Broadway ‘Annie’ to Close in January

The Broadway revival of “Annie,” which opened last November to lukewarm reviews, will close at the Palace Theater on Jan. 5, 2014 after 38 preview performances and 487 regular performances, the producers announced on Thursday.

The musical, which originally starred the Tony Award winner Katie Finneran as Miss Hannigan and Lilla Crawford as Annie, has been struggling against declining ticket sales recently; for the week of performances ending on Sunday, “Annie” grossed $720,823, or 52 percent of the maximum potential amount - a weak showing for a holiday period.

Asked if “Annie” would recoup its $12 million capitalization by the closing date, a spokesman for the show replied by e-mail, “That is still to be determined.” Directed by the Tony winner James Lapine, the production was nominated for a single Tony this year, for best musical revival.

Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Reject Latest Contract Offer

The labor standoff that cost the Minnesota Orchestra its entire last season, and is imperiling the coming season, was extended on Thursday, when the orchestra’s locked-out players voted to reject the latest contract offer put forward by management.

The offer that the musicians rejected was made by the orchestra’s management last week. It called for the players to return to work for two months at their old salaries, and then, if no new deal was struck, to work for two years with their base pay cut by nearly a quarter.

The musicians called on the orchestra’s board to accept a proposal made this summer by George J. Mitchell, the former senator and Middle East envoy, who is acting as a mediator in the dispute. That proposal, which the management rejected earlier, would bring the players back to work for two months under their old contract, to be followed by two months at a 6 percent pay cut, while the two sides negotiate.

Time is running out. The orchestra’s music director, Osmo Vanska, has said that the players must be back at work by Sept. 30 to get ready to play a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall scheduled for November, and has threatened to resign if the concerts are canceled. To meet that deadline, management has said that it will need to reach a deal with the musicians by Sept. 15.

With $10 Million Gift, Theater for a New Audience Home Gets a Name

The new home for Theater for a New Audience in downtown Brooklyn is now officially the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in honor of a $10 million gift from the Polonsky Foundation, the largest the theater has ever received.

The “transformational” gift “will enable us to have a permanent home from which we can contribute to the cultural life of Brooklyn and New York,“ Jeffrey Horowitz, the founding artistic director of the organization, said in a statement announcing the news on Thursday.

Based in London, the Polonsky Foundation supports projects in the arts and humanities, with support going to ventures at Oxford and Cambridge universities and Townsend Harris High School, among others. Dr. Leonard S. Polonsky, chairman of Hansard Global Plc. and his wife, Dr. Georgette Bennett created the foundation.

The theater will launch its new home with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Julie Taymor. Previews begin Oct. 19 for a November 2 opening. Julie Taymor will direct the production, which has original music by Elliot Goldenthal.

The 27,500-squre-foot theater is the first major house for classical work built in New York since Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater opened in 1965, according to theater and city officials. Mr. Horowitz founded Theater for a New Audience in 1979 to presents the work of Shakespeare and other classic and contemporary playwrights. The Polonsky Center is its first permanent home.

The theater has raised $65.3 million as part of its $69.1 million capital campaign. The campaign includes money to support the construction of its Hugh Hardy-designed building, as well as programs and operations.

The Ad Campaign: Daughter Helps Present Thompson as the Education Candidate

First aired: September 5, 2013

Produced by: The Campaign Group

for: William C. Thompson Jr.

William C. Thompson Jr., the mayoral choice of the influential teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, is making education the centerpiece of his campaign in the closing days of the race for the Democratic nomination. On Wednesday, he campaigned in the morning with Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten, the current and previous presidents, respectively, of the union, unveiled a five-point plan to help teachers, and then joined Mr. Mulgrew and Ms. Weingarten for a late-afternoon teleconference town hall meeting. Small wonder, then, that his latest television advertisement, “Schools,” released on Wednesday, also focuses on education.

Fact-Check

0:22

“He will fix schools in poor and minority communities, not close them.”

Education, no doubt, is a priority for Mr. Thompson and his family. But the contention that Mr. Thompson will improve schools, not close them â€" an obvious criticism of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s practices â€" warrants some context. Mr. Bloomberg believes that closing schools that are deemed to be failing, or facing declining enrollment, is one way to improve education in the city. In addition, the Bloomberg administration has opened many schools in the buildings where schools have closed.

Scorecard

The ad is the first in which Mr. Thompson relies on his daughter to vouch for him, prompting comparisons to an ad featuring Bill de Blasio’s son, Dante, which many political analysts believe has been the most effective and memorable of the campaign to date. The ad also represents a shift in direction for Mr. Thompson’s commercials â€" his last ad was sharply critical of Mr. de Blasio over the stop-and-frisk issue, but this one is cheery. The ad is also striking in that the testimonials are from Latinos and blacks, important potential constituencies for Mr. Thompson. The ad is another indication that, with less than a week before Primary Day, and at a time when many New Yorkers express concern about schools, Mr. Thompson wants to be known as the education candidate.

