Festival of Short Plays Inspired by Trayvon Martin Case

The New Black Fest, which supports innovative plays by and about black people, has brought together seven playwrights to create six plays about race and privilege in the United States in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case.

The Alliance Theater in Atlanta, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Goodman Theater in Chicago,  Center Stage in Baltimore, the Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C. and the National Black Theater in New York are among those that have agreed to produce the work, said Keith Josef Adkins, a co-founder and the artistic director of New Black Fest.

“The playwrights are Latino, white, Middle Eastern, Asian-American and black,” Mr. Adkins said Monday in announcing the project. It is called “Facing Our Truth: Ten-Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege.” It was inspired, he said, by the debates and nationwide protests that greeted George Zimmerman’s July 13 acquittal in the killing of Mr. Martin, a unarmed black teenager.  Mr. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., claimed that he killed Mr. Martin, 17, in self-defense.

“The playwrights said ‘yes’ immediately and the theaters said ‘yes’ immediately,” Mr. Adkins said. Each theater will hire its own actors and director, he said, and have creative control of the plays, written by emerging and mid-career playwrights. “I certainly feel like while we have conversations around race and privilege in black communities, I wanted the conversations to be integrated,” said Mr. Adkins, who is also a playwright.

The playwrights signed on for the project will have completed their work in early September, Mr. Adkins said. They  are Dominique Morisseau (“Detroit ’67”); Winter Miller (“The Penetration Project”); Dan O’Brien (“The Body of An American”) in a collaboration with the musician Quetzal Flores; Marcus Gardley (“Every Tongue Confess”); Mona Mansour and Tala Manassah (co-authors of “After”); and A. Rey Pamatmat ( “Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them”).

Detroit Manager Hires Christie’s to Appraise Holdings at City Art Museum

The city of Detroit, which has filed for bankruptcy, has formally hired the international auction house Christie’s to appraise part of the city-owned art collection held by the Detroit Institute of Arts, the auction house said Monday.

Any decision about whether to sell the art to satisfy creditors has not been made, city officials have said, though all the city’s assets are being evaluated in light of the situation in Detroit, the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy.

Christie’s representatives had previously visited the museum in early June and confirmed Monday that the company had been hired to appraise the collection but gave no details about which portion of the collection it would be looking at.

“Christie’s was asked to assist due to our expertise in this area across all fine art categories and eras,” it said in its statement. It said, “In addition we will also assist and advise on how to realize value for the City while leaving the art in the City’s ownership.”

The office of Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr will pay Christie’s $200,000 for the appraisal which is expected to be completed by mid-October, the Detroit Free Press reported on its Web site. Christie’s will only appraise works of art that are clearly owned by the city, and that are not bound by donor restrictions that might rule out a possible sale, the newspaper said, citing Mr. Orr’s spokesman Bill Nowling.

MoMA Joins Tumblr to Reach Teens

The Museum of Modern Art in New York joined Tumblr on Monday with a new Web site aimed at teenagers, called MoMA Teens. Calder Zwicky, an associate educator at the museum, said they have been working on the site for the past nine months.

“Museums can be very intimidating at times,” Mr. Zwicky said. So this site will show just how teen-friendly the museum can be, featuring a listing of free classes that include 3-D printing and metal shop, animated GIFs, an archive of past programs and a blog.  “The idea was to meet teens where they already are,” Mr. Zwicky said, and “it seemed like Tumblr was the platform to use.”

‘Teen Beach Movie’ Gets Big Ratings for Disney

“Teen Beach Movie” is a certified smash. Disney Channel said on Monday that about 13.5 million people had watched the beach party musical, which had its premiere on July 19. That total includes the number of viewers who watched it live (8.4 million) and a week’s worth of DVR playback viewing, a standard industry measuring stick.

Among children ages 2 through 11, a total of eight million tuned in. A kooky mash-up of “Grease” and “Beach Blanket Bingo” overlaid with a movie-within-a-movie construct and a contemporary girl-power theme, “Teen Beach Movie” now comfortably ranks as the No. 2 film in cable television history, behind “High School Musical 2” from 2007, according to Nielsen.

