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New York Musical Theater Festival Report: ‘Gary Goldfarb, Master Escapist’

Krista Buccellato and Jared Loftin in Russ Rowland Krista Buccellato and Jared Loftin in “Gary Goldfarb, Master Escapist.”

We are all mangosteens.

Like most important works of musical theater set in high schools, “Gary Goldfarb, Master Escapist” has a social message, and there it is. The mangosteen is an odd and rare fruit, high in antioxidants, difficult to find and reportedly so delicious you could die and go to vegetarian heaven after the first bite.

Plus, as Gary and his mother observe, the name is nice because it sounds kind of Jewish.

Much of “Gary Goldfarb,” which is part of this year’s New York Musical Theater Festival, better known as NYMF, is bliss and a half. Jared Loftin is cuddly-adorable and poignant as Gary, an insecure, overweight Long Island teenager who dreams of becoming a renowned magician but is having trouble even being allowed to enter the school’s talent show.

He is regularly bullied by Kenny (James David Larson) and Tyler (Dimitri Moise); quietly worshiped by Penelope (Krista Buccellato), who wears glasses, stutters and is in a wheelchair; and loudly disdained by Cheryl Samatsinghar-Stein (Shoba Narayanam), an Indian-Jewish beauty, the hottest girl in school.

Adults give Gary trouble, too. His mother, Gilda (MaryAnne Piccolo), taunts him about the need to diet. The cafeteria lady (Ms. Piccolo in a blond wig and blue-green lipstick) tempts him with empty carbs. Coach Rimsore (Todd Thurston) is no help, distracted as he is by his lust for Cheryl, who is approaching her 18th birthday.

Imagine “High School Musical” with cruelty, cynicism (maybe Penelope won’t be able to walk even in heaven) and knives (Kenny has a cutting habit), The songs â€" which include “There’s No Future in Fat,” “Gary Loves My Tater Tots” and “Jewish Mothers” â€" feature lyrics about gay people and Chick-Fil-A, Israel and Iran, and Bernie Madoff. One number rhymes “preggers” with “keggers.”

The clever perpetrators are Omri Schein, who did the irreverent book and lyrics, and James Olmstead, who wrote the catchy, nicely varied music. “Gary Goldfarb,” directed with style by John Znidarsic, is tremendous fun and does have a happy ending â€" betraying its cool with gusto â€" but the show seems extremely New Yorkish. Could tourists ever embrace it?

Well, “Avenue Q,” which won the best-musical Tony with jokes about ethnic bias and sexually active puppets, is still running on 50th Street.

“Gary Goldfarb: Master Escapist” continues at the Pershing Signature Theater Center, 480 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, Wednesday at 1 p.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m.; nymf.org, (212) 352-3101.



Andris Nelsons Withdraws From Tanglewood Performance After Concussion

Andris Nelsons, the newly appointed music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has had to withdraw from his Saturday evening performance at Tanglewood with his new orchestra - his first since his new position was announced - because of a household accident that left him with a concussion.

Mark Volpe, the orchestra’s managing director, said the Mr. Nelsons, 34, was struck in the head by a door that unexpectedly swung open at his house in Bayreuth, Germany, this past weekend. Mr. Nelsons was in Bayreuth to conduct at the Wagner festival.

“He went to a rehearsal,” Mr. Wolpe said on Monday afternoon, “and quickly realized that the injury was more serious than he had at first thought. He went to a hospital, where they diagnosed a severe concussion. He’s still in the hospital, and will remain there for a few more days as they monitor him. The encouraging news is that he’s making progress, but no doctor will allow him to get on an airplane at this point.”

Mr. Nelsons was to have led a single performance of the Verdi Requiem in his only scheduled Tanglewood performance this summer. He was also to have met informally with the music students at Tanglewood, attended a lunch with the board, and participated in an audience question-and-answer session. He conducts the Boston Symphony next in October, and is scheduled to return to Tanglewood for a longer stay next summer.

“I promise I will recover as soon as possible,” Mr. Nelsons said in a statement, “and very much look forward to coming back in good shape for my performances with the orchestra in October in Boston.”

The orchestra has not yet announced Mr. Nelsons’s replacement.



Andris Nelsons Withdraws From Tanglewood Performance After Concussion

Andris Nelsons, the newly appointed music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has had to withdraw from his Saturday evening performance at Tanglewood with his new orchestra - his first since his new position was announced - because of a household accident that left him with a concussion.

Mark Volpe, the orchestra’s managing director, said the Mr. Nelsons, 34, was struck in the head by a door that unexpectedly swung open at his house in Bayreuth, Germany, this past weekend. Mr. Nelsons was in Bayreuth to conduct at the Wagner festival.