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More from The Ad Campaign

A ‘Peculiar’ Peek at Thomas Pynchon’s Latest

Bloggers have called it “bizarre,” “highly bizarre,” “peculiar” and “appropriately odd.” It’s the book trailer for Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Bleeding Edge,” which will be published on Sept. 17.

In the low-budget video, a young man calling himself the “king of the Upper West Side” and wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Hi, I’m Tom Pynchon,” wanders around the city discussing his routines: “I try to just sort of occupy Zabar’s for five to six hours; just sort of sweat it out, get that sawdust smell into my lungs.” At the end of the trailer, he uses smoked fish as a face wrap on a bench in Central Park after looking at a display of Philip Roth books and saying, “He’s everywhere.”

The trailer does briefly mention Maxine Tarnow, a character in “Bleeding Edge,” but otherwise connections to the novel seem scant. The book is set in New York City in 2001. The flap copy says: “There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there’s no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what’s left.”

Reaction to the trailer on Twitter has been mixed. The author William Gibson called it “Absolutely the best novel trailer so far in the history of the world.” The book designer Peter Mendelsund weighed in: “The trailer for Pynchon’s new novel is, um, bad?” And the blog kottke.org hedged its bet, calling the teaser “either brilliant or the dumbest thing ever.”

Mr. Pynchon is becoming an old hand at generating talk around his sneak peeks. In 2009, the reclusive author narrated the stoner-toned trailer for his private-eye novel “Inherent Vice.” Last year, a slick trailer announced the e-book editions of Mr. Pynchon’s collected works.

Bleeding Edge book trailer from The Penguin Press on Vimeo.

A ‘Peculiar’ Peek at Thomas Pynchon’s Latest

Bloggers have called it “bizarre,” “highly bizarre,” “peculiar” and “appropriately odd.” It’s the book trailer for Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Bleeding Edge,” which will be published on Sept. 17.

In the low-budget video, a young man calling himself the “king of the Upper West Side” and wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Hi, I’m Tom Pynchon,” wanders around the city discussing his routines: “I try to just sort of occupy Zabar’s for five to six hours; just sort of sweat it out, get that sawdust smell into my lungs.” At the end of the trailer, he uses smoked fish as a face wrap on a bench in Central Park after looking at a display of Philip Roth books and saying, “He’s everywhere.”

The trailer does briefly mention Maxine Tarnow, a character in “Bleeding Edge,” but otherwise connections to the novel seem scant. The book is set in New York City in 2001. The flap copy says: “There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there’s no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what’s left.”

Reaction to the trailer on Twitter has been mixed. The author William Gibson called it “Absolutely the best novel trailer so far in the history of the world.” The book designer Peter Mendelsund weighed in: “The trailer for Pynchon’s new novel is, um, bad?” And the blog kottke.org hedged its bet, calling the teaser “either brilliant or the dumbest thing ever.”

Mr. Pynchon is becoming an old hand at generating talk around his sneak peeks. In 2009, the reclusive author narrated the stoner-toned trailer for his private-eye novel “Inherent Vice.” Last year, a slick trailer announced the e-book editions of Mr. Pynchon’s collected works.

Bleeding Edge book trailer from The Penguin Press on Vimeo.

Hollywood Goes Global in Toronto Film Festival Offerings

Jaap Buitendijk/Fox Searchlight Pictures Benedict Cumberbatch, left, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave.”

TORONTO â€" Chiwetel Ejiofor, major movie star. Who’d have guessed?

But there he is, plain as the twinkle in Brad Pitt’s eye, soaking up cover space that might once have been reserved for Mr. Pitt on the Now tabloid’s giant guide to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Mr. Ejiofor, who was born in London to Nigerian parents, arrives here as the lead actor in “12 Years a Slave,” which counts Mr. Pitt as one of its stars and producers, and has been jumped into a rich mix of early Oscar contenders by Fox Searchlight.

He also joins a growing string of international actors â€" Daniel Brühl and Benedict Cumberbatch among them â€" who have grabbed top billing in some of Hollywood’s most prominent films.

The film industry’s growing willingness to cast without borders may partly be a business decision. If a larger share of Hollywood’s revenue now comes from abroad, it is only natural to turn elsewhere for leading players like Marion Cotillard, Jean Dujardin and Christoph Waltz.

But the prominence of non-American actors in films that are either directed by Americans, as with Ron Howard’s “Rush,” which co-stars Mr. Brühl, or tell American stories, as does “12 Years a Slave,” may also point to the changing character of Hollywood’s output, at least during those five or six months that constitute the awards season.

