Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

The Ninth Annual Harvest In the Square Festival in Union Square Park on Thursday, September 23, 2004, brought a lot of local and outside visitors to the tent city in our Park, to taste the diversity of food and drink offered by some 45 of our unique local restaurants and an equal number of wineyards. Eugene McGrath of ConEd, Chairman of the sponsoring Union Square Partnership, calls us “Manhattan’s best-tasting community.” It is true, as evidenced by the quality of the delicacies offered to the dues-paying visitors, whose contributions will help support the maintenance and improvements to our neighborhood, particularly the Park.

Jumping right into Topic One, the food, herewith my Poll of Favorites, the delicacies most frequently mentioned ( in no particular order): The Coffee Shop’s Seafood Moqueca Stew with Salsa Over Rice, Tacos de Barbacoa from Lucy’s Mexican Barbeque, Union Square Café’s Olive Oil Poached Tuna Salad with Fennel, and the Devil’s Eggs, both Chipote and Black Truffle/Chicken Liver varieties, from Strata (former Metronome). Tamarind’s new chef Gary Walia’s Chicken Tikka Masala came in for multiple mentions (winners of a “Best Fish Dish with Chablis” contest in France, they also had a display of a dozen Indian spices). Steak Frites shone with a savory Yellow Tail Tuna Tartlet, as did City Crab, serving Baked Blue Point Oysters with Lump Crabmeat. Blue Water Grill served Jumbo Maryland Crab stuffed Profiterolles (had a chat with Steve Hansen’s Corporate Chef Chris Giarraputo). Café Spice, treated us to Assorted Stuffed Breads, and Todd English’s Olives had an amazing Jumbo Stuffed Chicken Wings dish, with Sorbet to cool the mouth (the master himself was away, serving a banquet for Donald Trump’s Apprentices). Angelo & Maxie’s Sliced Filet Mignon on Crostini and Gramercy Tavern’s Braised Veal Breast with Bean Salad earned bravos, as usually. In the world appetizers, Knickerbocker Bar & Grill’s Salmon Sashimi and grilled T-Bone Steak bites, Metro Café’s Mini-Meatloaf Sandwiches and Havana Central’s Cuban Sandwiches, served at the entrance, with sparkling Ameri Prosecco Brut in champagne flutes, elicited much praise.

In deserts, Sushi Samba’s Buttercup Squash Mousse and Eleven Madison’s Dark Chocolate Dome with Caramel Crème and in the vegetarian department, Gotham Bar & Grill’s Warm Summer Corn Custard with Roasted Chanterelles, and Republic’s Noodle Salad with Fried Wontons shone. National Arts Club’s well-liked Samuel Tilden Chili attracted lots of the hungry.

All the entrants in the Ninth Annual Harvest in the Square Festival were good, with community credits, several of them my personal choices. Going by category, all three Hors D’Oeuvres entries made it to the Most Mentioned group. In the loosely labeled Veggies, Arezzo had an excellent Yellow and Red Beet entry, with Blue Cheese companrion. Beppe offered a savory Tuscan Bean Salad, and Casa Mono and Bar Jamon featured Pequillo Peppers with Oxtails. Never got to meet celeb chef Mario Batali, who was rumored to roaming around, unmistakable in his beachcomber shorts. Moving right along, Candela had Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese, City Bakery offered Skewered Falafel Salad, Dos Caminos featured New York State Butternut Squash Tomatoes, Galaxy Global Eatery served up Rosemary Skewered Tofu with Grilled Papaya and Chili Hemp Oil. L’Express, eight years a neighbor, had Goat Cheese Fondue with Olive Cake and Tomato Confit, and Patria, formerly Douglas Rodriguez’ and now Philip Suares’s treasure, had Humitas – Cheese Tamales on a fresh corn platform. Tocqueville Restaurant and Wine Bar offered Cheddar Cheese Salad with Roasted Pear & Fennel, an immediate attraction, and Union Square Ballroom, the upstairs venue we still have to visit, presented Spiced Market Vegetable Roti, from our local pride, Union Square Farmers Market.

In Seafood, Aleo had an intriguingly named Lifeguards Stew, and Bambou served Mussels, another favorite. Chango (new chef Lou Zias) treated us to Spicy Shrimp Ceviche that had me entranced, and Pipa featured Seafood Salpicon (French filling for canapes) , In Meats we saw some unusual varieties - the new (16 months) Amuse had North Carolina style Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Duke’s served Slo-Smoked St. Louis BBQ Ribs, Fleur de Sel, a lite Breton-French, market-driven venue four years in the neighborhood, upped the bid with a Terrine of Roasted Quail and Foie Gras. More BBQ short ribs, with Aged Cheddar Grits & Butternut Squash came from Heartland Brewery accompanied by their Root Beer, Pumpkin Ale and Oktoberfest beer. Kitchen 22 surprised us with Foie Gras Mousse and Strawberry Compote, and Mandler’s Sausage Company (10 months in the neighborhood) trumped it all with Bratwurst on homemade Breads, and Spicy Chorizo (Spanish sausages) with Corn and Zucchini Fries. Park Avalon’s Long Island Duck with Wild Cherries and Arugula, and Strip House’s Confit Beef Brisket prepared us for the desserts, where 71 Irving Place shone with its Chocolate Hazelnut and Apricot Walnut Rugelachs (they also gifted us with sample packages of their own Irving House Blend Coffee). Blue Smoke sliced some Apple Crumb Pies with Vanilla Ice Cream, Chat ‘n’ Chew served French Bread Pudding, The City Bakery chopped a hunk of Square Pear Peg Tart, and the Greenmarket Farmers Market sprung for some New York State Apple Trio. Ah, the poetry and music of rural America!