“He went to a rehearsal,” Mr. Wolpe said on Monday afternoon, “and quickly realized that the injury was more serious than he had at first thought. He went to a hospital, where they diagnosed a severe concussion. He’s still in the hospital, and will remain there for a few more days as they monitor him. The encouraging news is that he’s making progress, but no doctor will allow him to get on an airplane at this point.”

Mr. Nelsons was to have led a single performance of the Verdi Requiem in his only scheduled Tanglewood performance this summer. He was also to have met informally with the music students at Tanglewood, attended a lunch with the board, and participated in an audience question-and-answer session. He conducts the Boston Symphony next in October, and is scheduled to return to Tanglewood for a longer stay next summer.

“I promise I will recover as soon as possible,” Mr. Nelsons said in a statement, “and very much look forward to coming back in good shape for my performances with the orchestra in October in Boston.”

The orchestra has not yet announced Mr. Nelsons’s replacement.



Mike Myers to Make Documentary About Talent Agent

Mike Myers is set to produce and direct “Supermensch,” a feature documentary about the life of Shep Gordon, a talent agent known for steering the career of Alice Cooper and helping to invent the celebrity chef, as well as working with Raquel Welch, Luther Vandross and Blondie.

The project was announced Monday by A&E IndieFilms, the documentary production arm of the A&E network, which will form a partnership with Mr. Myers. The project marks Mr. Myers’s directorial debut. Look for Mr. Gordon’s friends in the film: Mr. Cooper, Emeril Lagasse, Michael Douglas, Willie Nelson, Sylvester Stallone and Anne Murray, among others.

“I met Shep Gordon in 1991 on the set of Wayne’s World. I thought he was a perfect combination of Brian Epstein, Marshall McLuhan and Mr. Magoo,” Mr. Myers said in a statement. “I’ve been trying to get Shep to agree to let me make a movie about him for 10 years. Last year he finally he said yes. I loved him like a brother before we started making this film and now having sifted through his life and his legacy, I love him even more,” Mr. Myers said.



Revisiting History Through Objects, and a Long-Gone Game Show

A footlocker stocked with the wartime supplies of a Union Army mapmaker is on display as part of “The Civil War in 50 Objects” exhibition by the New-York Historical Society. .New-York Historical Society A footlocker stocked with the wartime supplies of a Union Army mapmaker is on display as part of “The Civil War in 50 Objects” exhibition by the New-York Historical Society. .

Tracing history through objects is popular these days. Neil McGregor, the director of the British Museum, did it in 700 best-selling pages, and for the last couple of months, the New-York Historical Society has had an exhibition called “The Civil War in 50 Objects.”

Finding the 50 objects involves something of a scavenger hunt â€" they are on display in different places at the society, at 170 Central Park West, at West 77th Street. All 50 came from the society’s collection of about 1 million Civil War-era items, “a definitive record of slavery, secession, rebellion and reunion from the time these movements first roiled the city and the nation,” according to the Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer. He made the final decisions on which 50 objects were chosen, and which were not, after members of the museum’s staff had winnowed the possibilities to 75.

The 50 objects hint at politics and power â€" in a gallery on the second floor are the laurel leaves that lined Lincoln’s bier when his body lay in state at City Hall. But some of the objects touch on the ordinary. There is a footlocker stocked with the wartime supplies and gear of a Union Army mapmaker.

But when the 380-page companion book landed on my desk, the first thing that came to mind was: This is not new. What popped into my head was an almost-50-year-old memory that illustrates the place that objects have in history.

This is a memory that risks trivializing objects that tell important stories, for it is the memory of a child â€" me â€" and a game show that was on when I was sick and stayed home in the cold winter of third grade, a game show called “The Object Is.” It was on the air for only 13 weeks in late 1963 and early 1964 and starred Dick Clark, already famous for “American Bandstand” but not yet a mainstay of New Year’s Eve countdowns. It opened with a deep-voiced announcer explaining the premise, which was not that different from telling the story of human history (or the Civil War) through objects.

“Every famous person, living or dead, real or fictional, can be associated with objects,” the announcer declared. “If the object is a kite, you think of Benjamin Franklin.” If the clue was an apple, he continued, the person could be Sir Isaac Newton or William Tell. But if a second clue was an arrow, “you know it’s William Tell.”

In the first episode, the one that turned up on YouTube after Mr. Clark’s death last year, the contestants mentioned Davy Crockett, Charles A. Lindbergh and the conductor Leopold Stokowski, among others. One of those contestants was a man named Gerald Huckaby, whom the announcer introduced, with no hint of humor, as “a bachelor professor at a girls’ college.”

