The Week in Pictures for Aug. 23

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include Councilman Jumaane D. Williams; Kim Catullo, the wife of Christine C. Quinn; and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

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 Margaret Sullivan, Kate Taylor, Eleanor Randolph and Michael M. Grynbaum. Also, Comptroller John C. Liu. 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.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Very Bad Words’

The New York International Fringe Festival concludes on Aug. 25. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.

American middle education is pilloried in Jacob Presson’s “Very Bad Words,” a bristling portrait of vanity, ambition and prejudice at an upper-middle-class Massachusetts high school.

Before the action begins, Emily Auciello’s dissonant sound design â€" blasts of Jay-Z, Machinedrum and Major Lazer â€" effectively anticipates the coming strife. Then we meet the effusive, cocky Will (PJ Adzima), the haughty Taylor (Olivia Macklin) and the comparatively sympathetic Steve (Adam Warwinsky), who think the world of themselves. Enraged at being called out in class for tormenting a peer, they scrawl a gay slur on a locker, a predatory prank generating dire results.

The play’s ingratiating glimpses of youthful insolence evolve into a scathing rendering of diamond-hard selfishness, especially from the tireless Mr. Adzima (“Don’t hesitate, just execute,” Will says). In Ms. Macklin’s cool performance, we learn that men have no monopoly on callous indifference. Mr. Warwinsky ably channels the audience’s dismay.

Mr. Presson, a junior at Marymount Manhattan College, started on “Very Bad Words” in high school, and his obscenity-infused script brims with adolescent authenticity. The ages of the players â€" theater majors at Marymount and Fordham College at Lincoln Center â€" add further verisimilitude, while the direction, by the Fordham graduate Jake Ahlquist, is unflaggingly brisk. Despite an abrupt ending and a cliché or two, the conviction from all the participants offers a most heartening promise.

“Very Bad Words” continues through Saturday at Teatro SEA, 107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side.

New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Waiting for Waiting for Godot’

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.

Two guys on a road waiting for a man they’ve never met who never comes. Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” of course. Two understudies backstage waiting for their chance to go on â€" a seriously unlikely prospect â€" in a production of “Waiting for Godot.” That is Dave Hanson’s delectable “Waiting for Waiting for Godot.”

It would be a crime against absurdist-theatrical nature to make the abstractions of Beckett’s masterpiece concrete. But Mr. Hanson’s play gets away with pretending to be a parody, so we forgive it â€" even for having the nerve to provide a resolution.

Chris Sullivan has the showier role as Ester (Estragon in the original), a big guy who pretends to know everything. He decides to teach Val (played with convincing delicacy here by Mr. Hanson) the Miserly acting technique, which consists of repeating the other actor’s line ad infinitum, and the Mamet, the art of cursing onstage.

Half the joke is that Ester pronounces the name Mam-may, and pretty much everyone in the audience knows that David Mamet’s surname rhymes with damn it. Yes, this is catnip for theater insiders, but you don’t have to be one to appreciate certain comments on Juilliard and talent agents.

“Waiting for Waiting for Godot” is richly, vibrantly, aggressively acted, and directed in kind by Alex Harvey. Even Amy Weaver, who appears briefly as the assistant stage manager, is memorable, doing what amounts to a dramatic reading of lighting cues.

“Waiting for Waiting for Godot” continues through Sunday at Kraine Theater, 85 East Fourth Street, East Village.

Big Ticket | $23 Million for a Floor on Park Avenue

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times The co-op at 640 Park Avenue.

A magisterial floor-through residence at 640 Park Avenue, an opulent limestone building designed by J. E. R. Carpenter as a luxury rental oasis for the millionaires of 1914, sold for $23 million and was the week’s most expensive residential transaction, according to city records. The building, at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 66th Street, went co-op in 1946; the monthly maintenance fee for the simplex, No. 8, is $15,981.

Rife with original details like Brazilian walnut floors, Fortuny wallpaper and five marble fireplaces, the apartment originally had 18 rooms but was reconfigured 40 years ago as a five-bedroom, six-bath home with a two-room staff suite. Light streams in from all four exposures.

A private elevator landing opens onto an elaborate gallery with a fireplace, and the primary entertaining rooms â€" a corner living room, a reception room and a formal dining room â€" occupy 65 feet of frontage on the avenue. There is also a south-facing library with a fireplace.

