A Post-Mayoral Role for Bloomberg in London

There is life after City Hall â€" and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s version of it is already looking rather glam.

In the first official appointment for his post-mayoral career, Mr. Bloomberg will become chairman of the Serpentine Gallery in London next year.

The mayor, a billionaire, has made it clear that he plans to focus on philanthropic work, along with national policy issues like immigration and gun control, after his term ends on Dec. 31.

But Mr. Bloomberg has long eyed a return to the more global lifestyle he enjoyed in pre-political days, and London â€" where he has cultivated deep ties to Britain’s cultural and political elite â€" is a natural first stop. He owns a home in the tony Knightsbridge neighborhood and has weighed in on the construction of an enormous new London headquarters for his media firm in the city’s financial district.

Mr. Bloomberg is a longtime benefactor of the Serpentine, a prestigious exhibition space for contemporary art in the leafy Kensington Gardens, and he served on its board before pursuing political office in 2001.

As mayor, Mr. Bloomberg is no stranger to serving on prestigious boards: he is the chairman of the September 11 Memorial and Museum and created national groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns. But he stepped down from formal positions with several cultural institutions when he entered public life.

His chairmanship of the Serpentine was disclosed this week at the gala opening of the museum’s newest gallery, partly designed by the famed architect Zaha Hadid and partly paid for by Mr. Bloomberg himself.

He flew to London to attend the event, where he spent the evening reconnecting with his British coterie, including the Serpentine’s director, Julia Peyton-Jones, a close friend; Boris Johnson, the mayor of London and a close political ally; and George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer.

Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair and another longtime friend of the mayor, hosted the event with Mr. Bloomberg.

Antonia Fraser Steps Down From Booker Prize Role

The award-winning historian and writer Antonia Fraser has resigned as an adviser to the Man Booker International Prize, after the related Man Booker Prize for Fiction recently and controversially loosened its eligibility requirements.

Starting next year, the annual fiction prize, one of the literary world’s most prestigious awards, will be open to any work originally written in English and published in Britain. Previously, only English-language novels by authors from Britain, other Commonwealth countries, Ireland and Zimbabwe had been eligible for the prize.

“I have resigned from the committee since I was not warned about this when I was asked to join in August,” Ms. Fraser told the London Evening Standard.

The eligibility changes have caused some consternation among bookish types, but Ms. Fraser’s participation is the first official casualty of the debate.

The international prize, for which Ms. Fraser was to serve as an adviser, is awarded every two years and honors an author for a body of work rather than a particular book. The most recent winner was Lydia Davis, an American.

A representative at Curtis Brown, the London-based agency, said Ms. Fraser was not commenting further about her decision at this time.

Helen Gurley Brown Trust Donates $15 Million for College Prep at New York Libraries

Helen Gurley Brown didn’t care only about the Cosmo girl.

She was also concerned with underserved children in New York City. As a result, her trust is giving $15 million to the New York Public Library for a new educational and anti-poverty program based at library branches that was announced on Wednesday by the trust and the library.

“The library is eager to up its game in addressing those pressing issues,” said Tony Marx, the library’s president.

The five-year program, called NYPL BridgeUP, will provide academic and social support to 250 eighth graders each year at five library branches in the Bronx and Manhattan - helping them with homework, addressing areas of academic weakness and working on “Passion Projects” on subjects of particular interest.

The students will study together in groups of 10 over five years - under the guidance of a recent college graduate â€" with the goal of attending college or technical school.

When Ms. Brown, who died in 2012, first came to New York from Arkansas, “she used the New York Public Library as an oasis,” said Eve Burton, senior vice president of the Hearst Corporation, which publishes Cosmopolitan. “It was the only place where she could feel safe and free to write and think.”

Wartime Composition by Britten to Receive Public Performance

Music that Benjamin Britten wrote in 1942 for a radio series intended to inform American audiences about conditions in wartime Britain will be performed in public for the first time next month by the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, the BBC reported.

