‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Is Shown at Comic-Con

SAN DIEGO - Did Comic-Con just save ABC? Or have fans here set up the struggling broadcast network for a massive letdown?

ABC needs a new home-run hit in the worst way, and it has found one â€" at least if the fan frenzy created here on Friday by “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is any indication. The Disney-owned television network made the unusual decision to play the first episode of that drama in its entirety at an afternoon presentation, and the response from several thousand attendees was nothing short of fantastic.

“That was so worth getting in line at 3:30 in the morning,” Patty Reeber said as she exited the Comic-Con ballroom with a big smile on her face. “Oh! My! God!”

“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” is based on a storyline from Marvel’s movie universe, in particular “The Avengers.” Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Coulson, the leader of a secretive squad that investigates superhero sightings and other strange occurrences. (The organization’s formal name is Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.)

The problem: What goes over well at Comic-Con does not necessarily work in the real world, at least on the scale that Hollywood needs. When it comes to viewers, ABC is the land of “Scandal” moms and “Dancing With the Stars” grandparents; a broad, non-nerd audience may have difficulty with “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The first episode had a complicated storyline that, at moments, was hard for this (admittedly nongeek) reporter to follow. Two characters with extremely thick accents - an engineer, Leo Fitz, played by Iain De Caestecker, and a biochemist, Jemma Simmons, played by Elizabeth Henstridge - didn’t help matters.

Still, the episode featured stunning special effects (a flying convertible, for instance) and looked expensive, something that panelists confirmed would continue beyond the pilot. “We’re spending way too much money,” said Jeff Bell, an executive producer. “We’ll be passing the donation cup,” joked Ming-Na Wen (“ER”), who plays a toughie named Melinda May.

Will stars from Marvel movie franchises like “Thor,” “Captain America” and “The Avengers” pop up on the small screen? The director Joss Whedon hinted yes. “Probably, but I can’t say who, because that would be spoiling it.”

And “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” doesn’t need any more hype than it now has.

Fox Delays Production and Premiere of ‘Glee’

The Fox network and television studio said on Friday that they would delay the start of production on the new season of “Glee,” their hit musical-comedy series, as well as the premiere date of the show, after the death of the cast member Cory Monteith.

In a brief statement, the studio and the network said, “In light of the tragic passing of beloved ‘Glee’ cast member Cory Monteith, the series’ executive producers, 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Broadcasting Company have jointly decided to delay the start of production of ‘Glee’ until early August.” The premiere of this new season, originally scheduled for Sept. 19, will now take place on Sept. 26, they said.

Mr. Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, the high-school quarterback turned glee-club member on the series, was found dead in his hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday. A coroner’s report issued later in the week said that he had died of “a mixed drug toxicity, involving heroin and alcohol.” Mr. Monteith, who was 31, had battled a substance-abuse problem and voluntarily checked himself into a rehabilitation facility this past spring.

The Fox statement offered no further details about how “Glee” might address Mr. Monteith’s death when the series returns. It described Mr. Monteith as someone who “worked closely with several charitable organizations” and was “devoted to helping people effect positive change in their lives,” and said that the groups Virgin Unite, Chrysalis and Project Limelight Society would be accepting donations in his name.

Week in Pictures for July 19

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include skinny dipping in the Rockaways, a transit hub in Manhattan and a new habitat at the Bronx Zoo.

This weekend on “The New York Times Close Up,” an inside look at the most compelling articles in the Sunday newspaper, Sam Roberts will speak with The Times’s Mark Leibovich, Eleanor Randolph, Clyde Haberman and David W. Chen. Also, Scott Stringer, a candidate for city comptroller and the Manhattan borough president, and Michael Daly, 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.

Big Ticket | Turtle Bay ‘Game Changer’ Sold for $34.35 Million

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The town house at 21 Beekman Place, near the United Nations, was bought by the State of Qatar and will probably serve a diplomatic function.

A century-old Turtle Bay town house on the corner of a cul-de-sac overlooking the East River, with views of the river to the east and New York Harbor to the south from every level, sold for $34.35 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The sale, at 21 Beekman Place, at 50th Street, set records for a 20-foot-wide Manhattan town house and for square footage for any single-family town house, at $4,754 per square foot. The record in that category had been set in 2005 by Woody Allen’s town house at 118 East 70th Street ($22.62 million and $3,835 a square foot), until a $24 million sale last December of a town house at 14 East 94th Street that worked out to $4,380 per square foot.

“It was a game-changer for a 20-foot-wide house,” Paula Del Nunzio, a senior vice president of Brown Harris Stevens and the listing broker, said of 21 Beekman.