Many of the prize films are being driven far more by story than by the name value of their stars. In a story-driven film like “12 Years a Slave,” which was directed by the London-born Steve McQueen and written by John Ridley, an American, fine actors like Mr. Ejiofor â€" previously known as one of the guys in “Salt” or “2012” â€" can suddenly become, in the words of the Now tabloid cover, “an early Oscar contender.”

New York Theater Ballet Is Seeking New Home After Building Is Sold

Earl Wilson/The New York Times Diana Byer at auditions for the New York Theater Ballet school in 2009.

The New York Theater Ballet, a small company with an outsize reputation for staging classics and the work of emerging choreographers, is desperately seeking a new home, says Diana Byer, the founder and artistic director. The company has until Sept. 30 to vacate its studio and office space in Murray Hill because the building has been sold. Since 1980 the company has been located at 30 East 31st Street, on the fifth floor of the parish house of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.

“We’re in a crisis,” Ms. Byer said, adding that market-rate rents in the neighborhood are not affordable. “I don’t know if we’re in danger of closing. I’m just reaching out to everybody to see what will come about.’”  The ornate building, which is over 100 years old, is also home to the Dokoudovsky New York Conservatory of Dance.

Faith Grill, the chairman of the church’s board of trustees, said Thursday that the building had been sold to a buyer whose name she was not at liberty to reveal, for $350 a square foot. “They have to knock it down - it’s not possible to save it,” Mrs. Grill. She said the building had numerous structural problems that had been a drain on church finances for years.

“We like supporting nonprofits but it would cost millions to fix the building,” Mrs. Grill said of the ballet company’s efforts to find housing. “For years, we have made it clear that the parish house was a drain we were struggling with. It’s very sad actually.”

With a budget under $1 million and roots in Murray Hill, a move would be disruptive, Ms. Byer said. The company has 12 dancers on full salary, Ms. Byer said, and its pre-professional training school serves 130 children from age four. It also has a community service project called LIFT, which provides tutoring and other programs for homeless and at-risk children. Most of the company’s big productions are held at Florence Gould Hall, at 55 East 59th Street.

So far, there have no changes to the season, Ms. Byer said. Founded in 1978, New York Theater Ballet bills itself as the most widely seen chamber ballet company in the country. Its productions include classics by the likes of Merce Cunningham and Antony Tudor, hourlong adaptations of work for children, and contemporary ballets.

New York Theater Ballet Is Seeking New Home After Building Is Sold

Earl Wilson/The New York Times Diana Byer at auditions for the New York Theater Ballet school in 2009.

The New York Theater Ballet, a small company with an outsize reputation for staging classics and the work of emerging choreographers, is desperately seeking a new home, says Diana Byer, the founder and artistic director. The company has until Sept. 30 to vacate its studio and office space in Murray Hill because the building has been sold. Since 1980 the company has been located at 30 East 31st Street, on the fifth floor of the parish house of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.

“We’re in a crisis,” Ms. Byer said, adding that market-rate rents in the neighborhood are not affordable. “I don’t know if we’re in danger of closing. I’m just reaching out to everybody to see what will come about.’”  The ornate building, which is over 100 years old, is also home to the Dokoudovsky New York Conservatory of Dance.

Faith Grill, the chairman of the church’s board of trustees, said Thursday that the building had been sold to a buyer whose name she was not at liberty to reveal, for $350 a square foot. “They have to knock it down - it’s not possible to save it,” Mrs. Grill. She said the building had numerous structural problems that had been a drain on church finances for years.

“We like supporting nonprofits but it would cost millions to fix the building,” Mrs. Grill said of the ballet company’s efforts to find housing. “For years, we have made it clear that the parish house was a drain we were struggling with. It’s very sad actually.”

With a budget under $1 million and roots in Murray Hill, a move would be disruptive, Ms. Byer said. The company has 12 dancers on full salary, Ms. Byer said, and its pre-professional training school serves 130 children from age four. It also has a community service project called LIFT, which provides tutoring and other programs for homeless and at-risk children. Most of the company’s big productions are held at Florence Gould Hall, at 55 East 59th Street.

So far, there have no changes to the season, Ms. Byer said. Founded in 1978, New York Theater Ballet bills itself as the most widely seen chamber ballet company in the country. Its productions include classics by the likes of Merce Cunningham and Antony Tudor, hourlong adaptations of work for children, and contemporary ballets.

New Hendrix Documentary to Be Released in November

Larry C. Morris/The New York Times Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969.

A new two-hour documentary DVD about Jimi Hendrix and a compact disc with a previously unreleased concert 1968 recording by the Jimi Hendrix Experience will be released on Nov. 5, as the concluding installments of a yearlong commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the guitarist’s birth.

