The Week in Pictures for Nov. 15

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include the season’s first snow, renovations at City Hall and the Veterans Day Parade in Manhattan.

This weekend on “The New York Times Close Up,” an inside look at the most compelling articles in the Sunday newspaper, Clyde Haberman will speak with The Times’s Carolyn Ryan, A.O. Scott and Corey Kilgannon. Also, Nicholas Basbanes, an author. 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 in the main print news section of The Times. You may also read current New York headlines, like New York Metro | The New York Times on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Big Ticket | A Limestone ‘Swan’ for $26 Million

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times 45 East 74th Street

An ugly duckling townhouse that was the beneficiary of an ambitious $10 million neo-Roman makeover to restore its original 1879 panache with a striking facade of imported Italian limestone and a cornice that hides a rooftop soaking pool sold for $26 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records. The annual taxes on the 20-foot-wide property are $110,000.

A five-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bath home at 45 East 74th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues, it was put on the market a year ago at $33 million. A reduction to $30 million spiked interest from buyers looking for an Upper East Side rarity: a turnkey townhouse with a classic exterior and a thoroughly modern interior. It has an elevator, a sweeping limestone staircase, coffered ceilings, a wine cellar, a lower-level pool and spa with Bisazza mosaic tile, and three wood-burning fireplaces. The roof deck and terraces have Brazilian ipe floors.

Valerio Morabito, an Italian developer/film producer/art collector, paid around $10 million in 2009 for the distressed townhouse â€" it had been stripped of its original architectural detail, brick-faced, and converted to a multiunit dwelling â€" and hired the architect Joseph Pell Lombardi to embark on a full-scale reclamation to restore its dignity and install a panoply of sophisticated finishes.

Mr. Morabito, identified by the limited-liability company Antarctica, was represented by Brett Miles and Jason Karadus of Town Residential. The buyer, Zhang Xin, who used Galaxy Silver Limited 74th Street in city records, is the chief executive of SOHO China, one of that country’s largest commercial development firms. Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens, the buyer’s broker, declined to comment on the sale.

According to Mr. Miles, some potential buyers were deterred by the minimal servant space (one bedroom) and the position of the kitchen on the garden level. “It took the right buyer, where the size and layout worked as is,” he said.

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

An Ice Rink Opens in Brooklyn

The ice skating rink at McCarren Park, north Brooklyn’s “first and only” outdoor skating rink, opened today. The rink is nestled atop the beach plaza at the center of the pool area. It will be open through January, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week.

After the Fun Is Over

Dear Diary:

Have you ever been one of the last to leave a party?

Feet are dragging their blistered soles across the confetti that’s scattered, hopelessly, on a lonely dance floor.

A man is passed out drunk in his broken bowl of spoiled clam chowder.

People are figuring out how to control their lazy eyelids â€" pouting that the night is over, that they have to carry on, just a little bit longer, in order to make it home.

That’s exactly what the 6 train looks like on a Friday morning.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

After the Fun Is Over

Dear Diary:

Have you ever been one of the last to leave a party?

Feet are dragging their blistered soles across the confetti that’s scattered, hopelessly, on a lonely dance floor.

A man is passed out drunk in his broken bowl of spoiled clam chowder.

People are figuring out how to control their lazy eyelids â€" pouting that the night is over, that they have to carry on, just a little bit longer, in order to make it home.

That’s exactly what the 6 train looks like on a Friday morning.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Hey, Mr. Mayor-Elect

Richard Perry/The New York Times A place to voice your opinions to the new administration.

An unusual structure has gone up on Canal Street in Manhattan.

Its walls are translucent.

The words “Talk” and “Here,” in giant letters formed by milk crates, greet visitors.

This is the Talking Transition Tent, a forum for New Yorkers to voice their views to the incoming mayoral administration of Bill de Blasio.

It’s the work of a coalition of organizations, including the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.

It will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for the next week.

If you can’t make it, here are some highlights.

On touchscreen tablets, you can rate your neighborhood on various issues.

The top two: affordable housing and taxes.

In the back is a stage for lectures and performances.

When we went, dancers in feather headdresses hopped against a backdrop of New York State immigration statistics.

