Total Pageviews

The Week in Pictures for Aug. 16

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include graffiti in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; swimming lessons in Far Rockaway, Queens; and a protest march on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

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 Jim Dwyer, Sarah Lyall, David Chen, J. David Goodman and Kate Taylor. Also, the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn. 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.



The Week in Pictures for Aug. 16

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include graffiti in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; swimming lessons in Far Rockaway, Queens; and a protest march on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

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 Jim Dwyer, Sarah Lyall, David Chen, J. David Goodman and Kate Taylor. Also, the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn. 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 | $12 Million for a Luxury Co-op at the Pierre Hotel

The Pierre Hotel.Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times The Pierre Hotel.

A luxury co-op with Central Park frontage at the Pierre Hotel, the 1930 white-glove landmark that underwent a $100 million renovation in 2005, sold for $12 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The under-the-radar estate sale at 2 East 61st Street involved two longtime residents of the Pierre, Mary R. Cowell Ross, who died in her 24th-floor apartment in February at age 102, and Barbara Digan Zweig, who with her husband, the financial savant Martin Zweig, had bought the 16-room triplex Pierre penthouse in 1999 for $21.5 million, at the time a record. Because of the nature of the sale, very little detail was available on the Ross apartment. The Zweigs’ penthouse went on the market in March at the stratospheric asking price of $125 million, shortly after Mr. Zweig died in February at age 70. His prognosticative powers surfaced in 1987 when he publicly predicted the stock-market crash three days before it happened. Mary Ross, a pioneer among female lawyers, was the 14th president of the New York Women’s Bar Association.

Ms. Zweig, who has a primary residence on Fisher Island in Florida, had not wished to return to the penthouse after her husband’s death but did want to maintain a toehold at the Pierre, a Schultze & Weaver-designed building that the couple had loved. The exclusive co-op tower, where cash-only transactions are the rule, is owned by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, which provides all residents with five-star hotel amenities at a five-star price; the maintenance for the penthouse is $47,000 per month.

Though that ornate triplex, which dominates Floors 41 through 43, is listed with Elizabeth Sample, Brenda Powers and Samantha Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty, a Sotheby’s spokesman confirmed that they did not represent Ms. Zweig in her $12 million purchase.

Downtown at TriBeCa’s futuristic V33, the seven-unit stone-and-glass condo built in 2008 on the site of a former parking lot at 33 Vestry Street and Hudson Street, a three-level town house, No. 2, sold for $10.5 million, making it the week’s second-priciest residential transfer. The asking price had been $11 million; the carrying charges are listed as $3,035, and the sale includes a deeded parking space beneath the building.

The 25-foot-wide town house has four bedrooms, four and a half baths and 1,700 square feet of outdoor space divided among terraces and a garden. The living and entertainment areas are brightened by a double-height glass wall that faces south; the flooring is wide-plank Mafi wood, and there is an open Bulthaup chef’s kitchen.

The seller, Charles Dunne, was a principal developer of V33, designed by the Dutch architect Winka Dubbeldam; the buyers are Robert W. Fairbairn, a senior managing director at Black Rock, and Sarah F. Colleypriest. Mr. Dunne was represented by Brett Miles and Susan Green of Town Residential, and the buyers by Danny Davis, also of Town.

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



Every Cat Has Its Day: Hermitage Museum’s Mouse Catchers Are Immortalized in Portraits

MOSCOW â€" While it might seem risky to keep dozens of cats near some of the world’s most precious pieces of art, cats are regarded as treasured guardians of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, patrolling the basement for mice and rats and treated like furry royalty by doting staff members.

The Hermitage Court waiter cat.Eldar Zakirov The Hermitage Court waiter cat.

The museum even holds an annual Day of the Hermitage Cat to honor its army of felines, members of which have now been immortalized in the rich dress of imperial court servants in portraits commissioned for publication by the Hermitage Magazine, which is published by the museum’s Hermitage XXI Century Foundation. The foundation is working to update the museum.