The documentary, “Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’,” will also be shown as part of PBS’s American Masters series the same day the DVD version is released. Sony Legacy, which is releasing both discs in a collaboration with Experience Hendrix, the production company overseen by the guitarist’s estate, issued “People, Hell and Angels,” a collection of studio outtakes, earlier this year.

The concert disc was recorded at the Miami Pop Festival on May 18, 1968, when the Jimi Hendrix Experience was at its height: the group had released its second album, “Axis: Bold as Love,” the previous December, and was working on the followup, the two-disc “Electric Ladyland,” which would be released in October 1968.

Hendrix gave two performances at the Miami festival, and the album is drawn from both. Included are Hendrix’s earliest recorded concert performances of “Hear My Train a Comin’” and “Tax Free.” The set is otherwise devoted to familiar classics - “Hey Joe,” “I Don’t Live Today,” “Red House” and “Purple Haze,” with versions of “Foxy Lady” and “Fire” from both the afternoon and evening shows.

Recently discovered film from the outdoor concert also figures into the documentary, which is directed by Bob Smeaton. Mr. Smeaton’s other music films include “The Beatles Anthology,” “Festival Express” and several installments of the “Classic Albums” series, as well as several Hendrix projects: “Hendrix: Band of Gypsys” (1999), “Jimi Hendrix: The Dick Cavett Show” (2002), “Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child” (2010) and  “Hendrix 70: Live at Woodstock” (2012).

“The biggest challenge,” Mr. Smeaton said in a telephone interview from London, “was that having done a number of Hendrix projects in the past, I had to find a way of getting everything I wanted into the film without having it run six hours, and without having it turn into the same film I did in the past. You’ve got to hit certain points: when he came to London, when he played Monterey, certain albums, Woodstock, building his recording studio. But you also want to get a different take. And that’s the hardest thing - trying to stay fresh.”

One way Mr. Smeaton did that was to rely mainly on people who knew and worked with Hendrix. And though he includes plenty of interviews with musicians who collaborated with Hendrix, Mr. Smeaton said that he was most taken with the observations by the women in Hendrix’s life.

“In the past, I’ve interviewed mainly guys,” Mr. Smeaton said. “And with guys, it always comes down to, ‘He was a great guitar player, he looked good on stage, he died too young.’ And that’s all true. But the women offer a different take. They say ‘He was shy,’ or ‘He was gentle.’ The women bring an interesting insight, and maybe for once we know more about him.”

“The other things that’s important, when you make a film like this,” Mr. Smeaton added, “is that you try to get to the real musicality of the guy, rather than just ‘here we go again, another guitar solo.’ There’s a section where Eddie Kramer, his producer, is sitting at the mixing desk, playing each of the four guitar tracks on ‘Little Wing.’ Each part is different, and when you put them together, it’s orchestral. So you hear about Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth, or behind his head. But he knew what he was doing. And that sometimes gets overshadowed by the crazy hair and the other stuff.”

Il Divo Is Coming to Broadway

Muhammad Hamed/Reuters Il Divo, the operatic pop vocal group, at a concert in 2010.

Il Divo, the operatic pop vocal group, is coming to Broadway for a limited run at the Marquis Theater on Nov. 7 and plans to release an album of show tunes the same week.

The series of concerts, titled “Il Divo - A Musical Affair: The Greatest Songs of Broadway,” will feature songs from shows like “Phantom of the Opera,” “Carousel” and “West Side Story,” producers said. Heather Headley, a Trinidadian R&B singer and songwriter who played Nala in “The Lion King,” will be a featured guest for the entire six-night run.

The run will mark the first time the members of the popular quartet â€" Carlos Marín, Urs Bühler, Sébastien Izambard and David Miller â€" have appeared together on Broadway, though some of them have experience in musical theater: Mr. Marin was cast as Marius in “Les Miserables” when the show had its premiere in Spain in 1993, and Mr. Miller played Rodolfo in “La Boheme” on Broadway in 2003.

The new album, which will be released on Nov. 5 on Syco and Columbia Records, is a set of romantic songs including “Some Enchanted Evening” from “South Pacific,” “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from “The Lion King” and “Tonight” from “West Side Story.” Several pop and Broadway vocalists recorded with the quartet for the album, among them Barbra Streisand, Kristin Chenoweth, Nicole Scherzinger and Michael Ball.

The show will run from Thursday, Nov. 7, through Wednesday, Nov. 13, with no show on Sunday. Tickets will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. on Sept. 16 through Ticketmaster, though American Express card holders and the official Il Divo fan club will have a chance to buy them earlier, on Sept. 9.