But the house, originally conceived as an elegant brownstone around 1910, was and remains unique for its far-from-the-madding-crowd locale, away from fashionable Fifth and Madison Avenues, its light-filled east-west orientation with 90 feet of south-facing frontage, and the two-story Gothic-style oriel above the front entrance on 50th Street, which is further ornamented by well-established plantings.

The 7,226-square-foot brick residence is also known as the Ellen Biddle Shipman House in honor of the landscape architect who owned it from 1919 to 1946. Ms. Shipman, often called “the dean of women landscape artists,” designed landscapes for 20th-century A-listers who included Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers and du Ponts. And of course she worked her sylvan magic on her own home at 21 Beekman.

The town house was listed at $48.5 million when it entered the market last fall after the death of its most recent owner, the financier Peter Novello, who paid $10.8 million in 2008 and commissioned an exacting renovation to undo years of damage caused by previous owners unappreciative of Ms. Shipman’s vision of an airy, sunlit space enlivened by greenery on all levels. The most recent asking price was $43 million.

Ms. Shipman bought the home because she loved its location, and after her divorce from the playwright Louis Evan Shipman, she hired the architects Butler & Corse and threw herself into reimagining it as her dream sanctuary. Red brick and black shutters replaced the brownstone, and by 1926 the home had been reinvented. Ms. Shipman sold it in 1946, four years before her death.

For the next few decades, the residence went downhill, culminating in the controversial embellishments tacked on by William R. Rupp, a Florida businessman whose bad-neighbor high jinks were epitomized by the four-foot monogram installed on the front gate and the construction of a two-story “spite” wall that blocked neighbors’ views of the river. After Mr. Rupp’s death in 2007, his estate listed the town house for $25 million and Mr. Novello, who at the time lived in an apartment nearby and was drawn to the irreplaceable views inherent in the town house, stepped in. Mr. Novello’s gut renovation undid Mr. Rupp’s changes, restoring peace in the neighborhood.

The buyer of 21 Beekman Place, identified in city records as the State of Qatar, the sovereign Arab emirate on the Persian Gulf that Forbes has named the richest country in the world, thanks to its deposits of oil and natural gas, was so enamored of the period furnishings selected by Mr. Novello and his design team that it bought them for an additional noncommissioned $650,000. The antique oak floors in the chevron pattern that Ms. Shipman favored, along with the sweeping staircase, the library with the wood-burning fireplace, and the riverfront conservatory with three exposures, were all painstakingly replicated by Mr. Novello, as was the attention to landscaping.

Ms. Del Nunzio represented Mr. Novello’s estate; she said the broker for the buyer declined to be identified. The next incarnation of the 13-room house, which has two and a half levels of grand public space designed for entertaining, as well as three terraces and a roof garden, and which is near the United Nations, will probably serve a diplomatic purpose. Ms. Del Nunzio confirmed that this is a second trophy acquisition for Qatar. Its emir owns the former Lycée Français, two elaborate connected mansions at 7-9 East 72nd Street off Fifth Avenue, known as the Jennings and Sloane mansions.

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

Big Ticket | Turtle Bay ‘Game Changer’ Sold for $34.35 Million

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The town house at 21 Beekman Place, near the United Nations, was bought by the State of Qatar and will probably serve a diplomatic function.

A century-old Turtle Bay town house on the corner of a cul-de-sac overlooking the East River, with views of the river to the east and New York Harbor to the south from every level, sold for $34.35 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The sale, at 21 Beekman Place, at 50th Street, set records for a 20-foot-wide Manhattan town house and for square footage for any single-family town house, at $4,754 per square foot. The record in that category had been set in 2005 by Woody Allen’s town house at 118 East 70th Street ($22.62 million and $3,835 a square foot), until a $24 million sale last December of a town house at 14 East 94th Street that worked out to $4,380 per square foot.

“It was a game-changer for a 20-foot-wide house,” Paula Del Nunzio, a senior vice president of Brown Harris Stevens and the listing broker, said of 21 Beekman.

But the house, originally conceived as an elegant brownstone around 1910, was and remains unique for its far-from-the-madding-crowd locale, away from fashionable Fifth and Madison Avenues, its light-filled east-west orientation with 90 feet of south-facing frontage, and the two-story Gothic-style oriel above the front entrance on 50th Street, which is further ornamented by well-established plantings.

The 7,226-square-foot brick residence is also known as the Ellen Biddle Shipman House in honor of the landscape architect who owned it from 1919 to 1946. Ms. Shipman, often called “the dean of women landscape artists,” designed landscapes for 20th-century A-listers who included Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers and du Ponts. And of course she worked her sylvan magic on her own home at 21 Beekman.