Wines from Long Island were prominent, led by Dr. Konstantin Frank’s award-winning Vinifera Dry Riesling. Three burly senior executives from P.C. Richards & Son (“ 95 years in business, mention our sale”) who would look perfect in an ad lifting a few foamy ones, could not stop praising the exquisite charms of Bedell Cellars red wine. Some more good names from the Island: Corey Creek, Galluccio Family , Leib Family. Lamoreux Landing, Old Field, Paumanok, Peconic Bay, Sherwood House, Shinn Estate, Standing Stone, Ternhaven and Lenz Vinery. And some other friends: Ameri Prosecco Brut, which greeted the early arrivals, Anthony Road from Upstate, many of them Italian and a few French (Bertani Due Uve, Bottega Lagrein, Rocca della Macie and Viticio Chianti Classicos, Feudi di San Gregorio, Galluci Cru George Allaire Chardonnay, Marchesa di Barolo Barbera Maraia, Sella & Mosca Vermintino, Bertani Valpolicella, Col de Orcia Rosso, Remy Pannier Vouvray ). From California came Old Field, Clay Station, MacMurray Ranch, Ironstone Symphony (a Muscat and Grenache varietal) and Out Of The Blue Pinotage And a snappy South African wine I cannot identify.

Among the beverage dispensers, outstanding were also TSalon’s Japanese berry Champagne and Harvest Teas, a variety of the new GUS sodas, Dallis Coffee, and the old reliable Brooklyn Brewery, and Fiji water (I once spent two weeks enjoying it, in the South Pacific). The local wine power, Union Square Wines and Spirits, had a table of red and white varieties, to spend an afternoon with, particularly a Rubrato de San Gregorio.

Kudos to the usual suspects, veteran event chairpeople Danny Meyers, Eric Petterson, Todd English, Victor LaPlace, Andrew DiCataldo, Gary Tornberg and the producer, Martha Bear Dallis. Although the reviewer sacrificed the first two acts of Verdi’s sad Otello at the Met to attend this Union Square Partnership event, it was well worth it, particularly for the cheerful uplift, in this depressing era of barbaric murders by terrorists who abuse the sacred name of freedom. The sponsor, USP, formerly the 14th Street/Union Square LDC/BID, will use the income from this fundraiser to benefit its initiative to beautify and improve Union Square Park, particularly the its Northern Gateway, some of whose design features are still disputed by local activists. It will not interfere with our treasure, the Farmers Market, I’m told. A Well-Done to USP’s Executive Director Karen Shaw and Christine Brown, Joe Tango, Henry Choi and staff. Salud!

If you want to read last year’s review, open www.dobelis.net or search google for Wally Dobelis Looking Ahead, and follow instructions to the blog, to access October 2003 columns.

Looking Ahead

The Ninth Annual Harvest In the Square Festival in Union Square Park on Thursday, September 23, 2004, brought a lot of local and outside visitors to the tent city in our Park, to taste the diversity of food and drink offered by some 45 of our unique local restaurants and an equal number of wineyards. Eugene McGrath of ConEd, Chairman of the sponsoring Union Square Partnership, calls us "Manhattan's best-tasting community." It is true, as evidenced by the quality of the delicacies offered to the dues-paying visitors, whose contributions will help support the maintenance and improvements to our neighborhood, particularly the Park.


Jumping right into Topic One, the food, herewith my Poll of Favorites, the delicacies most frequently mentioned ( in no particular order): The Coffee Shop's Seafood Moqueca Stew with Salsa Over Rice, Tacos de Barbacoa from Lucy's Mexican Barbeque, Union Square Café's Olive Oil Poached Tuna Salad with Fennel, and the Devil's Eggs, both Chipote and Black Truffle/Chicken Liver varieties, from Strata (former Metronome). Tamarind's new chef Gary Walia's Chicken Tikka Masala came in for multiple mentions (winners of a "Best Fish Dish with Chablis" contest in France, they also had a display of a dozen Indian spices). Steak Frites shone with a savory Yellow Tail Tuna Tartlet, as did City Crab, serving Baked Blue Point Oysters with Lump Crabmeat. Blue Water Grill served Jumbo Maryland Crab stuffed Profiterolles (had a chat with Steve Hansen's Corporate Chef Chris Giarraputo). Café Spice, treated us to Assorted Stuffed Breads, and Todd English's Olives had an amazing Jumbo Stuffed Chicken Wings dish, with Sorbet to cool the mouth (the master himself was away, serving a banquet for Donald Trump's Apprentices). Angelo & Maxie's Sliced Filet Mignon on Crostini and Gramercy Tavern's Braised Veal Breast with Bean Salad earned bravos, as usually. In the world appetizers, Knickerbocker Bar & Grill's Salmon Sashimi and grilled T-Bone Steak bites, Metro Café's Mini-Meatloaf Sandwiches and Havana Central's Cuban Sandwiches, served at the entrance, with sparkling Ameri Prosecco Brut in champagne flutes, elicited much praise.


In deserts, Sushi Samba's Buttercup Squash Mousse and Eleven Madison's Dark Chocolate Dome with Caramel Crème and in the vegetarian department, Gotham Bar & Grill's Warm Summer Corn Custard with Roasted Chanterelles, and Republic's Noodle Salad with Fried Wontons shone. National Arts Club's well-liked Samuel Tilden Chili attracted lots of the hungry.


All the entrants in the Ninth Annual Harvest in the Square Festival were good, with community credits, several of them my personal choices. Going by category, all three Hors D'Oeuvres entries made it to the Most Mentioned group. In the loosely labeled Veggies, Arezzo had an excellent Yellow and Red Beet entry, with Blue Cheese companrion. Beppe offered a savory Tuscan Bean Salad, and Casa Mono and Bar Jamon featured Pequillo Peppers with Oxtails. Never got to meet celeb chef Mario Batali, who was rumored to roaming around, unmistakable in his beachcomber shorts. Moving right along, Candela had Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese, City Bakery offered Skewered Falafel Salad, Dos Caminos featured New York State Butternut Squash Tomatoes, Galaxy Global Eatery served up Rosemary Skewered Tofu with Grilled Papaya and Chili Hemp Oil. L'Express, eight years a neighbor, had Goat Cheese Fondue with Olive Cake and Tomato Confit, and Patria, formerly Douglas Rodriguez' and now Philip Suares's treasure, had Humitas - Cheese Tamales on a fresh corn platform. Tocqueville Restaurant and Wine Bar offered Cheddar Cheese Salad with Roasted Pear & Fennel, an immediate attraction, and Union Square Ballroom, the upstairs venue we still have to visit, presented Spiced Market Vegetable Roti, from our local pride, Union Square Farmers Market.