The music was originally written for a series called “An American in England” that was broadcast on the CBS radio network. The Oct. 3 concert, which comes as orchestras around the world mark Britten’s centenary, will open with music that Britten wrote for one of the broadcasts, “Women of Britain,” which explored the role of British women during the war.

The actor Samuel West will narrate excerpts from the original script, the orchestra said.

A Harlem Suite for Three Women

William P. Gottlieb Jack Teagarden, Dixie Bailey, Mary Lou Williams, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Orent in Williams’s apartment, New York, August 1947.

In the book “Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists & Progressive Politics During World War II,” Prof. Farah Jasmine Griffin breathes life into three prominent women who lived and flourished in a Harlem brimming with clubs like Café Society and with anti-Jim Crow protests: Ann Petry, the novelist; Mary Lou Williams, the pianist and composer; and Pearl Primus, the dancer and choreographer.

Petry’s first novel, “The Street” (1946), about a working-class single mother, was the first by a black woman to sell a million copies. Williams, who composed “Zodiac Suite,” was a child prodigy who went on to help shape jazz and lend her talents to political causes. Primus was a critical darling and pioneer whose work like “Strange Fruit” incorporated African and slave traditions into modern dance. Published this month, “Harlem Nocturne” examines personalities and politics in the country’s most famous black neighborhood. Professor Griffin, who teaches English, comparative literature and African-American studies at Columbia University, was interviewed in her office at Columbia. These are edited excerpts.

Q.

You point out that the Harlem of the ’40s is overlooked, wedged between the better known Harlem Renaissance and the foment of the ’60s.

A.

In the 1940s it’s very exciting, you get this influx of new people: it’s the second great migration of black Americans from the South and the development of El Barrio with immigrants from Puerto Rico primarily. It’s a new kind of political energy with Adam Clayton Powell. It still has the Savoy and the Lindy Hop and the Apollo and all of those clubs.

Q.

What drew you to the period?

A.

They were glamorous, the women. There was a sense of confidence on the part of black people in particular, a sort of boldness about the war years. It wasn’t the Harlem Renaissance, which I knew fairly well and it wasn’t the Depression era, where everybody was suffering and struggling. But this was a period when there were all these boycotts and various forms of political organizing.

Q.

Was that confidence and activism tied to the war?

A.

It was tied to the war. It was a good war - this is a war against Hitler, it’s a war against Nazis. In World War I there was a move to be quiet about racial inequality in the United States while we presented a united front and fought. This time around, it was, ‘no we’re not going to be quiet about our condition here. In fact, we’re going to point out the hypocrisy that we’re fighting this war and yet we’re sent to a Jim Crow South boot camp where our soldiers are treated really badly or we can’t get jobs in the defense industry.’

Q.

And the war was a good time for women to assert themselves?

A.

The war definitely provided opportunities for black women and for white women. Petry talks about taking this very competitive writing course at Columbia. She gets into the course and she says it’s all women - the men are at war. Mary Lou’s husband is in the military, so it does provide her some personal freedom when he’s away. Black women are getting better employment opportunities: they’re moving out of domestic service and into factory work because of the war.

Edna Guy Ann Petry.

Q.

Did you figure out why Ann Petry, Pearl Primus and Mary Lou Williams are not household names now?

A.

It’s a complicated answer. By the end of the decade, for different reasons, they fall out of style in some ways, aesthetically and politically. By the ’70s and ’80s we get them again, by those people coming out of the feminist movement and black power movement who start to look for forebears and discover them.

Q.

Was the end of Harlem’s romance with Communism a part of their fading? Primus was affiliated with the party.

A.

She was under surveillance. But [because of communism] some of the venues and publications that supported Mary Lou and supported Ann Petry were targeted. A place like Café Society [where Williams was a regular] closes down because the owner is under investigation. Aesthetically, in the case of Ann Petry, you get the emergence of writers like Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, who aren’t really doing that kind of social realism work anymore â€" it’s more experimental, complex modernist techniques and that becomes more attractive.

