day Parade

As he marched on Sunday in his first Israel Day Parade since resigning from Congress, Anthony D. Weiner encountered plenty of fans, as well as the first real sustained display of hostility toward his New York City mayoral ambitions.

Mr. Weiner, who is the only Jewish candidate running, was cheered by many marchers and onlookers, several of whom wished him luck in the race. But many also booed him or heckled him about the scandal that forced him to give up his Congressional seat, after he was discovered to be sending sexually explicit messages to women over Twitter.

“Tweet me a picture, Weiner!” one man yelled repeatedly, as Mr. Weiner marched by, ignoring the heckler.

One woman simply gave him a thumbs-down as he passed her. An older man shouting “Am Yisrael Chai” - a Hebrew phrase meaning, roughly, “The people of Israel live” - approached Mr. Weiner looking as though he wanted to shake hands with him. But as he got closer, he stopped abruptly, and asked, “Are you Weiner?”

The older man then shook his head, withdrew his hand, and backed away quickly. Mr. Weiner looked startled and let out a loud, awkward laugh.

Henry Gerber, an officer worker who was volunteering with the organizers of the parade, muttered as Mr. Weiner went by, “God bless morality - please don’t run.”

“He doesn’t have a tremendous amount of common sense based upon what he did over the Internet,” Mr. Gerber said when asked his thoughts on Mr. Weiner. “And if he doesn’t have enough common sense to control his own personal affairs, what is he going to do as an elected leader of the City of New York?”

He also said that he was concerned about Mr. Weiner’s in-laws, who are Muslim, saying that he believed Mr. Weiner’s mother-in-law had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. Last year several Republican members of Congress, including Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, accused Mr. Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of having ties to the Brotherhood through her father. Senator John McCain at the time defended Ms. Abedin on the Senate floor, calling the accusations “ugly” and unsubstantiated, and a spokesman for the State Department, Philippe Reines, called them “vicious and disgusting lies.”

Mr. Weiner, who was dressed in light blue pants and a white shirt, the colors of the Israel flag, said in a brief press gaggle before he started marching that he was “hawkish” on Israel and glad to be walking in the parade again.

“This is home for me,” he said.

Just then, a fellow marcher called out, “Best of luck, Anthony!”

“Thank you, sir,” Mr. Weiner responded.

A Hot Dog Condiment How-To

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

On our usual Mother’s Day outing, my mom, my sister and I went to Gray’s Papaya on 72nd before our trip to Harry’s Shoes in the 80s. We all ordered the usual, frankfurter with sauerkraut and mustard, a New York specialty that I grew up with. Next to us were two businesswomen ordering for themselves.

Now, before I relay this part of the anecdote, I would like to offer a disclaimer. I feel that as a lifelong New Yorker I have a natural-born right to be biased about two things: pizza and hot dogs. There is nowhere else where these delicacies are done better.

Dramatically, they ordered hot dogs with American cheese and a Coke on the side! Now I understand, to a degree, chili or maybe even ketchup, but shunning both the celebrated papaya and classic toppings? Unacceptable.

After the order, my mom, the counterman and I all shared a common expression of disbelief and disgust. Should we explain to these poor souls what a hot dog really is? Maybe they misunderstood and could be saved?

Unfortunately part of the experience of Gray’s Papaya is that the customer is always right, and the counterman had to grudgingly collect their order, quite possibly from an area of the grill that hadn’t been touched in months.

I now regret my decision not to interfere, knowing that one day a New Yorker far more aggressive than me will give them the lecture they deserve â€" the appropriate condiments to place on a New York hot dog.

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Koch’s Sister to Amplify His Support for Quinn

Brendan McDermid/Reuters Pat Thaler, with white hair, at the funeral for her brother, Edward I. Koch, in February.

Christine C. Quinn’s mayoral campaign will be graced by a touch of Koch after all.

It was a last wish of Edward I. Koch, the iconic and bellicose former mayor, to aid Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, in her bid to become mayor. But he died in February before he could lend his unique voice or likeness to any political materials in advance of the campaign.

Now, Mr. Koch’s sister, Pat Thaler, has agreed to be filmed for a Quinn political ad, declaring her full-fledged support for Ms. Quinn and evoking the memory of her famous sibling.

“My brother and I often discussed politics, and we didn’t always agree, but in this case, we did,” Ms. Thaler said in a telephone interview last week. She said of Ms. Quinn, “I’ve admired her for a very long time.”

The details of the ad, Ms. Thaler said, have yet to be worked out, and she said the filming would not take place for a few weeks, after she returns from a vacation in France. But she made it clear that she was happy to help Ms. Quinn’s effort in any way.