In Seafood, Aleo had an intriguingly named Lifeguards Stew, and Bambou served Mussels, another favorite. Chango (new chef Lou Zias) treated us to Spicy Shrimp Ceviche that had me entranced, and Pipa featured Seafood Salpicon (French filling for canapes) , In Meats we saw some unusual varieties - the new (16 months) Amuse had North Carolina style Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Duke's served Slo-Smoked St. Louis BBQ Ribs, Fleur de Sel, a lite Breton-French, market-driven venue four years in the neighborhood, upped the bid with a Terrine of Roasted Quail and Foie Gras. More BBQ short ribs, with Aged Cheddar Grits & Butternut Squash came from Heartland Brewery accompanied by their Root Beer, Pumpkin Ale and Oktoberfest beer. Kitchen 22 surprised us with Foie Gras Mousse and Strawberry Compote, and Mandler's Sausage Company (10 months in the neighborhood) trumped it all with Bratwurst on homemade Breads, and Spicy Chorizo (Spanish sausages) with Corn and Zucchini Fries. Park Avalon's Long Island Duck with Wild Cherries and Arugula, and Strip House's Confit Beef Brisket prepared us for the desserts, where 71 Irving Place shone with its Chocolate Hazelnut and Apricot Walnut Rugelachs (they also gifted us with sample packages of their own Irving House Blend Coffee). Blue Smoke sliced some Apple Crumb Pies with Vanilla Ice Cream, Chat 'n' Chew served French Bread Pudding, The City Bakery chopped a hunk of Square Pear Peg Tart, and the Greenmarket Farmers Market sprung for some New York State Apple Trio. Ah, the poetry and music of rural America!


Wines from Long Island were prominent, led by Dr. Konstantin Frank's award-winning Vinifera Dry Riesling. Three burly senior executives from P.C. Richards & Son (" 95 years in business, mention our sale") who would look perfect in an ad lifting a few foamy ones, could not stop praising the exquisite charms of Bedell Cellars red wine. Some more good names from the Island: Corey Creek, Galluccio Family , Leib Family. Lamoreux Landing, Old Field, Paumanok, Peconic Bay, Sherwood House, Shinn Estate, Standing Stone, Ternhaven and Lenz Vinery. And some other friends: Ameri Prosecco Brut, which greeted the early arrivals, Anthony Road from Upstate, many of them Italian and a few French (Bertani Due Uve, Bottega Lagrein, Rocca della Macie and Viticio Chianti Classicos, Feudi di San Gregorio, Galluci Cru George Allaire Chardonnay, Marchesa di Barolo Barbera Maraia, Sella & Mosca Vermintino, Bertani Valpolicella, Col de Orcia Rosso, Remy Pannier Vouvray ). From California came Old Field, Clay Station, MacMurray Ranch, Ironstone Symphony (a Muscat and Grenache varietal) and Out Of The Blue Pinotage And a snappy South African wine I cannot identify.


Among the beverage dispensers, outstanding were also TSalon's Japanese berry Champagne and Harvest Teas, a variety of the new GUS sodas, Dallis Coffee, and the old reliable Brooklyn Brewery, and Fiji water (I once spent two weeks enjoying it, in the South Pacific). The local wine power, Union Square Wines and Spirits, had a table of red and white varieties, to spend an afternoon with, particularly a Rubrato de San Gregorio.


Kudos to the usual suspects, veteran event chairpeople Danny Meyers, Eric Petterson, Todd English, Victor LaPlace, Andrew DiCataldo, Gary Tornberg and the producer, Martha Bear Dallis. Although the reviewer sacrificed the first two acts of Verdi's sad Otello at the Met to attend this Union Square Partnership event, it was well worth it, particularly for the cheerful uplift, in this depressing era of barbaric murders by terrorists who abuse the sacred name of freedom. The sponsor, USP, formerly the 14th Street/Union Square LDC/BID, will use the income from this fundraiser to benefit its initiative to beautify and improve Union Square Park, particularly the its Northern Gateway, some of whose design features are still disputed by local activists. It will not interfere with our treasure, the Farmers Market, I'm told. A Well-Done to USP's Executive Director Karen Shaw and Christine Brown, Joe Tango, Henry Choi and staff. Salud!


If you want to read last year's review, open www.dobelis.net or search google for Wally Dobelis Looking Ahead, and follow instructions to the blog, to access October 2003 columns.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis



A new and valuable book about Manhattan, Waterfront, a Journey Around Manhattan by Phillip Lopate (Crown, March 2004), recently came my way, via the public library. The author is a walker and a reader, and takes us on a leisurely stroll us up the Hudson waterfront, from the Battery northward, reminding us of the military and civic battles on the West Side, interspersed with quotes from Walt Whitman. He then repeats the walk on the East Side, our home grounds.


Historically America's most important port, by 1860 New York handled over a half of the entire country's imports and particularly, exports, including the principal one, cotton, on which the New York bankers and merchants, financiers of the Southern plantation owners, had a lock. The Custom House, where Herman Melville toiled, was then the prime source of the federal government's revenue. By 1950 the volume of the nation's cargo passing through New York was down to one third, and it kept reducing, since larger ships, deeper draft and container handling facilities required more space. The traffic shifted to Elizabeth and Port Newark, on the other side of the Hudson River. Incidentally, the author, discoursing the discoverer of the river, attributes his death to Indians. My recollection is that rebelling sailors, on a doomed winter journey in what is now Hudson's Bay, left the sick captain in a boat, to die of exposure.


Whether the corruption of longshoremen's unions played a role in the port's collapse is moot. Certainly On the Waterfront, featuring the inarticulate Marlon Brando ineffectively fighting corruption, sent the nation's thinking in that direction. We learned, though, how a longshoreman's toothpick displayed at a shapeup signaled his willingness to pay kickback.