New Yorker Festival Sets 2013 Lineup

You know it’s a banner day in publishing when Billy Eichner and The New Yorker find a way to work together. Mr. Eichner, the exuberant comedian and host of the Fuse game show “Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street,” will serve as master of ceremonies for “An Evening With Funny or Die,” one of the events on the lineup for this year’s New Yorker festival. This year’s annual gathering of artistic talents and contributors to The New Yorker magazine will be held from Oct. 4 through 6, its organizers said on Thursday.

In addition to Mr. Eichner’s event, which promises new Funny or Die videos and other surprises, other announced programming will include a screening of the “Parks and Recreation” star Aziz Ansari‘s new comedy special, “Buried Alive,” followed by a conversation between Mr. Ansari and Andy Borowitz. There will also be conversations between the actress Michelle Williams and David Denby; the musician Paul Simon and Paul Muldoon; the artist Marina Abramovic and Judith Thurman; the Rookie magazine founder Tavi Gevinson and Lizzie Widdicombe; the author George Saunders and Deborah Treisman; and Jill Abramson, the executive editor of The New York Times, and Ken Auletta.

A panel on television and politics will feature the TV producers Shonda Rhimes (“Scandal”), Armando Iannucci (“Veep”), and Robert and Michelle King (“The Good Wife”) and W. Kamau Bell, the star of “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell,” and will be moderated by Emily Nussbaum. Another panel on improvisation and acting will feature Christopher Guest (“Waiting for Guffman”), Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation”), Rachel Dratch and Horatio Sanz (both of “Saturday Night Live”), and will be moderated by Susan Morrison.

A complete lineup of events will be posted at newyorker.com/festival. Tickets for will go on sale at noon on Sept. 13.

In Toronto, a Weinstein Presence That Keeps Growing

TORONTO â€" Always a robust presence at movie awards time, the Weinstein Company showed up this year at the film festival here, where the early campaigning gets hot and heavy, with a heavy load of five pictures. No, make that six. No, seven.

On Wednesday, the festival announced that Weinstein’s documentary “Salinger,” which is opening in American theaters on Friday, would make a surprise appearance at an 8 p.m. screening on Thursday, the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival.

That creates a bit of a bind for those who were planning to be at one of two first-night screenings of “The Fifth Estate,” from DreamWorks and Disney. Both of those overlap the “Salinger” showing. But it’s that kind of year: crowded, and competitive.

Just days ago, Weinstein expanded its festival array by picking up American distribution rights to “Tracks,” which is in Toronto after appearances at festivals in Telluride and Venice. The film stars Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver in the story of Robyn Davis, who in 1977 trekked through the Australian outback with camels.

Already, Weinstein and its co-chairman Harvey Weinstein had planned to be here with “August: Osage County,” “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” “One Chance,” “Philomena” and “12.12.12.” And there is still time to buy a picture or two before film festivities here end, on Sept. 15.

New York Today: Number One

Demetrius Freeman/The New York Times A nice place to visit. And live. And work. So said the world.

Updated 11:43 a.m. | Surveys are a dime a dozen - except, perhaps, for this one.

A new study of more than 18,000 people in 24 countries by the British market-research giant Ipsos MORI found New York the most popular city on the planet, ahead of London and Paris.

The Internet survey ranked New York the best city for business, second in where they’d “most like to visit” (behind Paris) and the fifth most desired place to live (Zurich was No. 1).

The survey revealed some interesting global preferences. Belgians would much rather visit New York than live here, while Poles said the opposite (they’d rather see Mumbai or Madrid).

The pollsters tried to spin the results for their hometown. “The citizens of the world have spoken and given a massive vote of confidence in London and the U.K.,” Ipsos MORI’s boss told The Telegraph.

But even Britons put London second.

Americans, on the other hand, gave New York top marks.

Here’s what you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

As nice as yesterday: mostly sunny with a high of 78.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Mass Transit [11:43 a.m.] Delays on the northbound F train. Click for latest M.T.A. status.

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

Alternate-side parking is suspended for Rosh Hashana today and tomorrow. Meter rules remain in effect.

COMING UP TODAY

- A parade of candidates on “Good Day New York”: Christine C. Quinn at 7:15 a.m., Joseph J. Lhota at 7:30 and William C. Thompson Jr. at 8:10.

- Later, Ms. Quinn unveils a plan to help immigrant business owners and hosts a town hall meeting with Latino voters in the Bronx. Mr. Thompson promotes a plan to support city college students and their families. Bill de Blasio goes on Al Sharpton’s radio show at 2:20 p.m.

- Fashion Week begins. Some people are getting tired of it.

- Walmart is not in New York City yet, but its striking workers will be, at 10 a.m., to deliver a petition to a member of the chain’s board of directors as part of a nationwide day of protests.