While Disney Channel has not announced a sequel, its young viewers can surely expect one; in addition to strong ratings, tie-in products like a cast album have sold briskly. Gary Marsh, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide, is clearly thrilled. Even before the final viewer numbers became available, he was said to have pushed an ice cream cart around the network’s Burbank, Calif., corporate offices to celebrate.

A Library Where the Hush Is Over Its Very Existence

Nothing on the street outside says that it is there. First-time visitors must push through a revolving door of a court building in Lower Manhattan on faith, and hear their footsteps echo across a vast marble lobby before they finally glimpse a set of wooden double doors near a staircase leading down to a goblin-dark basement.

This is the entrance to City Hall Library, open to all yet known to relatively few and visible to just about no one. “I didn’t even know this was here. Is it open to the public?” Ydanis Rodriguez, a City Council member from Manhattan, asked as he entered it for the first time recently, even though it was a short walk from his offices.

Relative obscurity is nothing new for this institution, which is actually housed inside the Surrogate’s Court building. It is over 100 years old, but in July 1898 The New York Times wrote of its predecessor, “There are not many who know of its existence, and few who have heard of it know of its location.” An apt description for the current library, too.

Christine Bruzzese, the supervising librarian, says the library has 66,000 books on the shelves and in storage, and 285,000 periodicals, journals and volumes of clippings. The most popular request from the public is to research old land and property decisions by the city’s Board of Estimate, which ceased to exist in 1990.

But while book titles can be searched online, the books themselves cannot be downloaded or taken out. They must be read on site. That site consists of two large rooms, one somewhat dark and filled with bookshelves and old newspaper clippings. The other has a few computers and the librarians.

The volumes stocked by the library are not the kind of books most people would consider summer reading â€" “Financial Problems of the City of New York” is one title â€" and they also tend to be large and bulky.

“Sometimes they will say, ‘It’s a lot of reading.’ I always say, ‘Well, you know what, I wish I had time to sit and read it. I would love to do it,’” Ms. Bruzzese said. “I think a lot of people, too, are used to electronic things now, they expect to find something on a computer. They see a book this size, and they think, ‘Oh, it’s a lot to read.’”

Below the library are the cavernous storerooms and vaults that contain some of the maps, books, photographs and other items that are part of the Municipal Archives. They document the city’s government and leadership dating back to the unification of the boroughs into New York City in 1898, and even farther back to the first mayor of the city, Thomas Willett, in 1665.

The history of the city is celebrated in old sepia photographs, wall-size topographical maps and reproduction manuscripts on display within the library and in a visitor center next to the library.

Yet there is not a hint of any of this on the granite exterior of the imposing Beaux-Arts building at 31 Chambers Street, behind City Hall. The sign says only “Surrogate’s Court,” with just a small brass plaque explaining that it once was the Hall of Records. That was the building’s original purpose when it was completed â€" at a cost of $7 million â€" in 1907.

The librarians who work for the City Hall Library, like the workers for the Municipal Archives, are employees of the city’s Department of Records and Information Services. The librarians say the courthouse’s status as a designated landmark means that they are not allowed to hang a sign on the building’s exterior.

Since April 2012 the city has made available online nearly 900,000 digitized images and other material from the archives and plans to add 1.5 million more items. A new era looms in December, with the end of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure. He will be the first mayor to provide his official documents in digital form.

The process of digitization â€" there are 840,000 annual visits to the records Web site â€" means that the obscurity of the site’s physical location is becoming less of an issue. Still, the library does attract visitors to its quarters.

Nicole Richer, 20, a British student, traveled from England to research organized crime during the Prohibition era. She found the library easy to find, despite the lacks of signs. “I used Google Maps,” she said.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times City Hall Library is housed in relative obscurity inside the Surrogate’s Court building in Lower Manhattan behind a set of wooden doors. 

Chocolate Factory Theater Announces New Season

The Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City has its dance card filled for the fall and spring season. Kicking off the performances of dance, theater, music and all-of-the-above is “Flutter” by MVworks, a New York City-based dance company founded by Megan V. Sprenger.