The community and city planners' battles are an important element of the book, starting with the West Side Highway developments. Built in the 1920s to separate the growing car traffic from the trucks feeding the very active piers, by 1956 it was crumbling. Commissioner Moses's proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, that would have destroyed much of Greenwich Village and SoHo, brought community activism to life. Upon its defeat, in 1969 the community fought a new proposal, Westway, offering to bury the highway underground from 40th Street south and building a park above it. Eventually, 16 years later, Justice Thomas Griesa ruled it out on environmental grounds, to protect the river's striped bass population.


These battles have haunted all subsequent attempts to bring the dilapidated riverfront areas to development, whether as real estate properties or as parks. The East Side counterpart, with which we may be more familiar, involved the battles over what is now Stuyvesant Cove Park, from 18th to 23rd Streets on the East River. Once the site of the Transit Mix Concrete Corporation's construction dock, with silos and barges, then property of the city's Economic Development Corporation, it had become the subject of a major development of apartment houses and some interspersed greenery, fetchingly dubbed Riverwalk, that would generate tax revenues. Community Board 6 and local activists, concerned about lack of public space in its area, fought it off in the 1990s.


Another battle on our East Side waterfront concerns the waterfront properties, behind Stuyvesant Town and beyond. Lopate calls it ConEdisonland, ranging from the power plant on two blocks at 14th to 16th Streets, Ave C to the river, and slated for expansion, to the one between 38th and 40th Streets, defunct and on its way to real estate developmentland. The expansion would have increased the air content of fine particulate matter PM2.5, with particles 2.5 microns or less, linked to asthma, lung cancer and heart disease. A community group, the East River Environmental Coalition, instituted a lawsuit, not disputing ConEd's and the city's need for more power and the company's promises of new cleaner equipment that would reduce the pollutants in the air. No, the culprit was the attachment of the new system to the old, dirty and antiquated oil-burning plant, one of 18 that NY State legislature had exempted from complying with certain provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1970. The lawsuit demanded that it be upgraded, with expanded use of natural gas. Eventually a settlement was reached, but the fight continues, notes the author.


Lopate is of mixed emotions about the waterfront developments, such as Waterside, harsh of appearance and worrisome from the point of view of maintenance against underwater damages. There is a current substantial rebirth of the waterfront as evidenced by the utilization of piers, the construction of the Hudson River Park and the new buildings on the inland side of the West Side Highway. Lopate discourses how the abandoned piers became centers for preservation and tourism at South Street Seaport (he likes), and developed into sports centers at Chelsea Piers (he is less pleased).


This ambivalence regarding developers is not uncommon among people who devote time to thinking about New York's future. Even Robert Caro, scourge of Robert Moses and his 40 autocratic years of rule over our roads and bridges, expresses certain admiration of his accomplishments and ability to cut through red tape. It should be recognized that much of it, the inevitable community protests against all new demolition and construction that we have come to consider a basic part of our democratic process, was born out of revolt against Moses's arbitrariness..

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

A new and valuable book about Manhattan, Waterfront, a Journey Around Manhattan by Phillip Lopate (Crown, March 2004), recently came my way, via the public library. The author is a walker and a reader, and takes us on a leisurely stroll us up the Hudson waterfront, from the Battery northward, reminding us of the military and civic battles on the West Side, interspersed with quotes from Walt Whitman. He then repeats the walk on the East Side, our home grounds.

Historically America’s most important port, by 1860 New York handled over a half of the entire country’s imports and particularly, exports, including the principal one, cotton, on which the New York bankers and merchants, financiers of the Southern plantation owners, had a lock. The Custom House, where Herman Melville toiled, was then the prime source of the federal government’s revenue. By 1950 the volume of the nation’s cargo passing through New York was down to one third, and it kept reducing, since larger ships, deeper draft and container handling facilities required more space. The traffic shifted to Elizabeth and Port Newark, on the other side of the Hudson River. Incidentally, the author, discoursing the discoverer of the river, attributes his death to Indians. My recollection is that rebelling sailors, on a doomed winter journey in what is now Hudson’s Bay, left the sick captain in a boat, to die of exposure.

Whether the corruption of longshoremen’s unions played a role in the port’s collapse is moot. Certainly On the Waterfront, featuring the inarticulate Marlon Brando ineffectively fighting corruption, sent the nation’s thinking in that direction. We learned, though, how a longshoreman’s toothpick displayed at a shapeup signaled his willingness to pay kickback.

The community and city planners’ battles are an important element of the book, starting with the West Side Highway developments. Built in the 1920s to separate the growing car traffic from the trucks feeding the very active piers, by 1956 it was crumbling. Commissioner Moses’s proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, that would have destroyed much of Greenwich Village and SoHo, brought community activism to life. Upon its defeat, in 1969 the community fought a new proposal, Westway, offering to bury the highway underground from 40th Street south and building a park above it. Eventually, 16 years later, Justice Thomas Griesa ruled it out on environmental grounds, to protect the river’s striped bass population.

These battles have haunted all subsequent attempts to bring the dilapidated riverfront areas to development, whether as real estate properties or as parks. The East Side counterpart, with which we may be more familiar, involved the battles over what is now Stuyvesant Cove Park, from 18th to 23rd Streets on the East River. Once the site of the Transit Mix Concrete Corporation’s construction dock, with silos and barges, then property of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, it had become the subject of a major development of apartment houses and some interspersed greenery, fetchingly dubbed Riverwalk, that would generate tax revenues. Community Board 6 and local activists, concerned about lack of public space in its area, fought it off in the 1990s.

Another battle on our East Side waterfront concerns the waterfront properties, behind Stuyvesant Town and beyond. Lopate calls it ConEdisonland, ranging from the power plant on two blocks at 14th to 16th Streets, Ave C to the river, and slated for expansion, to the one between 38th and 40th Streets, defunct and on its way to real estate developmentland. The expansion would have increased the air content of fine particulate matter PM2.5, with particles 2.5 microns or less, linked to asthma, lung cancer and heart disease. A community group, the East River Environmental Coalition, instituted a lawsuit, not disputing ConEd’s and the city’s need for more power and the company’s promises of new cleaner equipment that would reduce the pollutants in the air. No, the culprit was the attachment of the new system to the old, dirty and antiquated oil-burning plant, one of 18 that NY State legislature had exempted from complying with certain provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1970. The lawsuit demanded that it be upgraded, with expanded use of natural gas. Eventually a settlement was reached, but the fight continues, notes the author.