- Live like a king, or a bishop, at a human chess session in Riverside Park, where people play the pieces. 4 to 6 p.m. [Free]

- A summer jam presided over by old-school D.J. Grandmaster Caz at Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. 4 p.m. [Free]

- Live-stream a concert of experimental-music vocalists: It’s opening night of the Resonant Bodies Festival at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn. [Live-stream free; tickets cost money]

- Time for a new moon (at 7:36 a.m., to be precise).

- Last day to enter the Empire State Building photo contest.

- Free outdoor movie: “Les Roseaux Sauvages” (“Wild Reeds” to you) on the steps of Columbia University’s Low Library. 7:30 p.m.

IN THE NEWS

- The comptroller’s race remains a dead heat, a poll found, with white voters overwhelmingly supporting Scott M. Stringer and black voters similarly inclined toward Eliot Spitzer. [New York Times]

- Anthony D. Weiner got into a shouting match with a heckler at a kosher bakery in Brooklyn. [New York Times]

- He also fulfilled a “lifelong dream” of being a TV weatherman. [Daily News]

- Despite all the new bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, the city says Manhattan car traffic is moving 7 percent faster since 2008. [New York Times]

- An assistant principal at a public high school in Williamsburg raped a female student, city investigators said. [New York Times]

- The police stepped up patrols near synagogues after a six-foot-high menorah in Brooklyn burned to the ground. [WABC Eyewitness News]

- Carmelo Anthony may have caught a fish with his bare hands. [Gothamist]

- Poultry news: nearly 1,200 retired laying hens rescued from a California farm are being flown to New York to live out their lives at East Coast sanctuaries. And a rampaging wild turkey caused $5,000 worth of damage in New Jersey. [Sacramento Bee, Star-Ledger]

- At the United States Open, Rafael Nadal crushed his countryman Tommy Robredo to advance to the semifinals.

- Yankees beat White Sox, 6-5, to sweep series. Mets beat Braves, 5-2.

AND FINALLY…

Ken Delmar, a retired real estate salesman in Connecticut who longed to be an artist, discovered something interesting about paper towels: they’re great at soaking up oil paint.

And so was started his second career, as a painter of portraits on two-ply Bounty towels.

His most ambitious work to date may be a matrix painting of the nine Supreme Court justices. [Click to see the painting.]

It’s in a show of Mr. Delmar’s work that opens tonight at the George Billis Gallery in Chelsea.

Nicole Higgins DeSmet contributed reporting.

New York Today is 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 us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytimes.com/nytoday.

Sept. 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.Maps of all campaign events since April »

Events by candidate

Albanese

De Blasio

Lhota

Liu

Quinn

Thompson

Group event

John A. Catsimatidis
Republican

7:45 p.m.
Participates in a mayoral forum, hosted by LatinTRENDS media company, at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue.

Bill de Blasio
Democrat

8 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the Bay Ridge Avenue subway station, on Fourth Avenue and Bay Ridge Avenue in Brooklyn. He is joined by Councilman Vincent Gentile, who endorsed Mr. de Blasio on Aug. 19. Sal F. Albanese starts campaigning at this station 45 minutes prior to Mr. de Blasio.

1 p.m.
Greets afternoon commuters at the 96th Street subway station, one of Mr. de Blasio’s favorite subway stations to visit and the first of two he intends to visit on the day on the Upper West Side.

4 p.m.
Greets voters on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.

5:30 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at the 72nd Street subway station, one of Mr. de Blasio’s favorite subway stations to visit and the second of two he intends to visit on the day on the Upper West Side.

John C. Liu
Democrat

8:15 a.m.
Greets morning commuters at the 125th Street subway station, on Lenox Avenue in Harlem.

11:15 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, alongside his wife, Jenny, at the Bronx River Senior Center, the first of three senior centers he intends to visit in the Bronx on the day.

12 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the Castle Hill Senior Center, the second of three senior centers he intends to visit in the Bronx on the day. Mr. Liu will again be accompanied by his wife, Jenny.

12:30 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the Highbridge Senior Center, the third of three senior centers he intends to visit in the Bronx on the day. Mr. Liu will again be accompanied by his wife, Jenny.

1:30 p.m.
Appears at an event to endorse Mark Treyger, a City Council candidate for the 47th District, which includes parts of south Brooklyn, at Seth Low Park on Bay Parkway.

5 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at the 116th Street subway station, at Lexington Avenue in East Harlem.

6:45 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church Senior Center, on West 144th Street in Upper Manhattan.

7:45 p.m.
Participates in a mayoral forum, hosted by LatinTRENDS media company, at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue.

Joseph J. Lhota
Republican

8 a.m.
Greets commuters during the morning rush, at the 68th Street-Hunter College subway station on the Upper East Side.

11 a.m.
Meets privately with the New York City Charter School Center, at the school on Broadway.