Zorina Myskova, the magazine’s editor, said in an e-mail that the solemn cats depicted in the portraits were chosen by the museum’s special cat “curator,” Maria Haltunen.  Ms. Haltunen is the co-author, with Mary Ann Allin, of a children’s book called “Hermitage Cats Save the Day,” which has been turned into a musical for children with a jazz score by Chris Brubeck.

“This is their first such depiction in this manner, in the tradition of Dutch costumed portrait,” said Ms. Myskova, who added that their dress was carefully selected by a curator in the museum’s Russian costume department, which has vast stores of tsarist-era livery costumes and accessories that were considered ideologically suspect until the 1990s.

According to the museum, Peter the Great was the first to give residence to a cat in the Winter Palace, after he built St. Petersburg in the early 18th century, and like so many things that he brought to Russia the cat was Dutch.  His daughter, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, looked eastward, to Kazan, where cats are famous for their hunting prowess and are a symbol of the city. She ordered that “the best and biggest cats suitable for catching mice” be conscripted in the city and appointed them to guard the picture galleries of the Hermitage.

The Hermitage cats are unique in the museum world, said Ms. Myskova, because they continue to do their job.

“Unlike the British Museum, the Hermitage was able to save its cats, which continue to fulfill the function of servants, like those of the livery in which we have dressed them,” she said.

Hermitage Magazine commissioned the portraits from Eldar Zakirov, a 30-year-old graphic artist based in Tashkent, the capital of the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan.  Mr. Zakirov created six images, including the “Hermitage Court Waiter,”  who goes by the name Kuzma in daily life at the museum, and the “Hermitage Court Outrunner,” aka Rikki the Elder.

Mr. Zakirov said by e-mail that he was inspired by the paintings of such classic Russian portrait artists of the 18th and 19th centuries as Orest Kiprensky and Ilya Repin, and varied his technique from “the smooth glazed manner of court portraitists” in some works to “the more free and expressive approach of later masters” in others.   He said he also tried to be true to each cat, striving in the portraits “to convey not only a resemblance in portraiture to each specific cat, but also its individual quirks: spots on its mug, the form of its ears, the length of its fur.”

The artist has already had a strong response on his page on the deviantart.com Web site, where he also displays his images of Father Frost, fantasy scenes, and shapely women, and the cats are fast turning into an Internet cat meme. He said he had already received a number of orders from cat owners who would love to see their beloved pets in tsarist costume.

Ms. Myskova would not specify if and when there will be mugs or T-shirts of the liveried cats, but said that “our idea will definitely be continued.”



A Gumdrop Shape, Good and Plenty

Ask 5-year-olds to draw you a tree and they will unwittingly sketch you a pin oak.

Large and handsome at maturity, the pin oak (Quercus palustris) is perhaps best known for its perfect “tree” shape. When growing in full sun with good soil, it develops a beautiful oval crown of leaves. The most colorful description I have heard is that it is gumdrop-shaped, bearing in mind that this is one big gumdrop; a full-grown pin oak can reach heights of more than 70 feet.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Studying the architecture of the oak’s limbs reveals much about its beautiful symmetry. Pin oaks develop a dense branching pattern. The young tree’s boughs initially point upward at the top of the trunk. But as the tree matures, these first branches begin to splay outward, gradually reaching a 90-degree angle with the trunk. Finally, if the tree reaches a healthy adulthood, the lower branches, which will have continued to elongate and grow their own subbranches, begin to droop. These older branches are frequently still alive and well but now emerge at a more obtuse angle.

In the wild, pin oaks grow well along woodland edges but can also be found in the dense inner forest, where the tree’s canopy may take any number of arresting shapes, reaching out here or there to capitalize on available light. In the city they are an occasional find in the preserved pockets of urban woods that dot all five boroughs and are one of the most abundant trees in man-made environments.