Lopate is of mixed emotions about the waterfront developments, such as Waterside, harsh of appearance and worrisome from the point of view of maintenance against underwater damages. There is a current substantial rebirth of the waterfront as evidenced by the utilization of piers, the construction of the Hudson River Park and the new buildings on the inland side of the West Side Highway. Lopate discourses how the abandoned piers became centers for preservation and tourism at South Street Seaport (he likes), and developed into sports centers at Chelsea Piers (he is less pleased).

This ambivalence regarding developers is not uncommon among people who devote time to thinking about New York’s future. Even Robert Caro, scourge of Robert Moses and his 40 autocratic years of rule over our roads and bridges, expresses certain admiration of his accomplishments and ability to cut through red tape. It should be recognized that much of it, the inevitable community protests against all new demolition and construction that we have come to consider a basic part of our democratic process, was born out of revolt against Moses’s arbitrariness..

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis


On Monday August 30th we were out of town, and, driving home through an immense rainstorm we heard stories of demonstrations on Union Square. No disturbances, though, despite reports by Bernadette Malone of the Manchester Union Leader, a gun toting ex-New Yorker who skewers Liberals in a way that would cheer the late William Loeb, founder of the paper. Her warnings, about New Yorkers misdirecting old lady visitors to disreputable places and hiring AIDS-laden prostitutes to lead delegates into unprotected sex and the like, was actually on the NRC web site. That last straw soured me, to the point of deciding to ignore the whole event.


No chance, though. Tuesday my terrorist-mania barometer, NY Stock Exchange, sported three kinds of security people around it, in addition to the armed cops. Motorcycle police, male and female, sat on heir bikes, on the ready, alongside Broadway. On Hanover Square, the Indian in the quilted aluminum wagon selling coffee-and-bagel for a dollar complained that breakfast trade was abominable (his words, w have high-class peddlers), confirmed by the building's security guy, who proclaimed that everybody was out of town.


After dark, walking up17th Street in search of dinner , we were distracted at Irving Place by a squad of white NYPD paddy wagons, backing up from their positions around the Washington Irving High and moving west, towards Union Square, where there were expectations of scheduled disturbances . In back of them were two ordinary NY buses, filled with sitting passengers, seemingly stuck in traffic. Then someone in our crowd of watchers raised his crossed arms, and a few of the passengers stood up to show theirs, handcuffed behind their backs. The watchers shouted and applauded as the buses continued north. A knowledgeable white-beard offered as how he hadn't seen anything like this since 1963. "They were laying down in traffic around Ground Zero, the Garden and Union Square, to symbolize death. Now they will be taken to a holding pen on West 18 Street [Pier 57, as we found out on Thursday], with ACLU lawyers standing by to make sure there are no more than 30 to a room. Crazy, it will cost their families $5,000, and they will lose their voting rights for a while. To what purpose?" I nodded, and we decided to settle for takeout.


On corner Third Ave, outside the Gramercy Cafe, there was small group of young men wearing do-rags and carrying hiking backpacks, one of them bare-chested, with two peace symbols tattooed on his arms. I inquired if they were real, and he offered to show me more. The kids were from the boroughs, and one of them had fixed up his room for a shelter, expecting many out-of-town demonstrators, with no takers so far. Their 7PM action was over, and they were looking for dinner, politely refusing an offer of a small stake towards a burger meal, and calling me "sir."


Wednesday morning Wall Street was bereft of cops and guards, presumably readying for action elsewhere. The expected human chain of demonstrators carrying pink slips was nowhere to be seen, called off for lack od participants. Some marchers had shown up at Union Square, walking up Broadway, I was told when visiting the Park area, homebound. Farmers Market had acquired neighbors, to the South, a touching display of shoes - sneakers, kiddie footgear, high heels, boots - with a flipchart showing a current count of 976, a pair for each American casualty in Iraq. Signs identified the organizers as Eyes Wide Open, and American Friends Service Committee members in t-shirts proclaiming that Peace is Priceless hovered around. Other t-shirt, pamphlet and Socialism & Liberation distributors displayed their offerings, flanked by the usual portrait artists, Falun Dafa people and souvenir sellers, and in the middle of all that stood a tall craggy-faced man with an "In God and Bush we trust" sign in a well-worn harness. Jonathan Bingham, an itinerant street-corner evangelist, admitted that New Yorkers have been polite to him, although some demonstrators were offensive. He accepted Stop Bush handbill from a smiling NYC Central Labor Council member, but had harsh words for a woman who tried to press on him an anti-NRC button. When reminded about turning the other cheek, he rejected meekness as inappropriate in street action, suggestively hefting his big piece of sign-bearing lumber.


The bustle at Union Square ceased later at night, leaving the Market area wide open for the usual skateboard kids practicing their jumps, and, surprise! a squad of the motorcycle cops I had been looking for downtovn, sitting on their steeds with lights off, ready for the call.


I really could not stay away from the Park, it was infectious. On Thursday, Chase Bank-bound, I mingled. It was like a meeting of an affinity group, with people of various persuasions trolling for members. Veterans for Peace had a Vigil for the Fallen,with an all-day reading of the names, and prayers in support for our troops. They are a non-partisan anti-violence 503(b)(3) group, and donations are tax deductible, as contrasted with the partisan 527 groups, whose donors may not deduct their gifts for income tax.. There were "I Say No" people, and "Not In My Name" advocates, a group that facilitates letterwriting to elected officials, here and abroad. Policemen lounged around, plastic handcuffs on the ready, looking bored. I tried to get one as a contribution, to join my meager non-partisan Nixon-Lodge 1960 and Eugene McCarthy 1968 tokens, to no avail. For the interested, the cuffs are ¾ inch plastic strips with ridges, the tails to be wrapped around wrists and jammed into two small box traps, like department store price tag holders, non-removable until cut off.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis


CThis is not one of my takeout restaurant reviews, far from it. We have been fascinated by the new inhabitant of the restaurant corner at 17th and Irving Place, Casa Mono, with its open door-windows and jammed small black tables topped by giant wine goblets. Filled with young chattering people at all hours of the evening, it was always too crowded to visit. The Convention week gave us a chance to try it out.