Christine C. Quinn
Democrat

8 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, along with State Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan and City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, at the Jackson Avenue 7 train subway station in Queens.

9:30 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the PSS Davidson Senior Center, the first of three senior centers she intends to visit in the Bronx on the day. Ms. Quinn is joined by Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and Ms. Arroyo’s daughter, Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

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

9:30 a.m.
Leads an education roundtable with New York City teachers, at Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem.

10 a.m.
Holds a news conference to unveil his plans to support the city’s college students and their families, including offering city students one free year at CUNY, outside Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem.

11:45 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the ARC Fort Washington Senior Center, at Broadway and 173rd Street in Upper Manhattan.

12:45 p.m.
Visits with senior citizens at the Central Harlem Senior Center, on West 134th Street in Harlem.

2:30 p.m.
Leads a small-business walking tour, starting at West 115th Street in Morningside Heights.

3:45 p.m.
Takes part in a second small-business walking tour, beginning at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem.

5:30 p.m.
Greets evening commuters at the 157th Street 1 train subway station, in Washington Heights.

7 p.m.
Calls potential voters from a phone bank, on Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem.

8 p.m.
Meets with voters at 809 Restaurant in Upper Manhattan. He is joined by the musician Willie Colon.

Sal F. Albanese
Democrat

7:15 a.m.
Greets morning commuters, along with his wife, Lorraine, at the Bay Ridge Avenue R train station on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Bill de Blasio begins campaigning at this station 45 minutes after Mr. Albanese.

11:30 a.m.
Visits with senior citizens, at the AMICO Senior Center in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

12:15 p.m.
Stops in to chat with senior citizens, at the Narrows Senior Center in Brooklyn.

Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Independent

7 p.m.
Participates in a mayoral forum, hosted by LatinTRENDS media company, at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue.

George T. McDonald
Republican

7 p.m.
Participates in a mayoral forum, hosted by LatinTRENDS media company, at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue.

A Brief Kidnapping

Dear Diary:

As I was crossing 59th Street at First on the way to visit my dad in the hospital on Aug. 10, I thought little of the man running across the avenue against the light whom I saw out of the corner of my eye. But as he neared me from behind, he yelled out, in a Southern drawl: “I caught one, Gail! I got one!” And then I was knocked to the ground.

I quickly realized that I was being kidnapped, to await some terrible fate at the hands of Gail and her sprinting accomplice. I screamed with all the strength I could muster for them to leave me alone.

As I turned to fight for my life I could see them getting into the taxi they had run to catch, having accidentally bumped me with their luggage as I was climbing to the curb.

They were no doubt glad to flee from the screaming maniac at the corner.

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.

Months After Storm, a Team of Mennonites Has Stayed to Rebuild

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times
Logan Orpin, left, a crew leader, and Gary Eicher, a volunteer, working in Far Rockaway, Queens, for the Mennonite Disaster Service, a volunteer network of churches helping neighborhoods recover from Hurricane Sandy.

Within days of Hurricane Sandy’s New York landfall, Frank Hoover started coordinating vans full of Mennonites to repair homes ravaged by the storm. His impromptu crews finished their farm chores in Pennsylvania Dutch country in the middle of the night and left for Staten Island or Far Rockaway by 3 a.m. They worked 8 or 10 hours, then drove back to Lancaster County.

Since then, over 1,300 Mennonites have parachuted into the city. Volunteers from the conservative sect of Protestant Christianity that includes the Amish, known for their skillful carpentry (as well as their beards and bonnets), have already returned dozens of low-income, hurricane-struck families to their homes. They have another 80 projects in various stages of rehabilitation.

“We do this in our own community â€" if someone has storm damage, the neighbors all come together and help,” said Mr. Hoover, 57, a long-term volunteer who lives in Lancaster. “We believe the Bible teaches us that we have to share our blessings. I think if God blesses us, we can’t hoard that to ourselves.”

While Mr. Hoover’s volunteers made the round trip in one day at first, the Mennonites have now set up house in temporary quarters, allowing volunteers from as far-off as the Midwest and Canada to stay for days or weeks at a time.

“They are so humble. They are reluctant to ever ask for anything,” said Brad Gair, a representative at the mayor’s NYC Recovery office. “But we finally got it out of them that they were commuting daily from Pennsylvania. That was really not sustainable. Sometimes they were sleeping in the houses they were working on â€" it was winter and there were no utilities.”

On Staten Island, the Mennonites are staying in a defunct Catholic seminary near Midland Beach. In Far Rockaway, behind the First Church of God stands a small cluster of prefabricated barracks on trailer beds. The squat shelters were built by Amish carpenters in Pennsylvania, hitched to trucks and delivered to the church’s gravel parking lot. Inside, unfinished wood bunk beds are dressed in plain white sheets. Other trailers house bathroom and kitchen facilities.