An unusually wide corridor leads to the private bedroom wing: in addition to the corner master suite, which has a fireplace, there are four bedrooms, all with en-suite baths.

The owner of the co-op, Sue Erpf Van de Bovenkamp, an art and environmental philanthropist, died there in 2011 at age 82. The widow of Armand Erpf, a financier and adviser to several American presidents, she was the president of the Armand G. Erpf Charitable Foundation. In her salad days, she traveled to Europe, where she worked in Rome as a model for the House of Valentino, and while there appeared in several films, the most memorable being Federico Fellini’s 1960 “La Dolce Vita.”

At 13 stories, 640 Park was built as a low-rise, with a single residence on each floor, by Spencer Fullerton Weaver, who also erected the slightly less grand 630 Park Avenue on the southwest corner. But 640 Park maintains its reputation for being a bit of a pioneer as one of the first superluxury residences on the avenue, with architectural detail and amenities sufficient to draw wealthy home-seekers east of Fifth and Madison Avenues.

Residents of note include the king of the J. Crew empire, Millard S. Drexler, whose sprawling unit occupies the sixth floor. As president of the co-op board, he wields considerable clout on the residential as well as the retailing front. Like most über-luxury prewar co-op buildings in the neighborhood, 640 Park does not permit financing: ownership transfers are cash-only affairs, and with just 13 units in the building, Mr. Drexler is selective about the financial integrity of his dozen neighbors.

Nancy J. Elias and John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens and Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty handled the sale for the estate. The buyers, Stanley and Frieda Cayre, were represented by Caroline Guthrie, also from Brown Harris Stevens. Mr. Cayre, a former video, music and retailing entrepreneur, is a commercial real estate investor whose family firm is Midtown Equities.

According to Ms. Elias, the buyers intend to use No. 8 as their primary residence, and to expand the master suite by annexing two of the bedrooms.

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

Screenwriter Questions Whether Tchaikovsky Was Gay, Sparking Furor in Russia

MOSCOW â€" A prominent Russian screenwriter working on a film of Tchaikovsky’s life that has just received state funding set off a firestorm this week by saying that the biopic will not focus on the composer’s homosexuality because “it is far from a fact that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual.”

“Only philistines think this,” Yuri Arabov told the newspaper Izvestia of the commonly accepted view of the composer’s sexual orientation. “What philistines believe, should not be shown in films.”

Mr. Arabov, who is known for his screenplays for films by Alexander Sokurov about the inner lives of Lenin, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito, told the newspaper in an interview published on August 20 that the movie, which is called “Tchaikovsky” and scheduled for release in 2015, would show Russia’s most revered and ubiquitous composer as a man who “is marked by rumors and suffers greatly from this.”

Contemporary scholars still debate how Tchaikovsky died, with some claiming that he was driven to suicide out of torment over his sexuality. For decades, the cause of death was reported as cholera.

Mr. Arabov’s comments come as Russia continues to be embroiled in controversy over anti-gay legislation passed recently that has prompted calls for boycotts against Russian goods and for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be relocated. The Games are scheduled to open in the Russian resort city of Sochi in February 2014.

In an open letter addressed to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee earlier this month, the British actor Stephen Fry compared Russia to Nazi Germany and claimed that referring to Tchaikovsky as gay is regarded as a crime in Russia.

“Any statement, for example, that Tchaikovsky was gay and that his art and life reflects this sexuality and are an inspiration to other gay artists would be punishable by imprisonment,” he wrote.

Earlier this week, Wentworth Miller, who starred on Fox television’s “Prison Break,” turned down an invitation to a film festival in St. Petersburg, writing to the festival’s director that he cannot participate in an event in “a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly.”

Mr. Arabov told Izvestia that he would “not sign my name to a film that advertises homosexuality.” He said his aversion “is not because I don’t have a gay friend, but because this is outside the sphere of art.”

“Tchaikovsky” is being directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, one of post-Soviet Russia’s most successful theater and film directors, who has so far managed to both criticize the government and secure state funding.