In October, the Bessie award winner Karinne Keithley Syers is performing a new piece, “Another Tree Dance,” that combines sound, dance and text. Also on the calendar is “Someone Once Told Me I Was a Sound Man” by the choreographer Jon Kinzel.

The spring lineup includes Target MarginTheater, which will present a new version of the Yiddish play, “Uriel Acosta (Doubt is the Food of Faith),” adapted and directed by David Herskovits. The story follows the fate of a 17th-century Jew in Amsterdam who is excommunicated. Later, the choreographer, Liz Santoro, another Bessie winner who is based in Paris, will present “Relative Collider,” a work co-commissioned and presented with the Abrons Arts Center. For more information, go to chocolatefactorytheater.org/.

Portraits by Bob Dylan to Be Shown at London’s National Portrait Gallery

Bob Dylan/National Portrait Gallery of London “Nina Felix,” a pastel portrait made by Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan told us that everything would be different when he painted his masterpiece, but for this iconoclastic singer-songwriter, creating artwork and having it shown at internationally regarded institutions is becoming an increasingly regular experience. On Monday, the National Portrait Gallery in London became the latest museum â€" and the first ever in Britain â€" to announce that it will devote to Mr. Dylan’s (non-musical) work. This exhibition, called “Bob Dylan: Face Value,” will open on Aug. 24 and will display 12 pastel portraits made by him, the museum said.

In a news release, the National Portrait Gallery said that the people depicted in these portraits “are not of subjects from British public life, past or present, nor are they made by a working portrait artist.” Rather, the museum said, they “represent characters, with an amalgamation of features Dylan has collected from life, memory and his imagination and fashioned into people, some real and some fictitious.” The exhibition is curated by Sarah Howgate, the contemporary curator for the National Portrait Gallery, who has also overseen showings of portraits by Lucien Freud and by David Hockney.

Mr. Dylan, who has also had his paintings and artwork shown in Copenhagen, Milan and Chemnitz, Germany, caused a stir with a 2011 exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in New York called “The Asia Series.” Though these paintings were originally said to be made from Mr. Dylan’s own travels and experiences, they were later shown to resemble famous photographs that he did not take.

More recently, Mr. Dylan seems to have found himself in a portrait-painting mood: later this month, Columbia Records will release his album “Another Self Portrait,” which includes outtakes and unreleased tracks from his notorious 1970 record “Self Portrait.”

Aug. 5: 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.

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

Catsimatidis

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

Quinn

Thompson

Weiner

Group event

John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

7:45 p.m.
Greets the audience at a performance of “The Little Flower,” a one-man play about Fiorello La Guardia, at the Di Capo Theater on the Upper East Side. Mr. Catsimatidis said in an interview with Larry King earlier this year that he aspired “to be a 21st-century La Guardia.”

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the Clinton-Washington subway station with his wife, Chirlane McCray, in Brooklyn.

11 a.m.
Joins Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and nurses from the New York State Nurses Association for a rally and march to save Long Island College Hospital, across the street from the hospital in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

12:30 p.m.
Begins a five-day tour focused on growing different sectors of New York City’s economy, including the technology, manufacturing, design, film and television sectors, all in an effort to connect New Yorkers with good jobs across the city. The tour begins outside Mobile Commons, a technology company that helps its clients with mobile messaging campaigns, on Washington Street in Brooklyn.

6 p.m.
Is one of five candidates to greet voters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series’ annual Caribbean night, along with Dr. Una Clarke; his wife, Chirlane McCray; and his children, Chiara and Dante de Blasio, at Wingate Park in Brooklyn.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the Broadway Junction subway station in Brooklyn.

11:45 a.m.
Meets with seniors at the Inwood Senior Center in Upper Manhattan, the first of three senior centers he intends to visit on the day.

12:05 p.m.
Meets with seniors at the Dyckman Senior Center in Upper Manhattan, the second of three senior centers he intends to visit on the day.