Q.

What did these women share?

A.

They were very intellectual. They were interested not only in the creative aspects of their art form but they were all interested in the history and the critical aspects. Mary Lou was not only composing and performing, she was also editing pieces about modern jazz, writing critical pieces about modern jazz. Ann Petry was not only writing fiction, she was writing criticism. And Pearl Primus was a researcher. Even before she became a graduate student at Columbia to study anthropology, she did ethnographic research on the dances she would create.

Q.

What was the genesis of the book?

A.

I had been approached about doing some liner notes for the rerelease of a Lena Horne CD. I did all this research and just fell in love with the ’40s, the period when she’s first in movies - “Stormy Weather,” “Cabin in the Sky.” I had spent all this time at the Schomburg reading microfilms of old Amsterdam News and Pittsburgh Couriers and I realized there were these women being covered who seemed to be fairly well known for their art during their period.

Q.

What do you hope readers get from your book?

A.

To see the role of artists in social movements. None of these were artists creating a social movement. They just came along at a time when there was a social movement that embraced them and there was a place for them, there was a give and take and they gave to those movements and those movements also helped inform the work they were doing. And, there are ebbs and flows in progressive black politics: it’s not just the ’60s; it’s not just the Montgomery bus boycott. There’s this long back and forth, this forging ahead and then retreating. The ’40s can be seen as one of those periods that contribute to what we all identify as culminating in the civil rights movement.

An Elite School Is the Saddest Spot in Manhattan, a Study Says

Yana Paskova for The New York Times Is this the saddest place in Manhattan? A study of Twitter posts asserts that Hunter College High School is indeed the most negative spot.

Hunter College High School is a highly rated school whose coveted spots are filled with many of the city’s top performing students. It feeds Ivy League colleges and provides a free education that supporters believe surpasses what is offered at many of the elite private high schools in New York City.

So it came as a surprise to students and others when the school was labeled the saddest spot in Manhattan, based on a recent study aimed at gauging the emotions of New Yorkers by their Twitter messages.

The highest volume of what the study labeled “negative sentiment tweets” in Manhattan came not from a subway platform, emergency room, soup kitchen line or even a crowded branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles. They came, researchers reported, from Hunter.

Was this student body â€" once described in a 1982 New York magazine article headline as “The Joyful Elite” â€" really a bunch of misanthropes unpacking their miserable hearts, 140 characters at a time?

The “saddest spot” label, if not the details of the study, has become the buzz of Hunter as the new academic year starts.

“Everyone was talking about it â€" we’re the saddest school,” said Grace Cruz, 17, a senior at Hunter College High School as she walked out of the school recently and onto East 94th Street. Nearby, a group of freshmen outside the school groaned collectively when asked about the “saddest school” study.

“I mean, I can see why it could make sense,” said Caroline Goodman, 14, waving toward the brick, fortresslike school building. “The school has no windows, so being inside can seem dark and depressing. And some kids do get stressed out from the workload.”

Now wait, interjected her friend Lizzie McCord, 14.

“But it’s not like there’s more competition here than at schools like Science or Stuy,” she said, referring to other high-performing and demanding city high schools: Bronx Science and Stuyvesant. “I think it’s more about the fact that students don’t enjoy going to school, as a rule.”

What are we even talking about, said Sarina Gupta, 14, who pointed out that, yes, some students used social media to grumble about being in school â€" but not on Twitter. Most students prefer Facebook and Instagram, she said, a fact she had to break to her uncle, Mike Gupta, who happens to be the chief financial officer at Twitter.

“I told him, ‘None of my friends are on Twitter, so I don’t need an account,’” she said.

Well, someone’s tweeting from that big brown brick building, say researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute, an independent academic research and educational institution in Cambridge, Mass. And a computer program they developed found that a high percentage of those Twitter messages contained a negative sentiment, based upon key words, phrases and emoticons.