Though sometimes considered too large for the tightly packed residential areas in New York City, pin oaks are still planted as street trees. But they may be at their best shading thousands of hot, tired New York City picnickers, runners, bicyclists, dog walkers, residents and tourists from the sun, while feeding at least as many squirrels and blue jays with their acorns.

Few parks in the city are without at least a few pin oaks, and that is a point worth considering. The tree is particularly well adapted to survive harsh treatment â€" lack of water, intense heat, freezing temperatures, pests of all kinds (from insects to dogs to cars) â€" which has made it one of the city’s most desirable and planted trees.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s Million Trees Initiative, more than 750,000 trees have been planted to date in parks, along busy streets, in abandoned lots and at schools. They extend the acreage of already valuable urban forests and remediate areas compromised by invasive vines and other plants. Pin oaks are neck-in-neck in popularity with a close relative, the red oak, in the program, with more than 30,000 planted.

Indeed, an 11-year-old pin oak was the tree Mr. Bloomberg chose to recognize as the 500,000th tree in the initiative, in an Oct. 18, 2011, ceremony in St. Nicholas Park in Harlem.

Appealing and durable, the pin oak has found a home in the Big Apple.



Wait Ends for a Yiddish Version of ‘Godot’

“Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett’s signature, absurdist play, has a new twist: the New Yiddish Rep and the Castillo Theater are presenting what they bill as the first-ever production in Yiddish. The play, to run Sept. 20-Oct. 13 at the Castillo Theater, presents the characters as Holocaust survivors. The boy who is Godot’s messenger is played by a young African-American actor.

The co-production is the first collaboration between the theaters. The New Yiddish Rep started to present plays in Yiddish in 2007.  The Castillo Theater, at 543 West 42nd Street in Manhattan, presents a multi-cultural range of productions, many with African-American themes. Moshe Yassur, the director of the Yiddish “Waiting for Godot,” brought the two theaters together through his work with Woodie King Jr., the founder and director of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theater, an important black theater company that has also collaborated with the Castillo.

“It’s the first time any Beckett has been in Yiddish,” David Mandelbaum, the founder and artistic director of New Yiddish Rep, said. “There have been a couple of translations of Godot into Yiddish but none of them got any full productions. The translation we’re using is a new translation by Shane Baker.”

Beckett, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1969, wrote “Waiting for Godot” in French. It was first presented in Paris in 1953.

“Yiddish is a marvelous language to give this play context,” Mr. Mandelbaum said of the tragi-comedy about characters waiting (and waiting) for salvation. “It is a living language full of cultural expression. Beckett, I think, was very aware of the historical context of what he was writing about, in the 1940s.”

While the words of the play are unchanged, the characters are depicted as Holocaust survivors, Mr. Mandelbaum said. “There’ll be a subtle costume hint: Vladimir will be wearing underneath his jacket a camp jacket. Estragon will be wearing his camp pants under his ordinary pants.”

Diane Stiles, managing director of the Castillo Theater, predicted that a diverse audience will be drawn to a “Waiting for Godot” in Yiddish, in a theater known for its mix of productions. Supertitiles in English and Russian will be available.

“This kind of cultural mash-up is right up our alley,” Ms. Stiles said. “We’re very excited.”



New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘The Nightmare Dream’

Reviews of shows from the New York International Fringe Festival will appear on ArtsBeat through the festival’s close on Aug. 25. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.

Sometimes a play is 90 percent premise and 10 percent execution. If you even vaguely know Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” about four young lovers who spend the night (chastely) in the Athenian woods, and Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (or any vampire story, really), you will get the whole idea behind Neal J. Freeman’s 55-minute horror comedy, “The Nightmare ‘Dream.’ ”

In Shakespeare’s mind, apparently, the worst thing that could happen to four such youngsters was to become temporary victims of mischievous fairies who cast silly love spells. In Mr. Freeman’s, they are set upon by a pack of thirsty vampires. It’s a good bet that this “Dream” will not end with a happy wedding.