Last month, Russia’s culture ministry included the film among those to receive state funding. At the same time, the ministry has also stressed that it is interested in patriotic films that will help Russia’s image, and infuriated some liberals by turning down a World War II-themed film by Alexander Mindadze, a veteran film director. On Friday, a historian who serves on a military advisory board to the ministry told the Interfax news agency that Mr. Mindadze had been persuaded to shift the film’s chronology to avoid historical inaccuracies.

On Wednesday, Mr Serebrennikov posted what he described as a synopsis of a film about Tchaikovsky, describing it as “the true story of the tragic love and death of the brilliant Russian composer,” in which he runs into his first love at a ball, only to find that she is married. When she finally leaves her husband, the composer dies of cholera with her at his side.

One commentator noted, correctly, that Mr. Serebrennikov had, in fact, posted the synopsis of “Es War eine Rauschende Ballnacht,” a 1939 German film about Tchaikovsky. In English, the title reads “It Was a Gay Ballnight.”

The Ad Campaign: Catsimatidis Turns Attention to Lhota

First aired: August 24, 2013

Produced by: The Victory Group

Against: John A. Catsimatidis

Thanks to his considerable fortune, John A. Catsimatidis has been a steady presence on television as he seeks the Republican nomination for mayor. His advertisements so far have touted his rags-to-riches biography and his commitment to public safety. Now, three weeks before the primary, he is going on the attack against his main Republican rival, Joseph J. Lhota. Mr. Lhota is the focus of a 30-second commercial, “3 Things,” that began airing Friday. A second new commercial, “Cares About Us,” also criticizes Mr. Lhota.

Fact-Check

0:02

“As M.T.A. chairman, Joe Lhota raised subway fares and bridge tolls. John Catsimatidis will never do that.”

The bridge tolls refer to a single bridge, the Verrazano, and a one-way fare, collected entering Staten Island. The toll is $15 when paid in cash, but $10.66 when paid using E-ZPass.

The current $2.50 base subway fare is the highest fare ever, although, adjusted for inflation, it is not the highest on record, nor is the average fare paid per trip, according to a report by the city’s Independent Budget Office. But Mr. Lhota has repeatedly defended the fare increases, noting that they had been scheduled before he took charge of the transit authority. A rescue package devised in 2009 by Gov. David A. Paterson and the State Legislature established a plan for biennial fare increases, and the transit authority is planning to raise fares again in 2015 and 2017.

Mr. Catsimatidis also has little basis to give the impression that, as mayor, he will stop any future fare or toll increases. Transit fares are set by the authority, which the mayor does not control.

0:10

“Lhota calls police officers ‘mall cops.’”

At a campaign forum in May, Mr. Lhota described the police officers for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as “nothing more than mall cops.” Mr. Lhota later apologized.

0:17

“And while Catsimatidis created thousands of jobs, Joe Lhota created one â€" for himself.”

Mr. Lhota did not create the position of authority chairman; he was nominated for it by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. And while Mr. Lhota did earn $332,500 in that position, that represented a significant pay cut from his previous job as an executive at the Madison Square Garden Company.

Scorecard

Mr. Catsimatidis’s decision to attack Mr. Lhota shows that the primary race has entered a new and more heated phase. The advertisement takes advantage of Mr. Lhota’s biggest gaffe of the campaign â€" the “mall cops” comment â€" and shows that Mr. Catsimatidis sees Mr. Lhota’s time at the transit authority as another potential vulnerability. But at the same time, Mr. Catsimatidis is clearly taking some liberties in suggesting he could protect New Yorkers from fare increases, which is not within the mayor’s power.

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More from The Ad Campaign

Popcast: Gary Burton, Resurgent Jazz Outsider

Jonathan Chong The pianist Chick Corea, left, and Gary Burton, who have won six Grammy Awards together.

If you’re only a casual listener to jazz, and not a vibraphonist, Gary Burton may not be a big name to you. But he’s probably had more to do with the development of jazz over the last 50 years than you think as a player (he developed the widely used four-mallet Burton Grip for the vibraphone); a mentor (to Pat Metheny, for starters); a conceptual inspiration (to Bill Frisell, among others, through the way he incorporated country and rock into his music during the late ’60s); and a long-time teacher and administrator at Berklee College of Music.