Researchers used the program to classify the over 600,000 geographically tagged messages they recorded citywide during a two-week period in April 2012 - That was two school years ago, students pointed out â€" to create a “sentiment map of New York City” along with the study, which was published in August.

Some findings seemed obvious. A higher percentage of happy messages came from Central Park and other green spaces than from cemeteries, medical centers, jails, sewage plants and high-traffic areas during rush hour. The highest percentage of positive sentiment posts in Manhattan - the happiest spot, to Hunter’s saddest â€" came from uptown, in Fort Tryon Park.

A post on the Web site of Science Magazine on the study mentioned Hunter as the saddest spot, and an article in Our Town weekly newspaper in Manhattan bore a headline calling Hunter “The Saddest Smartest School Around,” adding that the school “ranks last in happiness study.”

On the first day of school, on Sept. 9, an assistant principal, Lisa Siegmann, opened her welcome-back remarks by mentioning how strangely happy the students seemed.

“She said, “You don’t look like the saddest students to me,’ and everyone laughed,” said Patrycja Witanoska, 17, a senior from Maspeth.

“No one took it seriously,” said Grace Cruz. “Every student I know feels fortunate to be at Hunter. I could see kids getting upset if they have a bunch of tests on the same day, but really, it’s just a positive place.”

Asked for comment, Ms. Siegmann seemed to take the idea of interpreting an emoticon and turn it on its head.

“I love that the students found the humor in what I said,” she wrote in an e-mail. “They, themselves, know that our school is anything but an upside-down smile.”

Yaneer Bar-Yam, the institute’s president, pointed out that the Twitter messages were monitored just as students returned from spring break and were facing the daunting few weeks before finals.

He said that one Hunter parent e-mailed him to say, “I told my son he was indeed going to school at the saddest place, and he took a certain pride in it.” The parent added, “Maybe this will inspire the administration to add some windows.’’

Lhota Attacks de Blasio’s ‘Marxist’ Campaign Strategy

Joseph J. Lhota’s office sent out an e-mail Tuesday, purportedly from the Republican candidate for mayor. It concerned his grave alarm at the “news” that more than two decades ago, Bill de Blasio, his Democratic rival, had joined what was known as a solidarity group supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Mr. Lhota divined in this affiliation a foreshadowing of the darkness at noon that could descend on the people of New York.

Mr. Lhota’s statement reads:

“Mr. de Blasio’s involvement with the Sandinistas didn’t happen in 1917 [This is a reference to the Bolsheviks storming of the Winter Palace and not the last time the Jets won the Super Bowl] it happened 70 years later when the cruelty and intrinsic failure of communism became crystal clear to anyone with a modicum of reason.

“Mr. de Blasio’s class warfare strategy in New York City is directly out of the Marxist playbook. Now we know why.”

With this statement, Mr. Lhota not only jumped the shark, he rode a Great White bareback through New York harbor.

It’s hard to know where to start.

As a resident of haute bourgeois Park Slope and the owner of a rapidly appreciating row house, the middle-aged Mr. de Blasio seems unlikely to embrace property expropriation. As a former Little League coach, he also seems not likely to turn Prospect Park’s baseball fields into collective farms, although if he does, organic kale might be found on every plate in the city.

His children, it’s true, appear to have attended the Park Slope Child Care Collective. But the tykes favored “Baby Beluga” over the Red Army anthem.

He is a Boston RED Sox fan, which may or may not be in that Marxist playbook but is perhaps cause for immediate suspicion by Yankee fans. He once self-identified as a democratic socialist, which would put him in the same ideological column as Golda Meir, Moishe Dayan, Willie Brandt and Francois Mitterand.

And more or less all of those social democrats stood up to and argued vociferously with the hard left, including Communists.

Lastly, as to those Sandinistas: This was a complicated revolutionary movement. A remarkably diverse coalition at first, it overthrew a cruel dictator. The leadership included some Communists, as well as social democrats and priests.