I tracked him down to see what he remembered.

Not much, it turned out, because he had been a contestant on more game shows than he could keep track of.

He mentioned “Your Surprise Package,” a game show on CBS in 1961 and 1962 with George Fennaman (who had been Groucho Marx’s sidekick on “You Bet Your Life,” later syndicated as “The Best of Groucho.”) “They liked the way I was excited on camera,” he recalled, “and they asked me to be on a number of first-time quiz shows.” “The Object Is” was one of them, he said after watching the episode on YouTube.

But “The Object Is” was no thrill-a-minute production. “Between shots,” he said, “they had so many pauses that I would be reading the ‘Odyssey,’ because that’s what I was teaching.”

Mr. Huckaby, 80, said he spent 19 years on the faculty at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, the alma mater of the actress Angie Dickinson and the novelist Helen Maria Viramontes. Several years after he appeared on “The Object Is,” he wrote a book of poems that was illustrated by Corita Kent, who, as Sister Mary Corita, had been the chairwoman of the art department at Immaculate Heart. (As the antiwar protests of the 1960s gained momentum, she became known for silk-screen images of love and peace. She designed a “love” stamp issued in 1985, the year before her death.)

He also lost his status as a bachelor professor. He married one of his students.

Ever the English professor, he was careful about the sequence of tenses. “She wasn’t a student when I married her,” he said. “She had been my student.”

“I was the moderator for the school newspaper,” he said. “She was on the staff. We had our end-of-the-year banquet. It happened to be on my birthday. She walks up to me and says, ‘It’s my birthday, too.’”



‘Mr. Selfridge’ to Return for Second Season on PBS

Mr. Piven in ITV for Masterpiece Mr. Piven in “Mr. Selfridge.”

Anglophiles rejoice. “Mr.  Selfridge,”  on PBS’s “Masterpiece Classic,” will be back for a second season in 2014, Masterpiece and PBS announced on Monday. Starring Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American founder of Selfridges department store in London, the first season of the eight-episode series reached nearly 15 million viewers.

The show marked Mr.  Piven’s return to TV after his Emmy and Golden Globe wins for his performance as Ari Gold, a temperamental superagent in the hit HBO comedy series “Entourage.” The second season of “Mr. Selfridge” picks up the story in 1914, as the department store celebrates its fifth business anniversary as World War I looms.

“I’m absolutely delighted that Masterpiece viewers welcomed ‘Mr. Selfridge’ into their homes,” Mr. Piven said in a statement. “’Mr. Selfridge’ is a true ensemble piece, and audiences can look forward to seeing the return of their favorite characters and some intriguing new faces.”

The returning cast includes Frances O’Connor as Mr. Selfridge’s wife Rose, Aisling Loftus as Agnes Towler, Katherine Kelly as Lady Mae, Grégory Fitoussi as Henri Leclair, Trystan Gravelle as Victor Colleano, Amanda Abbington as Miss Mardle, Tom Goodman-Hill as Roger Grove and Ron Cook as Mr. Crabb.



Dance Troupes to Tour Asia and South America

DanceMotion USA, a cultural diplomacy and exchange program produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has selected David Dorfman Dance, Contra-Tiempo and the Mark Morris Dance Group for its fourth season.

The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the academy of music recently announced the schedule for the program this year. David Dorfman Dance, from New York City, will travel to Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in April and May 2014. Contra-Tiempo, from Los Angeles, will travel to Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador in May and June. And the Brooklyn-based Mark Morris Dance Group will travel to Myanmar, Cambodia and Timor-Leste in October and November 2014.

As in the three previous seasons of the program, the dance companies are touring places were audiences would not usually have a chance to see such artists. Besides performing, the companies will hold workshops and master classes, as well as discussions about arts management and technical production with local artists and audiences. As part of the exchange, a Central Asian dance ensemble will come to this country to collaborate with David Dorfman Dance in late 2014.

In all, DanceMotion USA has visited 34 countries, with 77 performances and 328 workshops and reached more than 22,000 students and 51,000 audience members.

“DanceMotion USA has provided us with the opportunity to broaden our institutional mission and to share American dance with global audiences,” Joseph V. Melilo, the executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music said in a statement. “This resonant cultural exchange program has been a successful and rewarding endeavor in its first three years. It is our honor to be working again with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.”



Dance Troupes to Tour Asia and South America

DanceMotion USA, a cultural diplomacy and exchange program produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has selected David Dorfman Dance, Contra-Tiempo and the Mark Morris Dance Group for its fourth season.