Mr. Burton, now 70, recently released “Guided Tour,” one of his best records in years, with the New Gary Burton Quartet. He’s also just published a candid autobiography, “Learning to Listen.” As Nate Chinen, a jazz critic for The Times, tells host Ben Ratliff, the book explains much about coming to jazz as an outsider several times over â€" a white Midwestern vibraphonist, but also as a gay man who didn’t come out publicly until the mid-’90s.

Listen above, download the MP3 or subscribe in iTunes.

RELATED:

Nate Chinen on Gary Burton

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)

Exhibition of Sicilian Antiquities Will Proceed at Cleveland Museum

An exhibition of ancient treasures from Sicily that had been abruptly canceled last month is back on the fall schedule of the Cleveland Museum of Art after the museum and Sicilian officials ironed out a dispute over money.

The show, “Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome,” had been at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and was scheduled to open in Cleveland on September 29th, when Sicilian officials complained that the absence of its treasured artifacts was hurting the Italian island’s tourism.

Culture officials on the island complained in particular about the absence of two items, a six-foot-tall statue of a charioteer and a gold libation bowl. Sicilian officials had initially tried to extract more than the agreed upon amount of reimbursement from the Cleveland museum, but officials there demurred and the show was canceled. But on Friday, the museum said the exhibition was back on and “coming to Cleveland under terms that are consistent with the agreements previously reached.”

To sweeten the deal, the museum has agreed to lend several masterworks from the museum’s Italian art collection, including Caravaggio’s “Crucifixion of Saint Andrew,” for an exhibition in Sicily in 2015. “Our discussions with the government of Sicily resulted in a very favorable agreement that will benefit both the museum and the Sicilian public,” said David Franklin, the museum’s director, in a statement.

Ben Affleck to Play Batman in ‘Man of Steel’ Sequel

Andy Rain/European Pressphoto Agency Ben Affleck

The fanboy corner of the Internet collectively fainted late Thursday when Warner Brothers put an end to wild casting rumors and said that Ben Affleck would play Batman in a “Man of Steel” sequel.

The still-untitled movie, planned for summer 2015, will mark the first time that Batman and Superman have co-starred on the big screen - an effort by Warner to create a rival to the “Avengers” franchise, which features multiple Marvel superheroes. In a statement, Zack Snyder, who directed “Man of Steel” and will return for the sequel, said Mr. Affleck, 41, has “the acting chops to create a layered portrayal of a man who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter.” Henry Cavill, 30, will return as Superman.

Taking on Batman swings Mr. Affleck back toward blockbusters, at least to a degree, after a stretch in which he has focused on acting in self-directed dramas like “Argo,” which won the best picture trophy at the Academy Awards. Accepting the role does come with one big downside, however. Mr. Affleck may be forced to relive a particularly awkward career moment: In 2003 he played the title role in “Daredevil,” one of Hollywood’s least-successful superhero films.

By announcing the casting Warner silenced reports that the studio offered Christian Bale, who played Batman in the recently concluded “Dark Knight” trilogy, $50 million to reprise the role for the sequel to “Man of Steel.” The first film took in about $650 million worldwide.

Book Review Podcast: Amanda Ripley’s ‘The Smartest Kids in the World’

In The New York Times Book Review, Annie Murphy Paul reviews “The Smartest Kids in the World,” Amanda Ripley’s investigation into the educational experience in Finland, South Korea and Poland, and how it compares to its American counterpart. Ms. Paul writes:

Marc Rosenthal

In reporting her book, Ripley made the canny choice to enlist “field agents” who could penetrate other countries’ schools far more fully than she: three American students, each studying abroad for a year. Kim, a restless 15-year-old from rural Oklahoma, heads off to Finland, a place she had only read about, “a snow-castle country with white nights and strong coffee.” Instead, what she finds is a trudge through the cold dark, to a dingy school with desks in rows and an old-fashioned chalkboard â€" not an iPad or interactive whiteboard in sight. What Kim’s school in the small town of Pietarsaari does have is bright, talented teachers who are well trained and love their jobs.

On this week’s podcast, Ms. Paul discusses “The Smartest Kids in the World”; Cris Beam discusses “To the End of June,” her book about America’s foster care system; Sarah Harrison Smith surveys back-to-school children’s books; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Parul Sehgal has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host. This week’s Book Review is here.