Some of its key leaders harbored unfortunate authoritarian tendencies. They stood - a touch reluctantly - for two elections deemed fair by many foreign observers. After it was defeated in that second election, in 1990, the movement shifted into the democratic opposition. Whatever their failings, the Sandinistas did not impose a repressive regime on their impoverished Central American nation. There was no mass jailing of opponents nor mass execution of opposing soldiers.

Quite a few liberal-left students and young people in the 1980s supported revolutionary movements in Central America. They may have been more than a touch naïve about the nature of these movements, but they at least realized that these nations had suffered terribly at the hands of United States-supported dictators.

Closer to home and closer to 2013, a more pertinent question arises: Who kidnapped Joseph Lhota, the levelheaded deputy mayor who could talk of innovation, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief who could talk to unions without his upper lip curling into a snarl? His statement denouncing Mr. de Blasio and the Sandinistas is notably longer and more detailed than the sections of his Web site devoted to public safety, education and the police.

As it’s not in the Marxist playbook to kidnap Republican candidates for mayor, Mr. Lhota presumably can free himself and run a stronger and less inadvertently comic campaign.

Quick Change in Williamsburg

Dear Diary:

Within the matrix of security footage in my apartment building in south Williamsburg, one camera has captured something that my doorman insists I watch. “It happened five minutes ago,” he says, scrolling through the footage to 2:57 p.m. “This is the craziest thing I have ever seen.” The camera feed shows the back entrance of my building, where tenants lock up their bikes. A white van is parked there.

On cue, a Hasidic woman hustles into the lot, alone. She takes cover behind the van. With premeditated efficiency, she undoes the scarf wrapped around her head, revealing the perfectly coifed, ubiquitous shoulder-length wig that renders all Hasidic women anonymous to a layperson like me. Next, off comes her equally anonymous ensemble, the long-sleeved black cardigan and the ankle-length black skirt.

She rolls all of her black garments into a little black ball, paying surreptitious glances about her surroundings. Underneath her modest black outfit, she’s been wearing a long-sleeved blouse and a pale pink skirt ending just at her knees.

She smooths back the hairs of her wig, securing it into a low ponytail, trades out her closed-toe black shoes for white ones, then takes a moment to compose herself.

Across the street, there’s a popular, hip restaurant full of braless women with wild, windblown hair and glossy red lips. But none of them feel as electrified as this woman now, who walks out from behind the van and leaves the back lot of my building looking like a secular version of herself, something like a librarian, a wallflower, a wartime nurse from another era.

Her radical wardrobe will go unacknowledged on this day by any of us, and I imagine that’s the way she’d like it to stay.

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.

A Seven-Hour Documentary About a Horror Franchise? The Director Explains

Crystal Lake Memories Derek Mears as Jason Voorhees in the 2009 remake of “Friday the 13th.”

It takes almost 10 hours to watch the landmark Holocaust documentary “Shoah.” If you have 24 hours to spare you can spend it with Christian Marclay’s movie-clip art film “The Clock.” Now horror fans have their own chance for marathon movie-watching with the release of “Crystal Lake Memories,” a new 7-hour documentary about the highly successful “Friday the 13th” franchise.

Named after the idyllic camp where randy teenagers met bloody fates, the documentary features interviews with some 150 cast and crew members from the dozen “Friday the 13th” films and the syndicated television series that ran from 1987 to 1990. (The documentary was released this month, of course, on Friday the 13th.) The original “Friday the 13th,” directed by Sean Cunningham for about $550,000, was a surprise hit when it opened in 1980, grossing more than $39.7 million. The films collectively have become one of the most profitable movie franchises thanks in large part to its central villain, Jason Voorhees. Like the lead character’s disguise in the Broadway musical “The Phantom of the Opera,” Jason’s hockey mask has entered the top tier of pop-culture iconography.