The town house was listed at $48.5 million when it entered the market last fall after the death of its most recent owner, the financier Peter Novello, who paid $10.8 million in 2008 and commissioned an exacting renovation to undo years of damage caused by previous owners unappreciative of Ms. Shipman’s vision of an airy, sunlit space enlivened by greenery on all levels. The most recent asking price was $43 million.

Ms. Shipman bought the home because she loved its location, and after her divorce from the playwright Louis Evan Shipman, she hired the architects Butler & Corse and threw herself into reimagining it as her dream sanctuary. Red brick and black shutters replaced the brownstone, and by 1926 the home had been reinvented. Ms. Shipman sold it in 1946, four years before her death.

For the next few decades, the residence went downhill, culminating in the controversial embellishments tacked on by William R. Rupp, a Florida businessman whose bad-neighbor high jinks were epitomized by the four-foot monogram installed on the front gate and the construction of a two-story “spite” wall that blocked neighbors’ views of the river. After Mr. Rupp’s death in 2007, his estate listed the town house for $25 million and Mr. Novello, who at the time lived in an apartment nearby and was drawn to the irreplaceable views inherent in the town house, stepped in. Mr. Novello’s gut renovation undid Mr. Rupp’s changes, restoring peace in the neighborhood.

The buyer of 21 Beekman Place, identified in city records as the State of Qatar, the sovereign Arab emirate on the Persian Gulf that Forbes has named the richest country in the world, thanks to its deposits of oil and natural gas, was so enamored of the period furnishings selected by Mr. Novello and his design team that it bought them for an additional noncommissioned $650,000. The antique oak floors in the chevron pattern that Ms. Shipman favored, along with the sweeping staircase, the library with the wood-burning fireplace, and the riverfront conservatory with three exposures, were all painstakingly replicated by Mr. Novello, as was the attention to landscaping.

Ms. Del Nunzio represented Mr. Novello’s estate; she said the broker for the buyer declined to be identified. The next incarnation of the 13-room house, which has two and a half levels of grand public space designed for entertaining, as well as three terraces and a roof garden, and which is near the United Nations, will probably serve a diplomatic purpose. Ms. Del Nunzio confirmed that this is a second trophy acquisition for Qatar. Its emir owns the former Lycée Français, two elaborate connected mansions at 7-9 East 72nd Street off Fifth Avenue, known as the Jennings and Sloane mansions.

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

Running the Numbers for ‘Under the Dome’

The biggest ratings story of the summer has been the performance of “Under the Dome,” the CBS mini-series based on the novel by Stephen King.

Almost four weeks after its premiere, which garnered 13.5 million total viewers, the drama continues to pull the kind of numbers during the warm, summer nights that would be the envy of most fall programs.

The show’s most recent accomplishment was achieved courtesy of DVR statistics, that is, the number of viewers who watched the program within seven days of broadcast. According to Nielsen, the premiere added 4.2 million viewers via DVR, a huge number that would rank “Under the Dome” third in DVR gains among all broadcast programming for the 2012-13 season. On average, only ABC’s “Modern Family,” at 4.5 million viewers, and “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS at 4.3 million, added more viewers through DVR playback.

And when it comes to DVR gains in the 18-to-49 demographic, the ratings category cherished by advertisers, “Under the Dome” would also rank in the Top 10 series from the 2012-13 season.

Since the series premiere, the overall ratings have been steady over the last four weeks. After the third episode dropped to a low of 10.7 million total viewers on July 8, the July 15 episode rebounded to 11.1 million.

They Say It’s a ‘Fountain of Youth.’ The Health Dept. Says Otherwise.

Corey Kilgannon/The New York Times Swimmers in the waters off Douglaston, Queens, which the city says is contaminated with fecal bacteria.

The sun was on a merciful retreat down behind the Manhattan skyline on Thursday evening as the Floating Heads of Douglas Manor dropped their overheated bodies into the glassy waters off a pier jutting into Little Neck Bay, in Queens.

The Floating Heads are a group of devout swimmers who regularly enjoy the waters in this part of Douglaston, an exclusive Queens neighborhood.

One of them, Cindy Strauss, 64, stretched across the water-stained floating dock and sighed.

“It’s the only place to be,” said Ms. Strauss, a retired American Airlines flight attendant, who, like the other members of her group, calls this spot sublime.

New York City health officials do not agree. They have told beach operators to keep the beach closed to swimmers because of high fecal bacteria counts pushing the water quality beyond acceptable standards.

Contamination at this beach is not unusual and, in fact, has been going on like this for years. The city runs weekly tests and often posts an advisory against swimming at a gatehouse, which is then routinely ignored by the Floating Heads, and other local swimmers.

City health officials said the beach was closed because of poor water quality, but declined on Friday to comment directly about the continued swimming at the beach.