Aug. 23: 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 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

Catsimatidis

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

Quinn

Thompson

Weiner

John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

9 a.m.
Attends a senior citizens’ breakfast, at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on the Upper East Side.

11 a.m.
Attends a meeting of the Staten Island Board of Realtors, at their offices in the Bulls Head section of Staten Island.

12:15 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens over lunch, at the Bernikow Jewish Community Center on Staten Island.

7 p.m.
Attends a campaign “friend-raiser,” hosted by the Dodecanesian Society, a fraternal order from a set of Greek islands, at the Central Sushi Bar and Restaurant in Astoria.

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

10:30 a.m.
Accepts the endorsement of the New York State Nurses Association, a health care union representing 30,000 nurses in the metropolitan area, at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

John C. Liu
Democrat

7 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, at the Church Avenue subway station on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn.

5 p.m.
Visits small businesses and attends a get-out-the-vote rally, in Chinatown.

6:30 p.m.
Delivers remarks at the Antioch Baptist Church’s annual Peace in the Streets event, at Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan.

7:15 p.m.
Attends Harlem Week’s “Charlie Parker Jazz Festival,” featuring Jimmy Heath and the Jimmy Heath Big Band, at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.

8:15 p.m.
Attends the N.Y.P.D. Muslim Officers Society’s annual scholarship dinner, at the World’s Fair Marina Restaurant in Queens.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

9 a.m.
Meets privately with the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, at the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

7:30 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, along with her wife, Kim Catullo, and members of the Lambda Independent Democrats, who endorsed Ms. Quinn in May, at the Fourth Avenue-Ninth Street subway station in Park Slope.

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

10:30 a.m.
Greets shoppers, along with with Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose endorsement he received yesterday, in Midwood, Brooklyn.

3 p.m.
Tours small businesses in Downtown Brooklyn, starting at Junior’s restaurant.

6:30 p.m.
Meets at a roundtable discussion with African leaders, at the Yankasa Association mosque in the Bronx.

Anthony D. Weiner
Democrat

11:45 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the Jefferson Senior Center in East Harlem.

12:15 p.m.
Continues with the fifth day of his “Delivering for New York” tour â€" part of his larger “Keys to the City” tour â€" to discuss his record of working with New York City Housing Authority tenants, at the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem.

Video Reviews of ‘The World’s End,’ ‘The Grandmaster’ and ‘Drinking Buddies’

The New York Times film critics on “The World’s End,” “The Grandmaster,” and “Drinking Buddies.” All of this week’s movie reviews are available here.

Video Reviews of ‘The World’s End,’ ‘The Grandmaster’ and ‘Drinking Buddies’

The New York Times film critics on “The World’s End,” “The Grandmaster,” and “Drinking Buddies.” All of this week’s movie reviews are available here.

Grace and Human Kindness in the Subway

Dear Diary:

Passing through Grand Central Station, I noticed a man shouting into the crowd at the base of the escalators. My brain registered wild hair, scraggly beard, old clothes, shouting at no one in particular, and I took a half-step in another direction to give him a wider berth.

Then I realized the apparently homeless man was actually shouting at a young Asian woman who could have been cast as the confused tourist in any summer movie. She had tried to pass through the turnstile but her MetroCard had failed.

The homeless man was waving her back, saying: “You put it in upside down! Just turn it the other way!” She tentatively returned to the turnstile and did as instructed, but this time she got the “swipe again” message.

“Don’t worry,” he explained, “just do it again, this time straight through. Don’t hesitate.” She followed his instructions and a huge grin lighted her face when she finally made it through.

The young woman stopped on the other side, said something I could not hear and bowed slightly. The homeless gentleman bowed in response, then turned and shuffled away, a reminder that grace and human kindness can come from unexpected sources.

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.

New York Today: Can You Hear Me Now?

Caleb Ferguson for The New York Times Anticipating the future? A subway commuter on the phone.

Soon you may long for the squeal of train against track and the squeak of underground rats.

Complete cellphone service is coming to the subway system.

AT&T and T-Mobile USA customers can already gab away at 36 stations; this week Verizon struck a deal to join them. Coverage for all 277 underground stations is expected by 2017.