“Jason is this iconic symbol of evil that has gone from generation to generation,” said Daniel Farrands, who wrote and directed “Crystal Lake Memories.”

And the killing might not be over. Corey Feldman, who narrates “Crystal Lake Memories” (and who as a child appeared in “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter” in 1984), has expressed interest in developing and starring in a 13th film. Mr. Farrands is developing a TV series called “Crystal Lake Chronicles.”

But a seven-hour documentary? Mr. Farrands, 44, recently spoke with ArtsBeat about why he devoted so much time to the franchise, why Jason should never have gone to space, and how Hugh Jackman fits into it all. Following are excerpts from the conversation.

Q.

There are long movies, and then there’s a seven-hour documentary about “Friday the 13th.” How did you get the idea for a long-form film?

A.

I worked on another “Friday the 13th” film called “His Name Was Jason,” but I was limited to 90 minutes. The fans hated us because it was so short. After that, Thommy Hutson, my producing partner, and I made “Never Sleep Again,” a four-hour documentary about the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films. It turned out to be a fan favorite. Then I was one of the financiers and editor of a coffee table book about “Friday the 13th” that came out in 2005 called “Crystal Lake Memories.” There’s just this loyal fan base for the “Friday the 13th” movies. They don’t want the truncated bonus features you might get on a DVD.

Crystal Lake Memories Corey Feldman, who starred in “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,” narrates the documentary “Crystal Lake Memories.”

The film is like 12 mini movies in one, with each chapter devoted to a different film. Each one tells its own story. You can watch it in a marathon, or piece by piece. Even if you’re not a “Friday” fan, what we tried to do was tell the story of what it’s like to make low-budget movies in the trenches. It’s like a film school, wrapped up in an documentary.

Q.

Why do you think the original “Friday the 13th” became so popular in the first place?

A.

You can’t define the moment when something becomes a pop-culture phenomenon. But Sean Cunningham took what was becoming popular, because of “Halloween,” and upped the ante. He took the suspense, and the mysterious killer who can’t be stopped, to the next level by putting the graphic kills in your face. That hadn’t been done in a mainstream way. He convinced Paramount, a major studio, to release it in a big way.

Q.

Even people who don’t like horror movies know who Jason is. Why do you think his image has become so well known?

A.

Although he’s a boogeyman, Jason was a nerd who was abused and left behind. He suffered this horrible tragedy, and when he came back to life he couldn’t stopped. There’s a wish fulfillment there for a lot of kids. By killing off the cool kids, he speaks to people who feel alienated. Not that you wish people dead, but it’s a way for some people to live out their strangest fantasies. He’s an antihero. I think he’s transcended horror movies. He made his way into comics. He won an MTV lifetime achivement award. He was on Arsenio Hall’s show and “The Simpsons.” Hugh Jackson said he wanted to play Jason, and that’s why he became an actor.

Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees, with the actress Julie Michaels, during the shooting of “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday” (1993).

Q.

When the first film came out, it was controversial because of its graphic depiction of violence, especially against women. But that outrage barely registers today.

A.

In the early days the filmmakers were accused of being misogynist. But I think the movies actually empower women. The films have a lot of female fans. The actresses who have played the surviving characters, who use their intelligence to beat Jason, have an amazing female fan base. They are the ones that are outsiders who don’t fit in, but they are the one who have to survive. I think that’s a metaphor for so many struggles facing adolescents, including women.

Q.

There are several famous people who appeared in “Friday the 13th” films before they made it big: Kevin Bacon, Crispin Glover, Kelly Rowland. But they’re not in your film. Did you have a hard time getting celebrities who were in the films to agree to participate?

A.

Everybody who was a part of the movies was contacted. Kevin Bacon is a huge star. Whether or not he chooses to speak about it is up to him. The answer was no, not because he didn’t want to talk about it, but because he was working. There are people who might not want to relive it, or they have just moved on.

Q.

Do you have a favorite “Friday the 13th” film?

A.