Generally, a spokeswoman said, contact with contaminated water may cause illnesses like vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, respiratory illness and infections. Also, children, pregnant women, the elderly and the chronically ill have an increased risk of illness.

The Douglas Manor Association, a homeowners group that runs the beach, requires swimmers to sign a form acknowledging that they recognized the risk and were swimming in spite of it.

The Floating Heads includes veterans who have been swimming here for well over 50 years, in the shadow of the Throgs Neck and Whitestone Bridges, in waters fed by the East River.

Some navigate the pier using canes and walkers. The lore goes that the water is so murky and brown that only their heads can be seen floating around the swimming area; thus, their name.

Swimming off this century-old pier has been a way of life here for decades and the local game is dibble, a swimming contest in which children - and sometimes adults - jump in after a Popsicle stick. The game is said to date back to the 1940s.

Some swimmers call these waters their “fountain of youth,” and say the waters are curative â€" despite the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene regularly identifying the beach as having among the highest levels of pollution in the city.

There are several major sewage points in the Little Neck Bay area, and fecal bacteria counts here spike after heavy rains, when the city’s sewer system can overflow directly into these waters.

The city is limited in its enforcement role, however. It requires the beach operator to post a sign that swimming is prohibited, and posts the information on the health department’s Web site.

Some of the swimmers on Thursday evening criticized the city’s testing methods, claiming that testing once a week and calculating averages cannot measure pollution levels that change drastically every few hours as the tide flushes the bay.

On the floating dock, Ms. Strauss shrugged and said she had been swimming here for decades with no health repercussions.

She begins swimming in April, wearing a wet suit. She sheds it by Memorial Day and swims daily - sometimes twice a day â€" through October, and sometimes into early November.

“We know the situation, but everything is a risk,” she said. “I swim with ladies who are in their 80s and they’ve never gotten sick from this water. The kids get sick from the swimming pool, not here.”

Irmgard McKeever, 79, said, “I’ve been swimming here for 43 years and never had an ill effect.”

“I understand the city has rules and has to post what they find, but what else are we going to do on a hot day like this?” she said. “The pool is too warm, and I prefer salt water anyway.”

The key, she said, is to keep your mouth closed.

The Original Green Lantern

Dave Taft; Nicole Vergalla

Nothing can extinguish the enchantment of fireflies. For adults like me, they occupy an unshakable niche in the pantheon of the still-magical. Who isn’t speechless at the edge of a dew-dampened meadow when evening makes a galaxy of a thousand tiny insects?

Scientifically, the firefly’s glow is fairly well understood. Simplified, fireflies produce the aptly named compound luciferin, which, oxidized by the enzyme luciferase in the insect’s last abdominal segments, produces the bright green light we love so well.

Very little of this chemical reaction’s energy is expressed as heat; the resulting bioluminescence is a “cool light” and is not unique to fireflies. But fireflies are appealing. They are about as cute as phosphorescent creatures get â€" just ask anyone who has examined one of those sunken-eyed, deepwater fish, or a glowing, slimy fungus. If nothing else, they are certainly more accessible.

The common eastern firefly, Photinus pyralis, is actually a beetle, and within the confines of New York City, may actually be more common now than a few dozen years ago. Restrictions on the use of pesticides, and greater efforts to protect natural areas citywide, can be thanked for this abundance. Anywhere there are fields or lawns, in any borough, there are probably fireflies.

Fireflies do not glow for enjoyment. Like so many other natural wonders, it is a behavior contrived to attract a mate â€" each firefly species has a flashing pattern of its own.

In the case of our common eastern fireflies, the males fly at dusk, flashing their signals. The females, though possessing wings (not all female firefly species do), often do not fly but attract mates by returning the flash in the correct sequence. The males land near the females, and if all goes well, eggs are laid in moist ground nearby. An average firefly may live from 5 to 30 days, sufficient to find a mate, but not much more.

Most firefly larvae are predators of snails and slugs, and the adult females of several species are carnivorous as well.

In fact, one of the insect world’s most compelling adaptations is the behavior of the firefly named Photuris pyralis. A female of this species mimics the flash pattern of female Photinus fireflies. An unsuspecting Photinus male is attracted to her flash like an insect Ulysses. He lands, only to be eaten by the deceptive Photuris female.

To see fireflies, follow the footsteps of your inner child. The best container for a firefly hunt remains the mayonnaise jar â€" with holes dutifully punched in the top. A butterfly net will improve your catch but is hardly necessary. If you fantasize, as my brother and I always did, that enough fireflies could create a reading lamp, my recommendation is to catch other insects. But even given the limited wattage, few things in life are as magical as a child’s face illuminated by the flashing light of a firefly in a bottle, on a rickety old table, at last light, in someone’s yard or a local park.