The walls were being covered with hundreds of stickers, each expressing a citizen’s wish for the city.

They included better schools, lower rent and higher wages. (Also: “Get the Jets a Real Quarterback.”)

“I’m going to be disappointed if the mayor doesn’t do any of these things,” said Esmerlin De La Cruz, 15, from the Bronx, who wished for more trees.

“I don’t care if it’s mine, but he better do at least one of these things.”

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

WEATHER

Welcome back, unseasonably warm weather. Sunny today, with a high of 60.

But the weekend looks dreary, with rain likely by Sunday night.

COMMUTE

Subways: Delays on the N, Q and R lines. Click for latest status.

Rails: No major problems. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

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

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

Weekend Travel Hassles: Click for subway disruptions or list of street closings.

COMING UP TODAY

- Elected officials and labor groups gather at 9 a.m. outside City Hall to promote a bill that would create a database tracking Hurricane Sandy aid.

- Senator Charles M. Schumer and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan ask Washington to grant temporary immigration relief to Filipinos in the country, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 1:30 p.m.

- Opening day for the McCarren Park ice rink in Greenpoint-Williamsburg. Pat Kiernan of NY1 cuts the ribbon! 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. [$8, plus $5 to rent skates]

- A tribute to the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe at the U.N., with music, films and recollections from family and friends. 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. [Free, click to RSVP]

- Junot Díaz talks in Washington Heights. 7:30 p.m. [Free]

- A show of Richard Corman’s 1983 photographs of Madonna, shot all over downtown, opens at Milk Gallery on West 15th Street. [Free]

- A celebration of all things Serge Gainsbourg, with a brother-sister duo performing his songs, at Coucou Brooklyn in Williamsburg. 8 p.m. [Free]

- Film festivals galore: DOC NYC continues at IFC Center and the School of Visual Arts.

- The weekend-long Dénouement Film Festival of international shorts at DCTV studios in Chinatown. [$15]

- The Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You series at MOMA picks highlights from the festival circuit that are not in theaters yet.

- Eyeworks brings experimental animation to Pioneer Works in Red Hook. 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. [$10 today, $15 Saturday]

THE WEEKEND

Saturday

- A party celebrates the opening of two more chunks of Brooklyn Bridge Park. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. [Free]

- Tiny trains begin their annual slither around replicas of New York landmarks crafted from nuts, bark and leaves at the Botanical Garden in the Bronx. [$20 for adults, $10 for kids].

- Young writers from Africa talk and read from their work at the main Brooklyn Public Library. 4 p.m. [Free]

- Your chance to see the third-ranked soccer team on the planet, Argentina, taking on Ecuador in a World Cup warmup at MetLife Stadium. 8 p.m. [$35 and up]

Sunday

- Forage for burdock root, sassafras and ginkgo (if you dare) on a tour through Prospect Park. 11:45 a.m. [Free, $20 suggested donation]

- A new opera based on Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” fills Christ and St. Stephen’s Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with music. 3 p.m. [Free]

- The Greenwich Village Orchestra will bring out the Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and more, at the Washington Irving Auditorium in the West Village. 3 p.m. [Free, $15 suggested donation]

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

IN THE NEWS

- A study by the state attorney general found that the stop-and-frisk policy led to convictions only 3 percent of the time. [Bloomberg]

- A pitcher known for his beard refused to sign with the Yankees after being told he would have to shave. [CBS New York]

- A Brooklyn man has won the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of pizza boxes. [Gothamist]

- There’s no service this weekend on much of the L subway line. [Gothamist]

AND FINALLY…

Most poisons were discovered the hard way.

Say, by an explorer who ate the wrong fish guts.

You may go easy on yourself, and simply attend the Power of Poison, which opens on Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History.

Common poisons you may encounter in the city include mango peels.

It’s also good to steer clear of “Love Stone,” a supposed aphrodisiac from toad venom that has caused a number of deaths here over the years.

The museum is also offering a course on “which chemicals, and at what dosages, influence brain function and when we are most vulnerable to ‘poisoning’ ourselves.”

Enjoy responsibly.

Joseph Burgess and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

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