Oberon (Patrick Toon), king of the fairies, is now a Dracula type with a dramatic cape and evil intent. His wife and queen, Titania (Akyiaa Wilson), wears blood-red, snarls frequently and is attended by two crouching females with fangs. Kyle Metzger is highly interesting as Renfield, the bug eater. And Minna Taylor (yes, Minna) is entertaining as Helena. Mr. Freeman directs, not subtly but with a lightweight sense of fun.

“The Nightmare ‘Dream‘” continues through Sunday at the 14th Street Y, 344 East 14th Street, Manhattan,



Roosevelt Island Tramway, 12:05 P.M.

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times


What Inspired You to Work in Theater?

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, along with stories from readers about their own epiphanies. Previously we heard from readers who work in television, classical music, dance, pop music, video games and the visual arts.

Next week, Charles Isherwood will write about what set him on the path toward becoming a theater critic for The Times. We want to hear from theater professionals about what inspired their careers.

Whether you’re a playwright, a community theater manager, an actress, her agent, her understudy, a sound technician, a set painter or a Broadway usher, we want to hear about the theatrical works or experiences that led you to dedicate yourself to the field.

Please submit a comment below describing what you do and how an experience in theater led you to your career. Keep submissions under 250 words.

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



Aug. 16: 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.Maps of all campaign events since April »
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 Utica Avenue subway station in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

10:30 a.m.
Releases new report in his capacity as the city’s public advocate that he says documents the heavy toll that the closing of Interfaith Medical Center would exact upon the community if it shuts down as planned. Much of that impact stems from Interfaith’s role as Brooklyn’s largest private provider of psychiatric care, according to the candidate, who is appearing at the news conference with doctors, nurses, hospital workers and union officials, at Cadman Plaza.

5 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters, at the Seventh Avenue subway station in Park Slope.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the Franklin Avenue subway station on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

12:30 p.m.
Delivers remarks, at the Stapleton Senior Center Picnic at Nasen Park in Staten Island.

1 p.m.
Stops in at the Muslim American Society on Berger Street in Staten Island.

5 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters, at the Utica Avenue subway station on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

7:30 p.m.
Attends Holy Night, at the Moorish Science Temple of America in Bedford Stuyvesant.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

6 p.m.
Stops by the last Summer Stroll of the season, a stomping ground that his mayoral rival Sal Albanese until now pretty much had to himself, on Third Avenue between 69th and 80th Streets in Bay Ridge.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the 72nd Street subway station on Broadway.

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

11:15 a.m.
Unveils his citywide transportation plan, and accepts the endorsements of City Councilwoman Debi Rose and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726, representing roughly 2,000 active and retired bus drivers and mechanics from Staten Island, at the A.T.U. depot on Castleton Avenue in Staten Island.

2:45 p.m.
Tours Caribbean small businesses with Assemblyman Nick Perry in Crown Heights, starting on Utica Avenue.

7 p.m.
Visits with residents of Tracey Towers, along with Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, in the Bronx.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

10:45 a.m.
Calls for beat cops to wear cameras, in an effort to reform the controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, as part of his continuing “Keys to the City” tour, at Soundview Park in the Bronx. The proposal comes four days after a judge ruled that five Police Department precincts would run a one-year trial program of equpping officers with cameras.

11:45 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the James Monroe senior center in the Bronx.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

11:15 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the United Senior Center on 53rd Street in Brooklyn.

6:30 p.m.
Attends Irish Night, featuring a live performance by Andy Cooney, in the Rockaways.

8 p.m.
Stops by the last Summer Stroll of the season, on Third Avenue between 69th and 80th Streets in Bay Ridge, not far from the candidate’s home.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

12 p.m.
Tours the city atop a Citi Bike, together with Justin Rocket Silverman of The Daily News, starting at 10th Street and Avenue A.

3 p.m.
Visits with local business owners and residents, in the section of the South Bronx known as the Hub.

Readers with information about events involving the mayoral candidates are invited to send details and suggestions for coverage to cowan@nytimes.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @cowannyt.



