The Ad Campaign: A Daughter Gets Her Turn

First aired: October 17, 2013

Produced by: AKPD Message and Media

Issue: Bill de Blasio

An advertisement featuring Bill de Blasio’s 16-year-old son, Dante, and his endearing Afro, helped push his father to victory in the Democratic primary. Now, with the general election a few weeks away, Mr. de Blasio is hoping to rekindle some of the family charm.

On Thursday, he released an advertisement narrated by his 18-year-old daughter, Chiara. In the 30-second ad, titled “Attention,” Ms. de Blasio offers highlights of her father’s campaign platform. And she takes time to rib her younger brother, now a minor celebrity in New York City political circles.

Fact-Check

0:12

“So just remember: Who’s going to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share to fund pre-K and after-school programs?”

Mr. de Blasio has called for raising taxes on households earning more than $500,000 to pay for an expansion of prekindergarten and after-school programs. But that plan would require approval by state leaders, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has expressed resistance to the idea of increasing taxes.

0:21

“Who will keep our hospitals from becoming luxury condos?”

Mr. de Blasio may have more direct authority on the issue of hospitals, given that the city’s Planning Commission, which is controlled by the mayor, could block efforts to turn shuttered hospitals into high-priced housing. But Mr. de Blasio’s power to stop hospitals from closing in the first place may be limited, given that they are regulated by the state.

Scorecard

Ms. de Blasio offers an easygoing testimonial to counteract the doom-and-gloom attacks from Mr. Lhota. She avoids mudslinging by speaking about her father’s hopes for the city.

While Ms. de Blasio may not be able to match her brother, whose debut was viewed nearly 300,000 times on YouTube, the advertisement may help keep her father’s campaign focused on the positive in its final stretch.

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More from The Ad Campaign

A New Book, to be Given Away, Documents the Wrath of Hurricane Sandy

Gilles Peress An image from a coming book, “The Rockaways,” that documents the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy.

After Hurricane Sandy swept through the region, people wandered the Rockaways like zombies, cloaked in blankets to protect against the mid-autumn chill. Families were left traumatized by homes reduced to skeletons. For weeks, the elderly and disabled, trapped in their apartments on high floors, waited for food and heat.

A year later, Gilles Peress, a photographer for the photo agency Magnum, is releasing a book that documents the devastation of “the powerful storm with the innocuous, neighborly name,” in the words of the book’s editor, Hamilton Fish. The difference between this book â€" titled “The Rockaways” â€" and many other photographic compilations of the disaster?

This one is free.

“Photo books are expensive to produce and expensive to buy, and they do tend to be sort of rarefied,” said Stona Fitch, the book’s publisher. “Our book is pretty much the exact opposite of that.”

Mr. Fitch is a founder of Concord Free Press, a publishing house that gives its books away. All parties involved in an imprint’s creation â€" the photographer, the writers, the editors, the printer â€" donate their time and resources. Generous patrons foot the bill for any additional costs.

In exchange for a book, Mr. Fitch asks that readers give to a cause of their choice, report their contribution on the publisher’s Web site, and then pass their copy along to someone else. “The Rockaways” is the press’ eighth book. The previous seven spurred about $327,000 in donations, according to the publishing house.

The book, Mr. Fitch said, is part tribute to lives lost and part warning about disasters to come. “We’re in this whole era of extreme weather,” he said. “And it’s definitely not over.”

Mr. Peress is a French photographer who has lived in New York since the mid-1970s. He has documented the moments that defined the city in recent years â€" Sept. 11, 2001; the 2008 stock market crash; and Hurricane Sandy. “This was huge,” he said of the storm. “It’s important not to forget, because Sandy revealed vulnerabilities to climate change, vulnerabilities in the social construct of the city. And I think that this is a challenge for this city to address. It’s always dangerous to forget history.”

On Friday, readers can pick up the book at a publication party at PowerHouse Arena in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Starting on Oct. 30, they can order a copy online or find copies at a number of city locations (including McNally Jackson Books in SoHo, the International Center of Photography in Midtown, and Roger’s Irish Tavern in Rockaway Park.)

Mr. Fitch is not trying to revolutionize publishing, he said. He doesn’t think all books or works of art should be free â€" he’s simply kicked off a “small experiment in generosity.”

“Publishing a beautiful book is fun,” he said. “Trying to make money at it is hard. So we skip that part.”

