Koch’s Last Residence Is Named a Cultural Landmark

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Former Mayor Edward I. Koch inside his apartment  on Fifth Avenue last year.

Edward I. Koch, some might argue, was a living landmark. Thursday, on what would have been his 89th birthday, his last residence, at 2 Fifth Avenue, was declared a New York cultural landmark.

“A giant,” is how he was described by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was represented at a ceremony outside the building by his former deputy, Peter Powers.

David N. Dinkins, the only other surviving former mayor, described Mr. Koch as a man of “lasting influence” who “embodied the spirit” of the city. He recalled former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo’s observation that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. “Ed Koch governed in theater,” Mr. Dinkins said.

They were joined in dedicating a ceramic cultural medallion on the front of the building by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, chairwoman of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center and NYC Landmarks50 Alliance; Diane Coffey, Mr. Koch’s former chief of staff; and Philip Koltoff, a New York University professor and president of the building’s co-op board.

Mr. Koch lived in Greenwich Village since 1956. The plot he bought at Trinity Cemetery in northern Manhattan before he died last February was the first time he owned his own property. He preferred to spend his entire adult life as a renter, including the 16th-floor apartment at 2 Fifth, where he last lived.

Play Dates for Pets

Dear Diary:

Having recently moved to the Upper West Side from raising my children in suburbia and getting divorced, I find that every day in Manhattan is an adjustment in some small way. My girlfriend and I now regularly take our two dogs for long walks on the streets, visits to the many dog parks and, from time to time, a visit to one of the many neighborhood pet stores.

Walking to work around 7:30 the other morning, I had to chuckle when, at 81st and Amsterdam, I saw a smartly dressed woman and her small, white French bulldog at the doorway of our local pet store â€" the dog tugging away, seemingly trying to enter the store, which wouldn’t be open for at least an hour or two.

As I passed, I overheard her saying repeatedly, “No, I’m sorry, honey, but we can’t go in to play with the cat right now; the store’s not open and we’ll have to come back later.”

My dog knows this cat, too â€" and so it seems that play dates for my children have morphed into play dates for my dogs. I can only imagine what lies ahead for me and for us!

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: What a Year

Good Thursday morning, with a shiver.

As 2013 gallops into the home stretch, let us pause for just a moment and reflect upon what it has brought us.

Citi Bikes. Avocado-green taxicabs. An interracial first couple.

Can you believe that seven months ago there was no such thing as a Cronut?

Here without further adieu: our salute to things â€" some awesome, some awful â€" that came into existence in 2013.

- The porridge boutiques.

- The dog-walking service that tells you via text and G.P.S. exactly where and when your pooch poops.

- America’s tallest building.

- E-cigarette vaporiums.

- 57th Street as Billionaires Row.

- Space-age stormproof beach bathrooms on stilts.

- Ramen burgers.

- A second city hidden within this one, as described by the mayor-elect.

- A bouncy wooden pedestrian bridge to the Brooklyn waterfront.

- Even the possibility of snakehead fish in Central Park.

- Everywhere, but it started here: Harlem Shake videos.

- Back after a long pause: new record megastores.

- Here and gone already: speakeasies secretly built inside water towers.

Perhaps we missed a few dozen.

Tell us, in the comments, or on Twitter using #NYToday, what was new in 2013.

Here’s what you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

Only the coldest day of the season.

High of 28, with wind chills under your scarf and into the teens, sun notwithstanding.

Tonight: 19 degrees. Fie on you, King Winter.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

It is a Gridlock Alert Day. Alternate-side parking is in effect today and tomorrow.

COMING UP TODAY

- Mayor Bloomberg signs a stack of bills, including one legalizing political contributions via text message of up to $99.

- Mayor-elect de Blasio makes an announcement at 12:45 p.m. No details, but could be a major appointment.

- Elected officials, school administrators and activists crowd the steps of City Hall to push for gun control as the anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting approaches. Noon.