“However they use it is O.K. with me,” she said.

Mr. Koch was a long-declared Quinn partisan, officially endorsing her in 2011, two years before the election, with a sly and prescient suggestion that he did not want to waste time before making his preference known.

But her campaign never recorded any video of Mr. Koch speaking about her, although there are audio snippets of him praising Ms. Quinn, with whom he had a warm friendship. Before he died, Mr. Koch told friends in his hospital room that he wanted to help her campaign; one of Ms. Quinn’s strategists was sent to help Mr. Koch formulate a statement, but he died three days later.

The Quinn camp has not decided how to integrate Ms. Thaler or her late brother into the campaign, but there are several options, including television, the Web and pamphlets mailed directly to voters.

“Ed Koch was an incredible leader for the city,” said Josh Isay, Ms. Quinn’s chief strategist. “Having his sister’s support, and his sister talking about how the mayor felt about Chris, is wonderful.”

Ms. Thaler, in the interview, said that “it would be nice to have a woman mayor” and that she admired Ms. Quinn’s track record in city government. She also said she was happy about the speaker’s willingness to be open about her personal life; Ms. Quinn married her longtime partner, Kim M. Catullo, last year.

Besides her political pedigree, there is at least one other thing about Ms. Thaler that makes her an unusual endorser for Ms. Quinn: she does not live in New York City.

“I live in New Jersey, so I can’t vote for her,” Ms. Thaler said. “But they know I am a supporter.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 3, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this post misstated when Pat Thaler was interviewed. It was last week, not this week.

Commuters Nearly Double Manhattan’s Daytime Population, Census Says

If New York’s bars and restaurants seem crowded at night, consider this: during the day, commuters from the other boroughs and outside the city nearly double Manhattan’s population, from 1.6 million to 3.1 million.

Overall, the net gain in people due to commuting swells New York City’s weekday population by about 608,000, or nearly as many people as live in Baltimore. (The citywide increase is smaller than the Manhattan figure because so many city residents outside Manhattan leave their home borough to work.)

Nearly 92 percent of workers who live in New Yorkers work somewhere within the five boroughs - a higher proportion than in any other big city in the country. The 608,000 weekday population rise represents a 8 percent gain â€" far smaller, though, than the double-digit increases recorded in some Southern and Western cities, including Houston, Dallas and San Diego.

Houston is second in net daytime population change due to workers, adding just over 400,000, according to census figures released Thursday. (The census’s American Community Survey asks about commuting to work patterns, not people who cross county lines to visit for other purposes.)

About 270,000 New Yorkers work outside the city, while 2.9 million people both live and work there.

Every borough registers a decline in daytime population because of workplace patterns except Manhattan (Queens loses 353,000, the most; Staten Island loses the highest percentage, 18 percent). In all but Manhattan and Brooklyn, fewer than half the workers live and work in the same county.

More than 80 percent of Manhattanites live and work in their home borough. Of the 826,000 workers who live in Manhattan, 696,000 also work there.

If New York’s bars and restaurants seem crowded at night, consider this: during the day, commuters nearly double Manhattan’s population and swell the city over all by 563,000, or about as many people as live in Washington, D.C.

Nearly 92 percent of New Yorkers live and work in the five boroughs - a higher proportion than in any other big city in the country. The 563,000 weekday population rise represents a 7 percent gain, far smaller, though, than the double-digit increases recorded in some southwestern cities, including Dallas, Houston and San Diego.

Houston is second in daytime population change due to workers, adding just over 400,000, according to census figures released last week. (The census’s American Community Survey asks about commuting-to-work patterns, not people who cross county lines to visit for other purposes.)

About 270,000 New Yorkers work outside the city, while 2.9 million live and work there.

Every borough registers a decline in daytime population because of workplace patterns except Manhattan (Queens loses 335,000, the most; Staten Island loses the highest percentage, 16 percent). In those other four boroughs, fewer than half the workers live and work in the same county.

More than 80 percent of Manhattanites live and work in their home borough. Of the 753,000 workers who live in Manhattan, 631,000 also work there. During the average workday, Manhattan’s population soars by 1.3 million, or 87 percent, as a result of the commuter influx.

Ask About the 17-Year Cicada

H. Scott Hoffman/News & Record, via Associated Press In the New York metropolitan area, the cicada population is expected to peak over the next two weeks.

If you’re a 17-year cicada, chances are good that you’re having the time of your life right now. Enjoy it while you can â€" it will last only a few more weeks.