Book Review Podcast: La Guardia and Roosevelt’s Alliance

Adam Simpson

In The New York Times Book Review, Edward L. Glaeser reviews “City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York,” by Mason B. Williams. Mr. Glaeser writes:

Williams’s story of La Guardia and Roosevelt shows that effective federal infrastructure spending depends upon partnerships with able local leaders, and that New York’s greatest mayor was great at partnering with a friendly president. Williams, a historian specializing in urban politics, quotes Roosevelt saying that La Guardia “comes to Washington and tells me a sad story. The tears run down my cheeks and the tears run down his cheeks and the next thing I know, he has wangled another $50 million out of me.” La Guardia achieved so much because he had so much unfettered power, but after leaving office, he quickly attacked the use of that power by his erstwhile lieutenant, the “oberburgermeister” Robert Moses.

On this week’s podcast, Mr. Williams talks about “City of Ambition”; Orville Schell and John Delury discuss “Wealth and Power,” their new book about Chinese history; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.

Book Review Podcast: La Guardia and Roosevelt’s Alliance

Adam Simpson

In The New York Times Book Review, Edward L. Glaeser reviews “City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York,” by Mason B. Williams. Mr. Glaeser writes:

Williams’s story of La Guardia and Roosevelt shows that effective federal infrastructure spending depends upon partnerships with able local leaders, and that New York’s greatest mayor was great at partnering with a friendly president. Williams, a historian specializing in urban politics, quotes Roosevelt saying that La Guardia “comes to Washington and tells me a sad story. The tears run down my cheeks and the tears run down his cheeks and the next thing I know, he has wangled another $50 million out of me.” La Guardia achieved so much because he had so much unfettered power, but after leaving office, he quickly attacked the use of that power by his erstwhile lieutenant, the “oberburgermeister” Robert Moses.

On this week’s podcast, Mr. Williams talks about “City of Ambition”; Orville Schell and John Delury discuss “Wealth and Power,” their new book about Chinese history; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.

Dealer Is Arraigned on Charges Related to Sale of Disputed Masterpieces

An art dealer from Long Island pleaded not guilty Friday in Manhattan to charges that she laundered money and evaded taxes as part of a scheme in which she sold dozens of fake paintings that she claimed to have been created by some of the most famous artists of the 20th century.

The dealer, Glafira Rosales, who has been held without bail since her arrest in May, entered a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan handcuffed and dressed in a blue prison smock. She uttered only the words “not guilty” in a low voice when asked about the charges by Federal District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla.

On Wednesday federal officials in Manhattan announced that Ms. Rosales had been indicted on seven counts of wire fraud, money laundering, filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors said that between 1994 and 2009 Ms. Rosales sold two prominent Manhattan galleries more than 60 works that she said were by artists like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning but were in fact forgeries.

According to the indictment, Ms. Rosales laundered the proceeds of those sales by transferring money
through foreign bank accounts then hid the income generated by the scheme by filing false tax returns and failing to inform the United States government of the existence of the foreign accounts.

The government says Ms. Rosales received more than $33 million for the works and failed to declare at least $12.5 million of it as income.

Dealer Is Arraigned on Charges Related to Sale of Disputed Masterpieces

An art dealer from Long Island pleaded not guilty Friday in Manhattan to charges that she laundered money and evaded taxes as part of a scheme in which she sold dozens of fake paintings that she claimed to have been created by some of the most famous artists of the 20th century.

The dealer, Glafira Rosales, who has been held without bail since her arrest in May, entered a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan handcuffed and dressed in a blue prison smock. She uttered only the words “not guilty” in a low voice when asked about the charges by Federal District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla.

On Wednesday federal officials in Manhattan announced that Ms. Rosales had been indicted on seven counts of wire fraud, money laundering, filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors said that between 1994 and 2009 Ms. Rosales sold two prominent Manhattan galleries more than 60 works that she said were by artists like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning but were in fact forgeries.

According to the indictment, Ms. Rosales laundered the proceeds of those sales by transferring money
through foreign bank accounts then hid the income generated by the scheme by filing false tax returns and failing to inform the United States government of the existence of the foreign accounts.

The government says Ms. Rosales received more than $33 million for the works and failed to declare at least $12.5 million of it as income.

The Sweet Spot Video: Tech Jargon? Ping Us.

In this week’s video, A. O. Scott and David Carr try to decipher all the digital mumbo-jumbo out there, even some phrases they use themselves.