The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the academy of music recently announced the schedule for the program this year. David Dorfman Dance, from New York City, will travel to Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in April and May 2014. Contra-Tiempo, from Los Angeles, will travel to Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador in May and June. And the Brooklyn-based Mark Morris Dance Group will travel to Myanmar, Cambodia and Timor-Leste in October and November 2014.

As in the three previous seasons of the program, the dance companies are touring places were audiences would not usually have a chance to see such artists. Besides performing, the companies will hold workshops and master classes, as well as discussions about arts management and technical production with local artists and audiences. As part of the exchange, a Central Asian dance ensemble will come to this country to collaborate with David Dorfman Dance in late 2014.

In all, DanceMotion USA has visited 34 countries, with 77 performances and 328 workshops and reached more than 22,000 students and 51,000 audience members.

“DanceMotion USA has provided us with the opportunity to broaden our institutional mission and to share American dance with global audiences,” Joseph V. Melilo, the executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music said in a statement. “This resonant cultural exchange program has been a successful and rewarding endeavor in its first three years. It is our honor to be working again with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.”



J. Cole Apologizes for an Autism Lyric

Add J. Cole to the list of rappers who sing it and then take it back: Mr. Cole has apologized to people with autism and their families for a song with an offensive reference to autism, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Cole wrote in a recent blog post that while he does not agree with rappers forced to make such amends, he offered a “sincere apology” for his words in Drake’s “Jodeci Freestyle.” In that song, Mr. Cole raps that he’s “artistic” while his rivals are “autistic, retarded.”

“To the parents who are fighting through the frustrations that must come with raising a child with severe autism, finding strength and patience that they never knew they had; to the college student with Asperger’s syndrome; to all those overcoming autism,” Mr. Cole wrote. “You deserve medals, not disrespect. I hope you accept my sincere apology.”

Still, Mr. Cole added, his music is “going to ruffle feathers at times.”

Mr. Cole’s recent album “Born Sinner” was released last month and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The rapper wrote that he knew he was being offensive when he was contacted by people struggling directly or indirectly with autism.

“I was instantly embarrassed that I would be ignorant enough” to say something so hurtful, Mr. Cole wrote.

Other high-profile rappers have recently let their lyrics get them in trouble and been forced to apologize.

In April, Reebok parted ways with the rapper Rick Ross after the company came under pressure for lyrics he performed in the Rocko song “U.O.E.N.O.” that referred to having sex with a woman without her knowledge after drugging her. Mr. Ross said later, “I should have known better.” Lil Wayne lost an endorsement deal with Mountain Dew in May because of a lyric making a crude reference about Emmett Till, whose death helped ignite the civil rights movement, with a vulgar reference to Mr. Till and sex. The 14-year-old was tortured and murdered in 1955 after accusations of flirting with a white woman. Lil Wayne later said he regretted the lyrics.



What Inspired You to Work in Dance?

This summer, The New York Times is publishing essays by its critics about the moments or works that prompted them to write about the arts â€" along with stories from readers about their own epiphanies. Previously we heard from readers who work in television and classical music.

This week, Alastair Macaulay will write about the work that set him on the path toward becoming The Times’s chief dance critic. So we want to hear from dance professionals about what inspired their careers.

If you have a job that revolves around dance, we want to hear about the piece, performance or other experience that led you to dedicate yourself to the art form. Please submit a comment below describing what you do and how a dance experience led you to your career; keep submissions under 250 words.

We will present some of your stories alongside Mr. Macaulay’s essay. We look forward to reading about your dance inspirations.



July 22: 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

Catsimatidis

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

Thompson

Weiner


John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

1:30 p.m.
Delivers his vision for New York City female entrepreneurs, at an Urban Rebound conference for Women’s Economic Independence, at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

4 p.m.
Greets voters in front of Trader Joe’s, on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea.

John C. Liu
Democrat

11 a.m.
As city comptroller, releases the findings of a new audit of the Department of Education’s Special Education Student Information System, in front of the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

10:30 a.m.
Visits seniors at the Mount Loretto Friendship Club, on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island.

William C. Thompson Jr.
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the 145th Street subway station on Broadway.

12:15 p.m.
Calls for a new $25,000 incentive for New York City-based tech startups in an effort to attract technology jobs to the city, at Thought Works on Madison Avenue in Midtown.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

11:15 a.m.
Continues his “Keys to the City Tour,” by sharing his proposal to provide tax breaks to families who care for seniors or relatives with long-term illnesses at home, at the Riverdale Senior Services Center in the Bronx.

11:45 a.m.
Following his news conference on an issue involving senior care, he meets with seniors spending the day or seeking services at Riverdale Senior Services.