Casa Mono, a 40-seat restaurant, serves wine and small Spanish dishes, unusual for the Union Square location. Celebrity chef Mario Batali and his partner Joseph Bastianich of Greenwich Village Italian food renown (Babbo, Lupa. Esca, Otto) have entered a new realm of ethnicity, and it works. Although the suggested meal style - to order half a dozen or more of the tiny plates par couple and trade bites - appears upscale for the ordinary diner, with appetizers and vegetable dishes under $10 and seafood/ meat items under $16, you do not really need a bank loan to dine.


Our meal started with a service of cold tap water, the goblets found in a shelf under the tabletop Soon appeared a plate of small semolina-wheat baguettes, called epi-rolls, from Tom Cat, an inventive Long Island City bakery, and another, of three kinds of olives in extra virgin oil, fat green Gordales, little brown Arbequinas and green Manzanillas. Dipping the bread while waiting for the main course satisfied the early hunger pangs. The food side of the menu featured unusual items - pulpo (baby octopus), sepia (large calamari or cuttlefish), cockles (small mussels, just like in the song), chitirones (baby squid), as well as tripe, coxcombs, sweetbreads and conventional lamb and chicken and strip steak preparations, many of them made ala plancha, seared on a smoky hot plate. These are small dishes, individually served, as contrasted to tapas, bite-size creations on a common platter. Modest of appetite after the baguette feast, we shared a fried anchovy appetizer, a baby octopus entrée and, as vegetable, asparagus a la plancha. The latter came with a piquant-sweet lemony mayonnaise dressing.


The octopus main course, also a la plancha, was a crunchy dish, amplified by a crisp vegetable side, raw fennel, a surprise taste, reminding of seviche with fennel, once tasted under the Yucatan moon. But I digress. The overall impression of the dinner was simplicity, and pure foods well prepared, a style once much favored by the Culinary Institute of America; if the combination was unusual, so much the better. In my bachelor days I too favored unusual combinations, perhaps excessively, using sherry as my regular shock additive, viz. Dinty Moore Stew con Amontillado. No mas, amigos.


The wine list, some 200 varieties, was approached cautiously. The arrangement is by region, within the Blanco and Tinto (red) categories, plus a few Rosado and Cava (sparkling) selections, starting with $25 bottles in each group. Not much Rioja. For the taster, a Cuarto de Vino, actually 1/3 of a bottle or 8 ½ ounces (the term really describes a quarter of a liter) at $11 to $25, gives you an opportunity to experiment with the varieties on hand. We tried El Regajal 2002, a blend of Cabernet, Syrah, Merlot and Tempranillo (recent modern favorite grape), pleasant, at $14, which disappeared in the bottom of our 12 -oz tulip glasses; but that was good, we could twirl the wine to oxidize the product and get the best of the flavor. I learned that from a Portuguese wine expert, former Gramercy Park neighbor, Jean Anderson, a food wizard and author of some 20 books, now in retirement in NC. Muito obrigado, Jean!


Casa Mono has a companion venue next door, Bar Jamon, a wine bar.


**
The Cellar, another new watering place in the 14th Street desert, welcomes poets. Would you like to read your works (five-min max), or listen to others, in a small, friendly, non-battling environment? The Saturn Poetry Series, a nine-year old group, meets every Monday, 7-10PM, at the Cellar, a three-months old bar, 1325 East 14th Street, south of 2nd Ave. The poets' previous venues were the Nightingale, on 2nd Ave nearby, and the Revival, on 15th Street. The leaders are Su Polo and David Elsasser. Thus from Peter Cholnik, the "Poet of the Road," while I was inquiring about the new bar, doing research on behalf of my T&V's takeout reastaurant data base.


Looking at the Cellar's music schedule, one of their groups, Smashing Time, offers the best of post-Punk, Psychedelic, Krautrock, New Wave Progroc and Soul, slightly recherché for anybody whose pop music dates back to Bill Haley, the King and the Beatles' decades. Time marches on.
**
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V offer their Rosh Hashanah greetings to our readers.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

This is not one of my takeout restaurant reviews, far from it. We have been fascinated by the new inhabitant of the restaurant corner at 17th and Irving Place, Casa Mono, with its open door-windows and jammed small black tables topped by giant wine goblets. Filled with young chattering people at all hours of the evening, it was always too crowded to visit. The Convention week gave us a chance to try it out.

Casa Mono, a 40-seat restaurant, serves wine and small Spanish dishes, unusual for the Union Square location. Celebrity chef Mario Batali and his partner Joseph Bastianich of Greenwich Village Italian food renown (Babbo, Lupa. Esca, Otto) have entered a new realm of ethnicity, and it works. Although the suggested meal style - to order half a dozen or more of the tiny plates par couple and trade bites – appears upscale for the ordinary diner, with appetizers and vegetable dishes under $10 and seafood/ meat items under $16, you do not really need a bank loan to dine.

Our meal started with a service of cold tap water, the goblets found in a shelf under the tabletop Soon appeared a plate of small semolina-wheat baguettes, called epi-rolls, from Tom Cat, an inventive Long Island City bakery, and another, of three kinds of olives in extra virgin oil, fat green Gordales, little brown Arbequinas and green Manzanillas. Dipping the bread while waiting for the main course satisfied the early hunger pangs. The food side of the menu featured unusual items – pulpo (baby octopus), sepia (large calamari or cuttlefish), cockles (small mussels, just like in the song), chitirones (baby squid), as well as tripe, coxcombs, sweetbreads and conventional lamb and chicken and strip steak preparations, many of them made ala plancha, seared on a smoky hot plate. These are small dishes, individually served, as contrasted to tapas, bite-size creations on a common platter. Modest of appetite after the baguette feast, we shared a fried anchovy appetizer, a baby octopus entrée and, as vegetable, asparagus a la plancha. The latter came with a piquant-sweet lemony mayonnaise dressing.