Video Reviews of ‘The Conjuring,’ ‘The Act of Killing’ and ‘Computer Chess’

In this week’s video, Times critics offer their thoughts on “The Conjuring,” “The Act of Killing” and “Computer Chess.” See all of this week’s reviews here.

Russian Government Decides Against Recreating Museum Shut by Stalin

The Russian government has decided against reuniting two prerevolutionary art collections that include works by Picasso and Matisse. The decision sets to rest, for now at least, a dispute that was addressed directly to President Vladimir V. Putin on live national television and prompted a monthslong war of words between the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

The collections of Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin, wealthy merchants who were early patrons of European modernist masters, were nationalized after the Bolshevik Revolution and turned into the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, which was shut down by Stalin in 1948  as ideologically suspect.

Vladimir Tolstoy, the great-great grandson of Leo Tolstoy and a cultural affairs adviser to Mr. Putin, conveyed the decision in a letter that was posted quietly on the Hermitage’s Web site last week. He wrote that the government had determined, after convening experts, that reviving the museum was “inadvisable” and would pose a threat to the “preservation and integrity” of Russia’s museum collections and could “destroy the historically formed collections” of the Hermitage and Pushkin museums, which hold dozens of paintings from the collections.

In another letter posted on the site, Mikhail Piotrovsky, the general director of the Hermitage, thanked those who he said had saved the museum “from an attempt to ravage it” and said the works from the Shchukin and Morozov collections would soon be moved to halls in honor of the collectors in the newly restored eastern wing of the General Staff building of the Hermitage. They are currently displayed in crowded quarters in the main Winter Palace building.

Russia’s museums have been created and destroyed by the whims of rulers over the centuries.  Irina Antonova, 91, who was director of the Pushkin museum for 52 years, took her dream of restoring the Museum of New Western Art to Mr. Putin during his live television call-in show in April. Many in Russia’s museum world have connected her sudden retirement, announced by Vladimir Medinsky, the culture minister, earlier this month, to fallout from the dispute and the Kremlin’s scramble to resolve it.

Ms. Antonova, who now holds the newly created post of president of the Pushkin museum â€" a title that she insists is not merely honorary â€" after being replaced by Marina Loshak, a prominent and much younger Moscow curator, said in a television interview last week after Mr. Tolstoy’s letter was published that she did not think she had lost the battle.

“I believe that in the end common sense must triumph,” she told Dozhd, or TV Rain, a Moscow television channel, and “we will have a state that will understand what it is to have the kind of museum that we don’t have in Moscow, a top museum of world art in the capital.”

Mr. Piotrovsky told Kommersant, a Moscow newspaper, in an interview published this week that it’s too early to declare victory. Grounds remain, he said, “to fear further attempts to take something from the Hermitage.”

Russian Government Decides Against Recreating Museum Shut by Stalin

The Russian government has decided against reuniting two prerevolutionary art collections that include works by Picasso and Matisse. The decision sets to rest, for now at least, a dispute that was addressed directly to President Vladimir V. Putin on live national television and prompted a monthslong war of words between the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

The collections of Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin, wealthy merchants who were early patrons of European modernist masters, were nationalized after the Bolshevik Revolution and turned into the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, which was shut down by Stalin in 1948  as ideologically suspect.

Vladimir Tolstoy, the great-great grandson of Leo Tolstoy and a cultural affairs adviser to Mr. Putin, conveyed the decision in a letter that was posted quietly on the Hermitage’s Web site last week. He wrote that the government had determined, after convening experts, that reviving the museum was “inadvisable” and would pose a threat to the “preservation and integrity” of Russia’s museum collections and could “destroy the historically formed collections” of the Hermitage and Pushkin museums, which hold dozens of paintings from the collections.

In another letter posted on the site, Mikhail Piotrovsky, the general director of the Hermitage, thanked those who he said had saved the museum “from an attempt to ravage it” and said the works from the Shchukin and Morozov collections would soon be moved to halls in honor of the collectors in the newly restored eastern wing of the General Staff building of the Hermitage. They are currently displayed in crowded quarters in the main Winter Palace building.

Russia’s museums have been created and destroyed by the whims of rulers over the centuries.  Irina Antonova, 91, who was director of the Pushkin museum for 52 years, took her dream of restoring the Museum of New Western Art to Mr. Putin during his live television call-in show in April. Many in Russia’s museum world have connected her sudden retirement, announced by Vladimir Medinsky, the culture minister, earlier this month, to fallout from the dispute and the Kremlin’s scramble to resolve it.

Ms. Antonova, who now holds the newly created post of president of the Pushkin museum â€" a title that she insists is not merely honorary â€" after being replaced by Marina Loshak, a prominent and much younger Moscow curator, said in a television interview last week after Mr. Tolstoy’s letter was published that she did not think she had lost the battle.