- Veterans lay wreaths at a holiday service at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in the Financial District. 12:30 p.m.

- Second Avenue Subway geeks: the man who runs the project recaps the year’s construction milestones on the Upper East Side. 6 p.m. [Free, register]

- Academics puzzle out the meaning of Keith Haring’s rarely seen videos at a symposium at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. 3 p.m. [Free]

- Sit with Santa on a cupcake seat: the Brooklyn Jellio Shop within the Flying Squirrel in Greenpoint hosts a holiday event for kids. 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. [Free, with gummy candy]

- A a tree lighting in Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem doubles as “a jazzy Motown celebration.” 4 p.m. [Free]

- A conference on “Safe, Respectful and Effective Policing” examines stop-and-frisk and other issues. John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. [Free, RSVP]

- D.J. Questlove spins for Philippine typhoon victims at Brooklyn Bowl. 10:30 p.m. [$10 minimum donation]

- Authors celebrate 15 years of McSweeney’s, and a new collection of that quarterly’s best work, at the quirky hour of 8:15 p.m. The 92nd Street Y. [$27]

- See a Coflore Agitated Tube Reactor Live! Last day to visit the biennial Chem Show at the Javits Center and learn about the equipment used in food, chemical and pharmaceutical processing.

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

IN THE NEWS

- Decision 2013: Gracie Mansion will be inhabited. [New York Times]

- A Baruch College freshman died after a hazing ritual that involves stumbling around blindfolded and being tackled. [New York Times]

- A new version of the classic 1970s subway map shows how easy it is to get to New Jersey for the Super Bowl. [Atlantic Cities]

- Scoreboard: The Knicks won! They beat the Bulls, 83-78.

Joseph Burgess, Denny Lee and Cara Buckley 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, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Pianist to Receive New Award From Chamber Society

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‘Heathers\' Musical Will Play Off Broadway in March

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Apple Family Plays to Be Filmed for PBS

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Classical Playlist: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Christian Tetzlaff, Richard Egarr and More

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Two Hirst Dot Works Are Stolen in London

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Garth Brooks Hits No. 1 With a Walmart-Only Collection

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Garth Brooks at the Ascap Country Music Awards in November.

Garth Brooks has scored his ninth No. 1 album on the Billboard chart with an eight-disc boxed set available only at Walmart.

The six-CD, two-DVD collection, “Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences” (Pearl), was released on Thanksgiving Day for $25, and in its first few days it sold 164,000 copies, reaching No. 3, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (SoundScan's standard account week ends on Sunday.) Last week, the album's first full week on sale, it moved 146,000 copies, beating out the latest by One Direction, Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears.

One Direction's “Midnight Memories” (Syco/Columbia), which opened at No. 1 on last week's chart, fell to No. 2 with 117,000 sales, a 79 percent drop. Ms. Clarkson's “Wrapped in Red” (RCA) rose three spots to No. 3 with 112,000, and Ms. Spears's latest album, “Britney Jean” (RCA), opened at No. 4 with 107,000. That is the lowest opening-week sales number in Ms. Spears's career, lower even than her very first release, “… Baby One More Time,” which opened with 121,000 in January 1999.

Also on the chart this week, “Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas” (EMI Nashville) is No. 5 with 105,000 sales, and Eminem's “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” (Aftermath/Interscope) fell four spots to No. 6 in its fifth week out, with 84,000 sales.

Eminem's song “The Monster,” which features Rihanna, is No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart, with 186,000 dowloads and 5.4 million streams. The pair's last collaboration, “Love the Way You Lie,” was a No. 1 hit for seven weeks in 2010 and was nominated for five Grammy Awards.

Beastie Boys Continue Copyright Battle With Toy Company

Despite an earlier effort to broker peace between the Beastie Boys and a San Francisco-area toy company, the legal battle over a viral video that parodied one of the rap group's songs goes on.