Gilles Peress The publisher of “The Rockaways” is not charging people who want a copy of the book.

Morning on the PATH Train

Dear Diary:

I.

A subterranean universe:
brewing beneath,
rumbling under,
our feet.
We tunnel through the ground,
barreling through the roots of the city.

II.

We rise above the earth,
cutting through the watery silhouettes
of factories and freight trains, illuminated by morning light.
We travel through this liminal space between
city and suburb,
beauty and disgust.

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: The Ex-Mayors

Top: Associated Press, Underwood & Underwood.nBottom: The New York Times, Barton Silverman/The New York Times What they did later: Mayors Dinkins, Mitchel, Lindsay and Hylan, clockwise from upper left.

What do New York City mayors do after leaving office?

Among the billionaire-befitting ventures awaiting Michael R. Bloomberg, whose terms expires at year’s end, is a job running the Serpentine Gallery in London.

David N. Dinkins is plugging his new memoir (he reads at Hunter College on Monday).

Others go on to stranger second acts.

Mayor John F. Hylan (1918-25) was appointed to Children’s Court by his successor, so that “the children now can be tried by their peer.”

John Purroy Mitchel (1914-17) fell out of a plane and died during a training exercise.

John V. Lindsay (1966-73) played a senator in an Otto Preminger movie and wrote a would-be political thriller.

The New York Times called it “as dead-serious as a $100-a-plate dinner of gray meat and frozen candidates’ smiles.”

And William Frederick Havemeyer could not get away from City Hall.

After he was pushed out in 1846, he won again in 1848.

Then, after two decades running a bank and leading abolition efforts, he returned to office in 1872.

There, he died.

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

WEATHER

They pulled this one out of a hat: Sprinkles, then patchy fog, then cloudy, gradually becoming mostly sunny with a high of 72, but with a chance of showers again by nightfall.

Tomorrow’s forecast is much less confusing: sun.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: All O.K. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

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

Alternate-side parking is suspended for Id al-Adha, but back in effect tomorrow.

COMING UP TODAY

- Campaigning: Joseph J. Lhota visits a Jewish community center and a yeshiva in the Rockaways and attends the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner.

- Bill de Blasio speaks at a rally to “end health care inequality.”

- Get your fiscal act together with a day of financial-planning workshops at the public library branch at Madison Avenue and 34th Street. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. [Free]

- Stephen Colbert gives the keynote speech at the Al Smith dinner, a Catholic charity fund-raiser that often doubles as a political campaign stop.

- The political cartoonist R.O. Blechman talks with Victor Navasky at the School of Visual Arts on East 23rd Street. 7 p.m. [Free]

- Grownups only: cocktails and conversation with Daniel Bergner, author of “What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire” at Babeland in Brooklyn. 7 p.m. [Free]

- A night of poetry readings and ukulele music at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. 7 p.m. [$5]

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

IN THE NEWS

- Newark’s mayor, Cory A. Booker, was elected to the United States Senate. [New York Times]

- Drink deep: the eternally-under-construction Water Tunnel No. 3 now serves all of Manhattan. [New York Times]

- The man who raped a 74-year-old bird-watcher in Central Park was sentenced to 30 years. [New York Times]

- Gridlock Sam exposes a clever parking scam involving a fire hydrant and an orange barrel. [Downtown Express]

- The latest Banksy street-artwork is an imperious-looking fiberglass Ronald McDonald in the South Bronx. It comes with a live shoeshine boy. [Village Voice]

- There have been lots of bald eagle sightings on Staten Island lately. [Staten Island Advance]

- An online sonic museum, “The Roaring ‘Twenties,” lets you hear what New York City sounded like back in the day. [via Gizmodo]

AND FINALLY…

Speaking of sonic archives:

Twenty-five years ago this week, one of the city’s iconic alternative rock bands, Sonic Youth, released “Daydream Nation.”

Recorded in Soho, it is regarded as the group’s best release and one of the most important indie rock albums ever.

“It is rock-and-roll at its best: raw, metallically beautiful and funny, and at times completely dumb,” Peter Watrous wrote in his review in The New York Times.

Sonic Youth soon signed to a major label, signaling its transition from underground act to leading figures in ’90s alternative rock.

Ben French and Sandra E. Garcia contributed reporting.

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