12:30 p.m.
Meets with seniors at the Washington Heights and Inwood Y Senior Center in Upper Manhattan, the third of three senior centers he intends to visit on the day.

4 p.m.
Holds media availability after the Campaign Finance Board decides whether to grant Mr. Liu’s campaign public matching funds, in Lower Manhattan.

6 p.m.
Participates in a District Council 37 Town Hall, which includes Lillian Roberts, the District Council 37 executive director, as she discusses the future of New York City Housing Authority properties, at Ocean Bay Housing Development Community Center in Far Rockaway.

8:20 p.m.
Attends an iftar, the traditional evening meal that Muslims share to break their fast during Ramadan, at Al Madina Masjid in the East Village.

9:30 p.m.
Is one of five candidates to greet voters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series’ annual Caribbean night, featuring Morgan Heritage, Kes the Band and Mighty Sparrow, at Wingate Park in Brooklyn.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

10 a.m.
Visits the Great Kills Friendship Club on Staten Island with Assemblyman Joe Borelli and Councilman Vincent Ignizio, one of five mayoral candidates visiting senior centers on the day.

12:15 p.m.
Kicks off his citywide small-business tour by visiting the JAD Corporation, a janitorial supply company, in College Point, Queens.

2 p.m.
Continues his citywide small-business tour by visiting Ministar Restaurant and Gourmet Deli, in Astoria.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters outside the Delancey-Essex Street subway station, on the Lower East Side.

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

11:30 a.m.
Meets with members of the Far Rockaway Jewish community, at Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway.

2:15 p.m.
Holds a news conference to call for a city investigation into Sun Bright Hotel, a secret tenement in Chinatown described in The New York Post on Sunday as a “human kennel” because of its vermin-filled rooms and trash-laced hallways, all going for $10 a night, outside the Sun Bright Hotel in Chinatown.

7 p.m.
Is one of five candidates to greet voters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series’ annual Caribbean night, featuring Morgan Heritage, Kes the Band and Mighty Sparrow, at Wingate Park in Brooklyn.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

11:30 a.m.
Meets with seniors at the Elmhurst Senior Center in Manhattan, one of five mayoral candidates visiting senior centers on the day.

1 p.m.
Continue his “Keys to the City” tour by announcing what his campaign bills as 61 new ways to keep New York the capital of the middle class, at Gantry Plaza State Park Promenade in Queens.

6 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center subway stop, in Brooklyn.

7:30 p.m.
Is one of five candidates to greet voters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series’ annual Caribbean night, featuring Morgan Heritage, Kes the Band and Mighty Sparrow, at Wingate Park in Brooklyn.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

12 p.m.
Visits the Northside Senior Center in Brooklyn with his wife, Lorraine, the first of two senior centers he intends to visit on the day.

12:30 p.m.
Visits the Pete McGuinness Senior Center in Brooklyn, again with his wife, Lorraine, the second of two senior centers he intends to visit on the day.

3:45 p.m.
Answers questions from reporters from the Center for Community and Ethnic Media, one of the last candidates to take part in this series, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

5:30 p.m.
Is one of five candidates to greet voters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series’ annual Caribbean night, featuring Morgan Heritage, Kes the Band and Mighty Sparrow, at Wingate Park in Brooklyn.

New York Today: Tale of Two Tunnels

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times Some tunnel closures bring pleasure. Others, not so much.

Over the weekend, the Park Avenue car tunnel opened to pedestrians for the first time in its history as part of a temporary art installation that entranced visitors.

Elsewhere underground, starting on Monday, commuters on the R train will find the tunnel connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan closed for repairs until about October 2014.

The response to this closure may be less enthusiastic.

The R is now split in two â€" the Brooklyn segment and the segment running between Lower Manhattan and Queens.

Those seeking to cross the East River on the R on weekdays should switch to the 2, 3, 4, 5, A or C.

Alternatively, there is now ferry service from 58th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to Lower and Midtown Manhattan.

A bit of a hike from the 59th Street R station, and an extra $2 each way, but it should be a nice day for a walk and a boat ride.