In court papers filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the Beastie Boys said that a popular online video that was created by the toy company, GoldieBlox, and contained an alternate version of the band's song “Girls,” constituted “copyright infringement and is not fair use,” turning the band's music into “a ‘jingle' to sell GoldieBlox's products.”

GoldieBlox gained widespread attention last month for the video, which showed girls building a comically elaborate Rube Goldberg machine while singing about their engineering skills. The toy company says that its mission statement is to encourage girls to learn about science and technology.

In late November, GoldieBlox sued the Beastie Boys, seeking affirmation that the video was a legally permissible work of criticism, pointing out in its suit that the video “has been recognized by the press and the public as a parody and criticism of the original song.”

The Beastie Boys responded in an open letter that, though they were “very impressed by the creativity and the message” of the GoldieBlox video, the band considered it “an advertisement that is designed to sell a product,” and said that it does not allow its songs to be used in commercials.

A few days later, GoldieBlox posted its own open letter, saying it wanted to respect the band's wishes, and that the toy company had taken down the video.

In their counterclaim, filed in Federal District Court in California, the Beastie Boys' lawyers said the band members “have suffered injury to their business, good will and property,” and were “entitled to recover from GoldieBlox the gains, profits and advantages” it had obtained.

Daralyn Durie, a lawyer for GoldieBlox, said in a statement on Wednesday that her firm was reviewing the band's latest filing. She added, “Although the ad has been taken down and we would prefer an amicable resolution, we strongly believe that the parody constitutes fair use.”

Trash Can Yields Two Long-Lost Peter Sellers Films

Two 1957 films by Peter Sellers, long thought to be lost, have been found by the building manager of the now-defunct Park Lane Films in London. The master prints of “Dearth of a Salesman” and “Insomnia is Good,” were in 21 film cans that the manager, Robert Farrow, salvaged from a trash can outside the building when the studios were cleared before to refurbishment in 1996.

“I took them home, put them in a cupboard and pretty much forgot about them,” Mr. Farrow, said in a statement. When he cleared out his cupboards recently he looked inside the tins and discovered the two 30-minute films, co-written by Sellers, who died in 1980, and the Canadian author Mordecai Richler. It is unclear whether the films were intended for television or cinema.

“They're kind of a pastiche of the public information films at the time,” said Paul Cotgrove, from The White Bus, which runs the Southend Film Festival in Essex, told the BBC. “They're not riotous comedy, they're just good fun to look at.” The films will be shown at the Southend festival on May 1 next year.

Detroit Symphony Hails Its Healthier Finances

The city of Detroit may be in bankruptcy, but the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is back in the black. The symphony planned to disclose on Thursday that it had balanced its budget for the first time since 2007. The orchestra ended the 2013 fiscal year with a small surplus after raising $18.9 million in contributions, a 43 percent increase over the year before. Ticket revenue rose to $6.26 million as the orchestra sold more subscriptions, it said.

The newly released figures suggested that the orchestra is recovering from a corrosive six-month strike that ended in 2011. The orchestra said it had more than 10,000 donors again for the first time in a decade, and that its Beethoven festival last February set a new record for classical ticket sales in the Max M. Fisher Music Center, which opened in 2003. But its biggest growth was online: the orchestra said the audience for its Live from Orchestra Hall webcasts grew to 300,000 viewers.

English Hand Press Used by Designer William Morris Is Sold for $233,000

The 122-year-old English hand press that was used by the designer William Morris to produce “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer,” his ornate masterpiece of decorative printing, has been acquired by the Rochester Institute of Technology for its Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

The collection curator, Steven Galbraith, promised in a statement that the press would have “an active life at R.I.T., not simply as a museum artifact but as a working press accessible to students, scholars and printers.”

The institute made the winning bid of $190,000 at a Dec. 6 auction at Christie's, bringing the total acquisition cost - with a buyer's premium - to $233,000. Prof. Jethro K. Lieberman of New York Law School, whose family had owned the press since 1960, said, “It's cause for celebration that it will be put to use, so that future generations can print on this venerable press.”