The first four really spoke to me when I was growing up. As it went on, it got campier, more ridiculous, with Jason in space and going to hell.

Q.

Which one do you like the least?

A.

That would have to be “Jason X,” where he goes to space. It’s the final frontier, where franchises go to die.

New York Today: Subway Headway

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times A milestone in the construction of the Second Avenue Subway.

Updated 6:52 a.m. | The builders of the Second Avenue Subway - that nearly century-old pipe dream on Manhattan’s East Side - would like to offer some good news:

For the first time in the project’s modern history, a shipment of rails is arriving.

For now, they are being deposited in a cavern at East 96th Street.

But the rails will eventually be placed on the first segment of the project, which runs from 96th Street to 63rd Street.

It is to be finished in late 2016.

There is no firm timeline for completion of the full line, which transit officials hope to extend from Harlem to the Financial District.

The Second Avenue Subway represents the first major expansion of the system in over 50 years.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sought in recent years to improve relations with Upper East residents most affected by construction.

The authority said it would post regular online updates on air quality in the area.

In July, it opened an information center near East 84th Street, seeking to better explain what Adam Lisberg, the authority’s chief spokesman, called the “inherently disruptive” construction work.

Here’s what else you need to know for Wednesday.

THIS JUST IN

The New Haven Line on Metro-North is suspended temporarily from Stamford to Grand Central Terminal because of a power issue.

WEATHER

Sunny and mild, with a high of 74 degrees. Outdoor lunch time.

OTHER TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

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

- Roads: No major delays. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Another day of street closings for the United Nations General Assembly. Here’s the list. Or follow @GridlockSam on Twitter.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today, though not Thursday or Friday.

COMING UP TODAY

- Bill de Blasio, the Democratic mayoral candidate, is endorsed by the firefighters’ union.

- Today is your last chance to see James Turrell’s exhibition, which reconfigures the Guggenheim with natural and artificial light. [$22, 10 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.]

- The rapper Big Freedia, who was twerking long before Miley Cyrus, wants to set a world record for most people twerking simultaneously. Herald Square at noon.

- The New York Red Bulls lead a youth soccer clinic in Central Park. [R.S.V.P. required, 4 p.m.]

- The Esperanza Azteca Youth Orchestra of Mexico has its first performance in the United States, at St. Peter’s Church in Midtown. [Free, 6 p.m.]

- The Harriman Institute at Columbia University sponsors a discussion on Russian politics and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. [Free, 6 p.m.]

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

IN THE NEWS

- His name is President Obama and he endorses that de Blasio family Afro. Mr. de Blasio and Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican candidate, also agreed to three debates. [New York Times]

- After losing in the Democratic primary, the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, will not try to win the general election on the Republican line after all. [Politicker NY]

- The Bronx and Brooklyn had the two highest unemployment rates by county in the state last month. [Politics on the Hudson]

- Mariano Rivera bobblehead night at Yankee Stadium had everything. Except, for awhile, Mariano Rivera bobbleheads. [New York Daily News]

- One-third of this year’s MacArthur geniuses live in New York City, fueling more than eight million local superiority complexes. [New York Times]

- More than 4,500 cabdrivers have more than six violation points on their licenses, but were not discovered due to a computer glitch. [Associated Press]

- The M.T.A. was not amused that Aflac, the insurance company, put a duck in a subway station. [The Village Voice]

- A Greenpoint restaurant is serving some of its meals in silence. [The Brooklyn Paper]

AND FINALLY…

A little more subway news:

The M.T.A. announced the winners of an app competition this week.

The grand prize, and $20,000, went to Citymapper, which uses real-time information on subways, buses and bikes to improve travel guides.

Other honorees included SubCulture.FM, which connects riders with subway musicians, and AccessWay, which helps visually-impaired riders navigate stations using sensors and audio messages.

And if you want a countdown clock in your pocket - at least on most numbered lines - there is already an app for that.

Joseph Burgess and Sam Roberts contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

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