The octopus main course, also a la plancha, was a crunchy dish, amplified by a crisp vegetable side, raw fennel, a surprise taste, reminding of seviche with fennel, once tasted under the Yucatan moon. But I digress. The overall impression of the dinner was simplicity, and pure foods well prepared, a style once much favored by the Culinary Institute of America; if the combination was unusual, so much the better. In my bachelor days I too favored unusual combinations, perhaps excessively, using sherry as my regular shock additive, viz. Dinty Moore Stew con Amontillado. No mas, amigos.

The wine list, some 200 varieties, was approached cautiously. The arrangement is by region, within the Blanco and Tinto (red) categories, plus a few Rosado and Cava (sparkling) selections, starting with $25 bottles in each group. Not much Rioja. For the taster, a Cuarto de Vino, actually 1/3 of a bottle or 8 ½ ounces (the term really describes a quarter of a liter) at $11 to $25, gives you an opportunity to experiment with the varieties on hand. We tried El Regajal 2002, a blend of Cabernet, Syrah, Merlot and Tempranillo (recent modern favorite grape), pleasant, at $14, which disappeared in the bottom of our 12 –oz tulip glasses; but that was good, we could twirl the wine to oxidize the product and get the best of the flavor. I learned that from a Portuguese wine expert, former Gramercy Park neighbor, Jean Anderson, a food wizard and author of some 20 books, now in retirement in NC. Muito obrigado, Jean!

Casa Mono has a companion venue next door, Bar Jamon, a wine bar.

**
The Cellar, another new watering place in the 14th Street desert, welcomes poets. Would you like to read your works (five-min max), or listen to others, in a small, friendly, non-battling environment? The Saturn Poetry Series, a nine-year old group, meets every Monday, 7-10PM, at the Cellar, a three-months old bar, 1325 East 14th Street, south of 2nd Ave. The poets’ previous venues were the Nightingale, on 2nd Ave nearby, and the Revival, on 15th Street. The leaders are Su Polo and David Elsasser. Thus from Peter Cholnik, the “Poet of the Road,” while I was inquiring about the new bar, doing research on behalf of my T&V’s takeout reastaurant data base.

Looking at the Cellar’s music schedule, one of their groups, Smashing Time, offers the best of post-Punk, Psychedelic, Krautrock, New Wave Progroc and Soul, slightly recherché for anybody whose pop music dates back to Bill Haley, the King and the Beatles’ decades. Time marches on.
**
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V offer their Rosh Hashanah greetings to our readers.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

On Monday August 30th we were out of town, and, driving home through an immense rainstorm we heard stories of demonstrations on Union Square. No disturbances, though, despite reports by Bernadette Malone of the Manchester Union Leader, a gun toting ex-New Yorker who skewers Liberals in a way that would cheer the late William Loeb, founder of the paper. Her warnings, about New Yorkers misdirecting old lady visitors to disreputable places and hiring AIDS-laden prostitutes to lead delegates into unprotected sex and the like, was actually on the NRC web site. That last straw soured me, to the point of deciding to ignore the whole event.

No chance, though. Tuesday my terrorist-mania barometer, NY Stock Exchange, sported three kinds of security people around it, in addition to the armed cops. Motorcycle police, male and female, sat on heir bikes, on the ready, alongside Broadway. On Hanover Square, the Indian in the quilted aluminum wagon selling coffee-and-bagel for a dollar complained that breakfast trade was abominable (his words, w have high-class peddlers), confirmed by the building’s security guy, who proclaimed that everybody was out of town.

After dark, walking up17th Street in search of dinner , we were distracted at Irving Place by a squad of white NYPD paddy wagons, backing up from their positions around the Washington Irving High and moving west, towards Union Square, where there were expectations of scheduled disturbances . In back of them were two ordinary NY buses, filled with sitting passengers, seemingly stuck in traffic. Then someone in our crowd of watchers raised his crossed arms, and a few of the passengers stood up to show theirs, handcuffed behind their backs. The watchers shouted and applauded as the buses continued north. A knowledgeable white-beard offered as how he hadn’t seen anything like this since 1963. “They were laying down in traffic around Ground Zero, the Garden and Union Square, to symbolize death. Now they will be taken to a holding pen on West 18 Street [Pier 57, as we found out on Thursday], with ACLU lawyers standing by to make sure there are no more than 30 to a room. Crazy, it will cost their families $5,000, and they will lose their voting rights for a while. To what purpose?” I nodded, and we decided to settle for takeout.

On corner Third Ave, outside the Gramercy Cafe, there was small group of young men wearing do-rags and carrying hiking backpacks, one of them bare-chested, with two peace symbols tattooed on his arms. I inquired if they were real, and he offered to show me more. The kids were from the boroughs, and one of them had fixed up his room for a shelter, expecting many out-of-town demonstrators, with no takers so far. Their 7PM action was over, and they were looking for dinner, politely refusing an offer of a small stake towards a burger meal, and calling me “sir.”

Wednesday morning Wall Street was bereft of cops and guards, presumably readying for action elsewhere. The expected human chain of demonstrators carrying pink slips was nowhere to be seen, called off for lack od participants. Some marchers had shown up at Union Square, walking up Broadway, I was told when visiting the Park area, homebound. Farmers Market had acquired neighbors, to the South, a touching display of shoes - sneakers, kiddie footgear, high heels, boots - with a flipchart showing a current count of 976, a pair for each American casualty in Iraq. Signs identified the organizers as Eyes Wide Open, and American Friends Service Committee members in t-shirts proclaiming that Peace is Priceless hovered around. Other t-shirt, pamphlet and Socialism & Liberation distributors displayed their offerings, flanked by the usual portrait artists, Falun Dafa people and souvenir sellers, and in the middle of all that stood a tall craggy-faced man with an “In God and Bush we trust” sign in a well-worn harness. Jonathan Bingham, an itinerant street-corner evangelist, admitted that New Yorkers have been polite to him, although some demonstrators were offensive. He accepted Stop Bush handbill from a smiling NYC Central Labor Council member, but had harsh words for a woman who tried to press on him an anti-NRC button. When reminded about turning the other cheek, he rejected meekness as inappropriate in street action, suggestively hefting his big piece of sign-bearing lumber.