Cicada Brood II, one of the largest, has been emerging after 17 years underground to mate (and die), and from Connecticut to the northern tip of Georgia, the air has been abuzz and the woods and grass crunchy with one- to two-inch-long insects with big red eyes and transparent wings.

In the New York region, the cicada emergence is expected to peak this week and next, possibly into the third week of June. The bugs are not too numerous in New York City itself, except on Staten Island (and at an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History), but they are in abundance elsewhere, as you can see on several sites that map cicada sightings.

While the once-in-a-generation phenomenon is upon us, you may have questions about our cicada neighbors. Here to answer them is Louis N. Sorkin, an entomologist at the natural history museum.

Mr. Sorkin, who has worked at the museum since 1978, is known for his expertise in spiders and bedbugs, but he is no slouch in the cicada department. So submit your questions as comments on this article, and Mr. Sorkin will field them.

However You Spell It, a Knaidel Tastes Good

Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

Arvind V. Mahankali of Bayside, Queens, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week on the strength of his mastery of “knaidel,” a Yiddish word of German origin (and, it turns out, somewhat ambiguous spelling) for the dumplings that go into, among other things, matzo ball soup.

But never in his 13 years had Arvind tasted an actual knaidel. On Monday, he did, at the Carnegie Deli.

A Renewed Effort to Rename a Street Honoring a Soviet Spy

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times A street in Lower Manhattan is named after Samuel Dickstein, a former United States representative and State Supreme court judge, who was secretly on the payroll of the Soviet Union.

When Susan LaRosa became director of marketing for the Henry Street Settlement a few years ago, she peered out her window at the plaza below and wondered about its namesake: Who was Samuel Dickstein?

Once she found out through her own research, she was angry. And since The New York Times reported last month that the congressman for whom the Lower East Side plaza had been named had also been a spy for the Soviet Union, her effort to rename the block has gotten a new lease on life.

Ms. LaRosa now hopes to persuade the city to name the block Lillian Wald Way, in honor of the nurse who founded the Henry Street settlement house 120 years ago.

“I can see that sign from my office window, and when I first arrived here decided to find out who Samuel Dickstein was,” she said. “What a shocker. Why retain the name of a greedy spy when saintly Lillian can grace the plaza.”

In 1963, a one block extension of Pitt Street between Grand and East Broadway was named by the City Council for Mr. Dickstein, a former congressman and State Supreme Court justice, who became famous in the 1930s for pursuing radicals as vice chairman of a House subcommittee on un-American activities and later turning his attention to Nazi sympathizers.

According to “The Haunted Wood,” published in 1999, Mr. Dickstein was also paid $1,250 monthly by the Russian intelligence services for information.

Ms. LaRosa said she planned to petition the local community board, Community Board 3, and the City Council to change the name. The community board would have to approve her petition for the measure to be considered by the City Council.

The Light Switches Are in Manhattan, the Power’s From New Jersey

Not that they would have noticed, but some Manhattanites are now using electricity imported from New Jersey through a new underwater connection.

At midnight, Hudson Transmission Partners switched on a cable that can carry up to 660 megawatts of power from an electrical substation in Ridgefield Park, N.J., to one on West 49th Street in Hell’s Kitchen. That is enough to run the lights, televisions, computers and air-conditioners in nearly 400,000 homes.

Most of the additional power flowing through the line is being consumed by residents of public housing and government agencies whose electricity is provided by the New York Power Authority. The authority contracted with the cable’s developer for three-fourths of the capacity on the cable, which was conceived eight years ago.

“A world-class city and a world-class region needs a diverse supply of energy â€" and a reliable supply,” said Edward M. Stern, chief executive of PowerBridge, the company that built the Hudson cable. “Hudson adds to that reliability, which is hard to put a price on, except when events like Hurricane Sandy happen, and then reliability is, as the saying goes, priceless.”

The power is generated west of the Hudson River and fed into a multistate grid known as PJM. Then it is drawn off the grid in Ridgefield Park and fed into the 7.5-mile cable that delivers it to a Consolidated Edison plant serving Midtown.

To bury the cable under the Hudson River, the developer brought one of the few ships that could do the job across the Atlantic from southern Italy 18 months ago.

The state power authority gave strong support to the project, which cost about $850 million, because it said the additional power would reduce the chances of power failures. It also hoped to obtain cheaper electricity than could be bought in the city.

Now that the cable is operating, the power authority has to repay the developer for improvements to the system that it had estimated would cost about $200 million. The authority has said that it will lose money on the project for at least several years.

Whether the investment will pay off in the long run will be determined by how much the authority saves on electricity, a commodity whose price changes quicker than a New Yorker can flip on a light.