Aug. 16: 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.Maps of all campaign events since April »
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 Utica Avenue subway station in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

10:30 a.m.
Releases new report in his capacity as the city’s public advocate that he says documents the heavy toll that the closing of Interfaith Medical Center would exact upon the community if it shuts down as planned. Much of that impact stems from Interfaith’s role as Brooklyn’s largest private provider of psychiatric care, according to the candidate, who is appearing at the news conference with doctors, nurses, hospital workers and union officials, at Cadman Plaza.

5 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters, at the Seventh Avenue subway station in Park Slope.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the Franklin Avenue subway station on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

12:30 p.m.
Delivers remarks, at the Stapleton Senior Center Picnic at Nasen Park in Staten Island.

1 p.m.
Stops in at the Muslim American Society on Berger Street in Staten Island.

5 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters, at the Utica Avenue subway station on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

7:30 p.m.
Attends Holy Night, at the Moorish Science Temple of America in Bedford Stuyvesant.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

6 p.m.
Stops by the last Summer Stroll of the season, a stomping ground that his mayoral rival Sal Albanese until now pretty much had to himself, on Third Avenue between 69th and 80th Streets in Bay Ridge.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the 72nd Street subway station on Broadway.

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

11:15 a.m.
Unveils his citywide transportation plan, and accepts the endorsements of City Councilwoman Debi Rose and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726, representing roughly 2,000 active and retired bus drivers and mechanics from Staten Island, at the A.T.U. depot on Castleton Avenue in Staten Island.

2:45 p.m.
Tours Caribbean small businesses with Assemblyman Nick Perry in Crown Heights, starting on Utica Avenue.

7 p.m.
Visits with residents of Tracey Towers, along with Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, in the Bronx.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

10:45 a.m.
Calls for beat cops to wear cameras, in an effort to reform the controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, as part of his continuing “Keys to the City” tour, at Soundview Park in the Bronx. The proposal comes four days after a judge ruled that five Police Department precincts would run a one-year trial program of equpping officers with cameras.

11:45 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the James Monroe senior center in the Bronx.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

11:15 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the United Senior Center on 53rd Street in Brooklyn.

6:30 p.m.
Attends Irish Night, featuring a live performance by Andy Cooney, in the Rockaways.

8 p.m.
Stops by the last Summer Stroll of the season, on Third Avenue between 69th and 80th Streets in Bay Ridge, not far from the candidate’s home.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

12 p.m.
Tours the city atop a Citi Bike, together with Justin Rocket Silverman of The Daily News, starting at 10th Street and Avenue A.

3 p.m.
Visits with local business owners and residents, in the section of the South Bronx known as the Hub.

Readers with information about events involving the mayoral candidates are invited to send details and suggestions for coverage to cowan@nytimes.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @cowannyt.



Video Reviews of ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler,’ ‘Jobs’ and ‘Kick-Ass 2’

In this week’s video, Times critics share their thoughts on “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Jobs” and “Kick-Ass 2.” See all of this week’s reviews here.



Video Reviews of ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler,’ ‘Jobs’ and ‘Kick-Ass 2’

In this week’s video, Times critics share their thoughts on “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Jobs” and “Kick-Ass 2.” See all of this week’s reviews here.



Deflation in the Ticket Line

Dear Diary:

Scene: Sunday, July 28, waiting for tickets to “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

I was waiting alone, and overheard hours of conversation from the pair ahead of me and the fivesome behind me.

When at noon we stood to form a line, one of the young men behind me (Brooklyn native and soon to be 21 years old, musician, arranger and songwriter, I had heard) approached me (60 years old, out-of-town visitor) and said that he really really liked my shirt, that he had noticed how great I looked in the shirt, that yellow was perfect with my skin tone, and that he and I had similar skin tone.

I thanked him for the compliment, and basked for a brief moment in praise from a hip 20-year-old New Yorker.

Then he continued, “If I saw that shirt in a thrift store, I would totally buy it!”

My out-of-town sense of style suffered a sudden deflation.

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.