7:30 p.m.
Looks for voters at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series, featuring Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Chubb Rock and Whodini, in Wingate Park, Brooklyn.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

11:30 a.m.
After traffic thwarted last week’s scheduled vist, calls on the Hebrew Educational Society at a Jewish Association Serving the Aging senior center in Canarsie.

12:15 p.m.
Visits with seniors at the Vandalia Senior Center in Brooklyn.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

5:30 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at West 135th Street and Lenox Avenue, in Harlem.



July 22: 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

Catsimatidis

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

Thompson

Weiner


John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

1:30 p.m.
Delivers his vision for New York City female entrepreneurs, at an Urban Rebound conference for Women’s Economic Independence, at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

4 p.m.
Greets voters in front of Trader Joe’s, on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea.

John C. Liu
Democrat

11 a.m.
As city comptroller, releases the findings of a new audit of the Department of Education’s Special Education Student Information System, in front of the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

10:30 a.m.
Visits seniors at the Mount Loretto Friendship Club, on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island.

William C. Thompson Jr.
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the 145th Street subway station on Broadway.

12:15 p.m.
Calls for a new $25,000 incentive for New York City-based tech startups in an effort to attract technology jobs to the city, at Thought Works on Madison Avenue in Midtown.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

11:15 a.m.
Continues his “Keys to the City Tour,” by sharing his proposal to provide tax breaks to families who care for seniors or relatives with long-term illnesses at home, at the Riverdale Senior Services Center in the Bronx.

11:45 a.m.
Following his news conference on an issue involving senior care, he meets with seniors spending the day or seeking services at Riverdale Senior Services.

7:30 p.m.
Looks for voters at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series, featuring Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Chubb Rock and Whodini, in Wingate Park, Brooklyn.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

11:30 a.m.
After traffic thwarted last week’s scheduled vist, calls on the Hebrew Educational Society at a Jewish Association Serving the Aging senior center in Canarsie.

12:15 p.m.
Visits with seniors at the Vandalia Senior Center in Brooklyn.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

5:30 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at West 135th Street and Lenox Avenue, in Harlem.



New York Today: We Made It

Parasols may turn to umbrellas before the day is through.Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Parasols may turn to umbrellas before the day is through.

We made it.

It was 97 degrees on Friday. The city set a new record for electricity use trying to keep cool. The breeze was the temperature of a human body.

It was awful. It is over.

We are pleased to say that today the highs will be in mid 80s, with lows in the low 70s tonight. You can expect rain and thunderstorms. You should bring an umbrella. And you might even turn off your air conditioner.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit: Normal morning service will resume on MetroNorth’s Hudson Line today, following last week’s freight train derailment. The M.T.A. has put out a surprisingly fascinating video of the repairs.

Subways are O.K. Click for the latest M.T.A. status.

Roads: Traffic moving well. Click for updates at CBS New York.

Alternate-side parking rules: in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- Three major women’s groups announce their endorsement of Scott M. Stringer for comptroller. In the mayor’s race, Bill de Blasio chats with voters outside of Trader Joe’s in Chelsea and Anthony D. Weiner visits a senior center in the Bronx. William C. Thompson Jr. will call for government incentives to tech start ups while visiting one. Joseph J. Lhota is at Mount Loretto Friendship Club, a Staten Island senior center.

- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo will compete in a whitewater rafting race upstate to promote tourism in the Adirondacks. They may not be evenly matched.

- NYC Restaurant Week begins

- The Martha Graham Dance Company performs at SummerStage in Central Park. 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. [Free]

- Column McCann reads from his new novel “TransAtlantic” in Brooklyn Bridge Park at 7 p.m. [Free]

- There is an open air screening of the 1951 Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn classic “The African Queen” in Bryant Park. Sunset. [Free]

- It’s “Old School Night” at the the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series with a gaggle of rappers in Wingate Field, Brooklyn at 7:30p.m. [Free]

- And an old school Reno, Nevada, showgirl masquerades as a singing nun in “Sister Act,” screening in Jamaica, Queen’s Frederick Cabbell Park at 8:27 p.m. [Free]

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

IN THE NEWS

- Yankees lost against the Red Sox, 7 to 8. And Alex Rodriguez’s return is delayed.

AND FINALLY…
On this day in 1869, the civil engineer John Augustus Roebling died. His final glory â€" the Brooklyn Bridge â€" was not yet complete. It would not open until 1883.

(Also, the lost chicken found in Prospect Park and written about here last week has a new home. In Bushwick.)

Nicole DeSmet and E.C. Gogolak contributed reporting.

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