“I believe that in the end common sense must triumph,” she told Dozhd, or TV Rain, a Moscow television channel, and “we will have a state that will understand what it is to have the kind of museum that we don’t have in Moscow, a top museum of world art in the capital.”

Mr. Piotrovsky told Kommersant, a Moscow newspaper, in an interview published this week that it’s too early to declare victory. Grounds remain, he said, “to fear further attempts to take something from the Hermitage.”

Video Reviews of ‘The Conjuring,’ ‘The Act of Killing’ and ‘Computer Chess’

In this week’s video, Times critics offer their thoughts on “The Conjuring,” “The Act of Killing” and “Computer Chess.” See all of this week’s reviews here.

July 19: Where the Candidates Are Today

Planned events for the mayoral candidates, according to the campaigns and organizations they are affiliated with. Times are listed as scheduled but frequently change.

Joseph Burgess and Nicholas Wells contributed reporting.

Event information is listed as provided at the time of publication. Details for many of Ms. Quinn events are not released for publication.

Events by candidate

Albanese

Carrión

De Blasio

Liu

Quinn

Thompson

Weiner

Group event

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

7:45 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the Fourth Avenue subway station in Park Slope.

12 p.m.
The day after health care workers and patients were informed of Long Island College Hospital’s imminent closing, the public advocate announces legal action in an effort to halt the hospital’s closing, at a rally on Hicks and Pacific Streets in Brooklyn.

4 p.m.
Greets voters at the Fairway supermarket on Broadway and 74th Street.

5 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters at the 72nd Street subway station on Broadway.

7:30 p.m.
Greets concertgoers at “Celebrate Brooklyn!,” featuring the Waterboys and Alasdair Roberts, in Prospect Park.

John C. Liu
Democrat

1:30 p.m.
Attends Family Day at N.Y.C. Housing Authority’s International Tower, a 10-story building in Queens devoted to seniors, on 170th Street.

2:45 p.m.
Meets privately with representatives from Housing First!, an affordable housing advocacy group, at the Bank of America building in Midtown.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

1:15 p.m.
Meets privately with representatives from Housing First!, an affordable housing advocacy group, at the Bank of America building in Midtown.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

1:30 p.m.
Announces New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a pilot program to provide legal assistance to immigrants facing deportation, with U.S. Circuit Court Judge Robert Katzmann, City Council members and advocates, at the Cardozo School of Law.

3:45 p.m.
Meets privately with representatives from Housing First!, an affordable housing advocacy group, at the Bank of America building in Midtown.

7 p.m.
Makes brief remarks at the Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital Series, in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Some of Ms. Quinn’s events may not be shown because the campaign declines to release her advance schedule for publication.

William C. Thompson Jr.
Democrat

7 p.m.
Accepts an endorsement from the Richmond Hill Democratic Club, in Queens.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

11:30 a.m.
Visits with seniors at Los Sures Senior Center, the hub of a large social services organization in Williamsburg that Adolfo Carrion had already called on and Christine Quinn had tried to visit earlier this week but had to cancel to help an intern in need of medical attention, in Williamsburg.

5 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at the Carroll Street subway station, in Brooklyn.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

9:30 a.m.
Continues his search for vacationing New York City voters in the Catskills at Vacation Village in Fallsburg, N.Y.

10:30 a.m.
He and his wife, Lorraine, stop in at Giti Gardens, in Woodridge, N.Y.

11:30 a.m.
Meets with Lubavitch leaders at Camp Emunah, in Greenfield Park, N.Y.

12:30 p.m.
Stops for a bite at the Purple Pear North in Center One Mall, Woodridge, N.Y.

1 p.m.
Continues his tour of Woodridge, meeting merchants and shoppers at Center One Mall.

6 p.m.
Heads back to the city and greets concertgoers at “Celebrate Brooklyn!,” featuring the Waterboys and Alasdair Roberts, in Prospect Park.

7 p.m.
Greets voters in the South Slope Weekend Walk’s street fair, on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.

8 p.m.
Wraps up in his backyard, talking to voters at Summer Stroll in Bay Ridge, on Third Avenue.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

4 p.m.
Visits small business owners and shoppers in Sunnyside, Queens.

5:30 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters at the 46th Street subway station, on Queens Boulevard.

New York Today: Derailed

M.T.A. via Flickr Workers inspected damaged Metro-North track in the Bronx after a freight train hauling garbage derailed on Thursday night, crippling passenger service on Metro-North’s Hudson line.

A freight train derailment in the Bronx on Thursday night is causing major problems for the morning commute and will likely disrupt service for days.