But do you want it? Do you dread it? The Parisians can handle it â€" can’t we?

We want to hear from New Yorkers who already make calls underground, and from those who hate the whole idea.

Share your thoughts in the comments section, by e-mail or post them to Twitter with the hashtag #NYToday.

(Double points if you do so from a subway platform far beneath the street.)

Here’s what you need to know for Friday and your weekend.

WEATHER

Today will be mostly sunny, in the mid 80s. Same for Saturday. Sunday will be a bit cooler but all in all a great weekend.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit: Subways are O.K. Click for latest M.T.A. status.

- Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- The mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio spends the morning at Bellevue Hospital, where he will receive the endorsement of the State Nurses Association. Joseph J. Lhota is a guest on Geraldo Rivera’s radio show on WABC 770 AM at 10:15 a.m. Anthony D. Weiner greets seniors in Harlem. And William C. Thompson Jr. hosts a roundtable discussion with African leaders in the evening.

- In the comptroller’s race, Scott M. Stringer attends a meeting with Chinese home care workers.

- Beer, barbecue and blues at 2 p.m. on Pier 84, where West 44th Street meets the Hudson. Need more be said? [Free]

- O.M.G.! The boy band One Direction is at Rockefeller Plaza, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. [Free]

- A retro game night featuring video, board and some not-so-old-school Xbox games on Grove Place in Downtown Brooklyn, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. [Free]

- Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” plays at Beach 106th Street on the Rockaway Peninsula, in Queens, at sundown. [Free]

- Jimmy Heath and the Jimmy Heath Big Band perform world premiers of new music as part of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, 7 p.m. [Free]

IN THE NEWS

- The comptroller candidates Eliot Spitzer and Scott M. Stringer debated on TV yesterday. [Observer]

- Anthony Marshall, the imprisoned elderly son of Brooke Astor, was granted medical parole. [New York Times]

- Meet a world-class surfer from Montauk. [New York Times]

- The City Council overrode the mayor’s veto, voting to greatly increase oversight of the Police Department. [New York Times]

- Nasdaq resumes trading of all securities after a glitch took the exchange down. [NY1]

- (Which prompts the question: was it a squirrel?) [WSJ]

- On that note, a possum invaded a Bryant Park subway stop. [Gothamist]

THE WEEKEND

SATURDAY

- Dress up as your favorite anime characters or just ogle those who do on International Cosplay Day, in Manhattan, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. [Free]

- “La Traviata,” by Verdi, on screen in high definition at Lincoln Center Plaza, Saturday, 8 p.m. [Free]

- An Afro-Punk festival returns to Fort Greene, Brooklyn. All weekend. [Free]

- Dance performances at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Queens, 3 p.m. [Free]

- Corona Plaza, an outdoor space in Queens, celebrates its one-year anniversary with music, dance and art. 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. [Free]

SUNDAY

- Celebrate Dominican culture at the Dominican Festival in Brooklyn, on Graham Avenue and Broadway, all day long. [Free]

- Hilliard Greene and the Jazz Expressions express themselves through jazz by the Harlem Meer in Central Park, 2 p.m. [Free]

- Velvet Painting Takedown, where 20 artists go to town on the tacky medium. Eat vegan chili and eventually vote for your favorite. At the Active Space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. [Free]

- It’s the last day of “the other free Shakespeare in the park.” The Hudson Warehouse Theater Company presents “The Three Musketeers.” In Riverside Park near 89th Street at 6:30 p.m. [Free]

AND FINALLY…

Yesterday, New York Today chronicled a little known moment between young New Yorkers and young Beatles.

On this day in 1968, another musical phenomenon, Jimmy Hendrix, hit New York, tearing up the Singer Bowl at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. You can watch Hendrix’s guitar magic from that long ago evening here.

If you think that Flushing and guitar legends don’t go together, think again. The lead guitarist of K.I.S.S., Paul Stanley, grew up there.

(And the bassist hung out just a few subway stops away in Jackson Heights. Though he was called Chiam Whitz back then, not Gene Simmons.)

Nicole Higgins DeSmet contributed reporting.

We’re testing New York Today, a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, e-mail Sarah Maslin Nir or reach us via Twitter at @nytmetro using #NYToday. Thanks!