About the Park Avenue tunnel trip: As you walk through, voices of pedestrians turn into waves of sound and light. The ribs of light make the tunnel resemble the inside of a whale.

“Kinda like being in the Batcave, weird sounds, funny sounds, some unclear sounds, but nice lighting!!” one explorer, Dominic Buchanan, wrote on Twitter.

If you missed it, “Voice Tunnel,” part of the city’s Summer Streets program, runs again on Aug. 10 and Aug. 17.

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

WEATHER

Another sparklingly un-hot day, with the high perhaps not reaching 80. You’re welcome.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit . [5:57] Delays on the D, N and R trains Click for current status

- Roads [5:55] O.K. so far. Click for current status.

Alternate-side parking: in effect Monday and Tuesday but not the rest of the week (happy Id al-Fitr).

COMING UP TODAY

- Supporters of John C. Liu, the city comptroller and mayoral candidate, rally at 9 a.m. outside the offices of the city Campaign Finance Board, which is voting on whether to deny funds to his campaign.

- Other mayoral candidates: William C. Thompson Jr. goes to a yeshiva in Far Rockaway, Queens. Bill de Blasio visits a technology company in Brooklyn. Joseph J. Lhota starts a “citywide small business” tour in College Point, Queens. Anthony D. Weiner releases his second “ideas book” in Queens.

- Time Warner customers probably won’t be able to watch “Under the Dome” tonight. The standoff between the cable company and CBS could last 10 days to six weeks, analysts say. [New York Times]

- A dog run, esplanade and lawn areas open at Hudson River Park in TriBeCa. Bonnie and Clyde, the yellow Labradors who reside in Gracie Mansion but whom the mayor doesn’t especially care for, will join the festivities.

- Outdoor movie fans have many choices: “The Avengers” in Coney Island, “Despicable Me” in Astoria Park, Sally Field in “Norma Rae” at Bryant Park. [All around sunset, and free]

- It’s Caribbean Night at the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series, 7:30 p.m. at Wingate Field in Brooklyn. [Free]

- The literature series at Brooklyn Bridge Park continues at 7 p.m. with “5 Borough Blues.” Each borough will be represented by a writer, including Colson Whitehead for Manhattan and Victor LaValle for Queens. [Free]

- The Zany Umbrella Circus â€" unicycles, juggling and more- performs at Willowbrook Park in Staten Island at 10:30 a.m. [Free]

IN THE NEWS

- A rookie officer fatally shot an armed 14-year-old boy who was chasing someone down a street in the Bronx, the police say. [New York Times]

- A pregnant woman was killed when a 60-foot-tall tree fell on her in a park in Queens. [New York Post]

- More than three million cubic yards of sand will be dumped onto Rockaway Beach starting this week to help protect it from storms. [Newsday]

- Yanks lose (Padres, 6-3), Mets lose (Royals, 6-2), A-Rod is expected to play while appealing suspension. [New York Times]

Michaelle Bond and E.C. Gogolak contributed reporting.

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

What information would you like to see here when you wake up to help you plan your day? Tell us in the comments, e-mail suggestions to Andy Newman or send them via Twitter at @nytmetro using #NYToday. Thanks!

Strawberry Fields Tanka

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

Persian cat lady:
Flaxen hair, cornflower eyes;
Abanico fans â€"
Goya court scenes on display.
Baubles amid leaf-shadows.

John’s “Imagine” wheel:
Yellow rose border, daisies;
Red rose mandala.
Child’s stuffed panda sits on ideals:
Black-white “no war” mosaic.

Gatekeeper Gary
Khaki-clad with peace buttons
Arranges rainbow bouquets.
Youth, middle-aged kneel, crouch -
Snap digital pacifists.

Today John’s photo
Stands framed by sunflowers.
Albums, programs, verse
Fringe Pompeii disc revered
By pink-and-white vintage bride.

Sable guitarist:
Tenor strums, sings Beatles tunes -
“Here comes the sun…” floats
“Imagine there’s no heaven…”
“Let it be…” John kvells, complete.

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.