“As long as we offer a place to sleep, a place to shower, and food in their belly, they’re happy,” said John Tolvin, a volunteer from Oregon stationed at Far Rockaway.

The Mennonite crews do an array of tasks, including replacing floors, plumbing and overhauling roofs.

Logan Orpin, 20, came from Wichita, Kan., to Far Rockaway for three weeks. One recent afternoon, he took a break from his work priming and painting walls and ticked off the steps that will let a family confined to two rooms of their house move back into the whole home â€" insulation, drywall, painting, shelving.

“The Lord has blessed me with the construction skills I have, and this is my way of helping those in need,” Mr. Orpin said.

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times Mennonite volunteers are living in Far Rockaway in trailers built by Amish carpenters.

Female Amish volunteers, who are generally assigned to domestic chores, have also been known to pitch in rebuilding roofs and hanging drywall.

Mennonite Disaster Service, the organization coordinating the volunteer response, looks to help those lowest on the economic rungs or with extenuating circumstances. “Most of the ones that we do are special cases: cancer victims, people who are wheelchair-bound, handicapped,” said Bruce Smith, a project director for the service.

Theodora Friscia, a retired nurse, is one of those helped by the Mennonites. Her tiny 1920s bungalow in Midland Beach was nearly destroyed.

“It was an absolute shell,” she said. “I lost everything. Twelve feet of water we had here. I would have had to hire privately and it would have eaten up my pension. And that money I needed to save for when I’m 80 years old. I have no one to fall back on.”

Winston Penner, 72, of Manitoba, Canada, was one of the long-term volunteers who helped fix Ms. Friscia’s home. He worked on her plumbing and electrical work, and replaced the house’s siding.

“I’m not saying we work harder than any other carpenters, but when people are grateful like Thea, it makes it more rewarding,” Mr. Penner said. “It’s just for the joy of helping people out who are in need.”

During the warm months, the Pennsylvania volunteers who live on farms have mostly stayed home to tend the fields, but the temporary housing has allowed more modern Mennonites, not tied to the fields, to come in from farther away. When this year’s harvest is in, around the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, more Amish and Old Order Mennonites will rejoin the rebuilding efforts. This time, they will have a place to stay.

The disaster service has committed to fixing 50 more homes on Staten Island before April. Beyond that, Mr. Smith said he did not see the Mennonites leaving New York anytime soon.

“Long term, you’re looking at anywhere between two to five years here,” he said. “And it doesn’t begin to cover it all. We get more calls every day.”

The Ad Campaign: Quinn Takes Aim at de Blasio

First aired: September 4, 2013

Produced by: SKDKnickerbocker and Mark Guma Communications

Against: Christine C. Quinn

With six days to catch an ascendant rival, Christine C. Quinn has released her first negative ad of the Democratic mayoral primary campaign. “Closer Look,” a direct attack on Bill de Blasio, suggests he is a hypocrite for accepting campaign contributions from landlords he had criticized, and seeks to undermine the perception that Mr. de Blasio is tougher than his opponents on New York City’s stop-and-frisk policing tactic.

Fact-Check

0:04

“The Daily News revealed de Blasio took over $50,000 from slumlords on his own list of the city’s worst landlords.”

It is true that Mr. de Blasio, the public advocate, received political contributions from landlords whom he had placed on a “watch list” after tenants complained of poor living conditions at their buildings. Mr. de Blasio’s aides say the contributions did not affect the list; some landlords who gave money were removed, but others were not. Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, has suggested that Mr. de Blasio shamed the landlords to extract political contributions; there is little hard evidence to support that claim.

0:17

“And here’s de Blasio on stop and frisk.’You can’t eliminate the basic police tactic of stop-and-frisk because it is a valid policing tactic.’”

The quote from Mr. de Blasio suggests that he is a stop-and-frisk supporter. But moments after saying these words in a May interview, Mr. de Blasio continued: ‘I disagree with anyone who says abolish a tactic we need, but I agree entirely that we have to fundamentally reform it, we have to change the nature of it.”

Scorecard

Ms. Quinn’s team has criticized Mr. de Blasio for a misleading claim, in a previous ad, that he would be “the only candidate to end a stop-and-frisk era that targets minorities.” In fact, both candidates want to reform the practice, and although they differ on how to do so, neither would ban it completely. In Ms. Quinn’s new ad, the selective editing of Mr. de Blasio’s comment is also misleading; it suggests he supports the policing tactic, when he is actually a critic.

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More from The Ad Campaign

A version of this article appears in print on 09/05/2013, on page A22 of the NewYork edition with the headline: The Ad Campaign: Quinn Takes Aim at de Blasio.