Service on Metro-North’s Hudson commuter line, which serves 18,000 riders, is suspended south of Yonkers. There, shuttle buses will bring passengers to the Van Cortlandt Park subway station of the No. 1 line.

We will be watching all morning for the ripple effects across the region, including how this is affecting other commuter lines, subways and roadways.

Metro-North said Friday morning that the derailment of 10 cars on a 24-car-long train hauling garbage near the Spuyten Duyvil station “couldn’t have happened in a worse location.” The line is only two tracks wide and hemmed in by rock walls, making it hard to even remove the derailed cars.

“it’s not like pickup sticks,” said a railroad spokeswoman, Marjorie Anders. “It’s 10 huge cars that have to be picked up and hoisted on a crane.” She said the track at the location has been ruined and the third rail knocked down.

As for restoring service, she said, “If we’re very lucky it’ll be done in the next day or two.”

Here’s what else you need to know to start your Friday.

WEATHER

Heatwave? More like heat-tsunami: today is the hottest yet with a forecast high of 99 on Friday, 95 on Saturday with heavy rain. The hot streak should break on Sunday, with highs in the 80s.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit: Subways are O.K. Click for the current status.

- Roads O.K. so far.

Alternate-side parking rules in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- “Walker Evans American Photographs” opens at the Museum of Modern Art.

- The Classical Theater of Harlem’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. [Free]

- “Music in Motion”, a showcase of the region’s up-and-coming musicians debuts to delight New Jersey Transit customers at Newark Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal and Secaucus Junction.

- Watch the installation of art by Sol LeWitt in the Lobby of the Jewish Community Center. [Free]

- Fall Out Boy plays the “Today Show.” Watch them at 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza. [Free]

- Arias outdoors at the Metropolitan Opera’s recital tonight in Brooklyn Bridge Park. [Free]

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

AND FINALLY…

Today, you can request that an ice cream truck stop with a smartphone app. It’s a promotion by Uber, a cab hailing system.

E.C. Gogolak and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

We’re testing New York Today, which we put together just before dawn and update until noon.

What information would you like to see here when you wake up to help you plan your day? Tell us in the comments, send suggestions to anewman@nytimes.com or tweet them at @nytmetro using #NYToday. Thanks!

New York Today: Derailed

M.T.A. via Flickr Workers inspected damaged Metro-North track in the Bronx after a freight train hauling garbage derailed on Thursday night, crippling passenger service on Metro-North’s Hudson line.

A freight train derailment in the Bronx on Thursday night is causing major problems for the morning commute and will likely disrupt service for days.

Service on Metro-North’s Hudson commuter line, which serves 18,000 riders, is suspended south of Yonkers. There, shuttle buses will bring passengers to the Van Cortlandt Park subway station of the No. 1 line.

We will be watching all morning for the ripple effects across the region, including how this is affecting other commuter lines, subways and roadways.

Metro-North said Friday morning that the derailment of 10 cars on a 24-car-long train hauling garbage near the Spuyten Duyvil station “couldn’t have happened in a worse location.” The line is only two tracks wide and hemmed in by rock walls, making it hard to even remove the derailed cars.

“it’s not like pickup sticks,” said a railroad spokeswoman, Marjorie Anders. “It’s 10 huge cars that have to be picked up and hoisted on a crane.” She said the track at the location has been ruined and the third rail knocked down.

As for restoring service, she said, “If we’re very lucky it’ll be done in the next day or two.”

Here’s what else you need to know to start your Friday.

WEATHER

Heatwave? More like heat-tsunami: today is the hottest yet with a forecast high of 99 on Friday, 95 on Saturday with heavy rain. The hot streak should break on Sunday, with highs in the 80s.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit: Subways are O.K. Click for the current status.

- Roads O.K. so far.

Alternate-side parking rules in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- “Walker Evans American Photographs” opens at the Museum of Modern Art.

- The Classical Theater of Harlem’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. [Free]

- “Music in Motion”, a showcase of the region’s up-and-coming musicians debuts to delight New Jersey Transit customers at Newark Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal and Secaucus Junction.

- Watch the installation of art by Sol LeWitt in the Lobby of the Jewish Community Center. [Free]

- Fall Out Boy plays the “Today Show.” Watch them at 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza. [Free]

- Arias outdoors at the Metropolitan Opera’s recital tonight in Brooklyn Bridge Park. [Free]

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

AND FINALLY…

Today, you can request that an ice cream truck stop with a smartphone app. It’s a promotion by Uber, a cab hailing system.

E.C. Gogolak and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

We’re testing New York Today, which we put together just before dawn and update until noon.

What information would you like to see here when you wake up to help you plan your day? Tell us in the comments, send suggestions to anewman@nytimes.com or tweet them at @nytmetro using #NYToday. Thanks!