The bustle at Union Square ceased later at night, leaving the Market area wide open for the usual skateboard kids practicing their jumps, and, surprise! a squad of the motorcycle cops I had been looking for downtovn, sitting on their steeds with lights off, ready for the call.

I really could not stay away from the Park, it was infectious. On Thursday, Chase Bank-bound, I mingled. It was like a meeting of an affinity group, with people of various persuasions trolling for members. Veterans for Peace had a Vigil for the Fallen,with an all-day reading of the names, and prayers in support for our troops. They are a non-partisan anti-violence 503(b)(3) group, and donations are tax deductible, as contrasted with the partisan 527 groups, whose donors may not deduct their gifts for income tax.. There were “I Say No” people, and “Not In My Name” advocates, a group that facilitates letterwriting to elected officials, here and abroad. Policemen lounged around, plastic handcuffs on the ready, looking bored. I tried to get one as a contribution, to join my meager non-partisan Nixon-Lodge 1960 and Eugene McCarthy 1968 tokens, to no avail. For the interested, the cuffs are ¾ inch plastic strips with ridges, the tails to be wrapped around wrists and jammed into two small box traps, like department store price tag holders, non-removable until cut off.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis




If you'd like a profound observation about the state of this season's American theatre scene, I have one for you - always bring a sweater to the Summer theater. They freeze you to death, no matter where you go. That is as far as I will profound for you.


The founding group of our T&V area theatre fame is the Roundabout. Although they left 17th Street some years ago, many locals still subscribe. Roundabout has always brought great revivals, Shaw and Cabaret and Moliere with Bill Irwin, and some trendy stuff. With three theatres going, they can do a lot, and some of the stuff is head-spinning.


If what they currently show is the trend, I am counting. Their most recent play, Fiction, by Steven Dietz, is a tale of a smartass childless couple of writers, whose talk is a caricature of caricature figures. The pose is pierced by a young woman who had a long-remembered affair with the man and a plagiarism encounter with the woman. The action flitters back and forth over two decades, confusing the theatergoer, given that the characters do not age. The actors on the sparse stage - Tom Irwin, Julie White and Emily Bergl - are superb, but the flashback -oriented scenario that strains the imagination of a seasoned playgoer is off-putting. Flashback is a big seller in today's drama. A time-line, just like in the newspaper stories, seems necessary.


Drama that rewrites recent history is another favorite modality. Assassins, a Roundabout revival of a 1970s musical by Sondheim at his darkest, appears singularly tasteless in the post-9/11 world. It features the several assassins, successful and not, of the nine Presidents that were attacked, with a final scene of the old-time brigands tempting Lee Harvey Oswald to abandon his useless life and make himself a historic figure. Ugh! And it received several awards. This war is transforming us, we must be losing our sense of propriety altogether.


Golda's Balcony by William Gibson, with Tovah Feldschuh, is the story of a Zionist idealist who learns to play power politics for survival. This play presents an intriguing statement attributed to Kissinger that Golda Meir blackmailed the US into supporting Israel in the 1973 war by threatening atomic attacks on Arab capitals.Wow!


History decomposition is actively at work also at the Barrington Stage theatre in the Berkshires, where we frequently encounter T&V country vacationers. This year's new play by Mark St. Germain was God's Committee, which dissects the hospital people who have to decide how to apportion scarce heart transplants. Last year he had Ears on a Beatle, about two FBI agents who shadowed John Lennon and fled the assassination scene. A year earlier there was Castro's Beard, by Brian Steward, a farce of an attempted assassination of Fidel by the CIA, foiled when he chose to stay at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem and fry chickens instead of luxuriating at the Sheraton.


The great joy in the Berkshires was Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmund Rostand's 1897 romantic drama with noble heroes and villains transformed by calls on their honor. The heartbroken poet-swordsman with the huge nose still sacrifices his hopeless love for beautiful Roxanne by teaching her simpleton beloved the words that will make him worthy of her. The Cyrano character, Christopher Innvar, was an uncanny image of Jose Ferrer, whose portrait hangs in the reception hall of the Players Club on East 20th, across from the Edwin Booth statue in Gramercy Park. If you ask politely, the attendant may let you take a look at it. Ferrer, a former Players president, was the Cyrano for all ages, and amply earned the Oscar for his 1950 performance.


We also bade farewell to another former neighbor, Little Shop of Horrors, for many years a T&V country's local feature, residing at the Orpheum Theatre, near Second Ave Deli, for 2,200 performances starting in 1982. In its fourth incarnation it opened on Broadway a year or so ago. Since it has closed, I will not be speaking out of turn by telling that this viewer was put off by the huge hi-tech man-eating flower that swings out over the audience in the last scene, evoking shrieks. Combined with this version's sudden, hard to fathom transmutation of Seymour the meek clerk into a numb serial murderer, it leaves an unpleasant taste of hokey drama, despite the outstanding music by the late Howard Ashman. The three doo-wop girl chorus, their sound outdoing the Supremes and Shirelles, remains an unremitting joy. If you are wondering about the two other versions, there was the original low-budget 1960 dramatic flick directed by Roger Corman the B-movie cult figure, starring a young Jack Nicholson in a featured role, and another, a pricey 1986 movie musical.

By M. C. Dobelis

This is such an intriguing title, and the story is so charming that our family decided to take the long drive (four hours from NYC) to Williams College in the rolling hills of the Berkshires to view the 70 paintings and sculptures on loan from the Musee Fabre in Montpelier, in the Provence.

Assembled by the not overly wealthy son of a local banker, Alfred Bruyas (1823-77), who cultivated all the painters of his day, the collection has a remarkable range of Academic as well as Romantic and Realist canvasses. Bruyas was a patron of Gustave Courbet (1818-77), whom he invited IN 1854 to stay in Montpelier as his guest for six months, in return asking that the works our artist painted be available only to Bruyas. Courbet, a largely self-taught painter who introduced realism in French painting and was accepted by the Academy’s Salon in 1844, produced several remarkable pieces, particularly the title painting, formally known as “The Meeting”, portraying the country gentleman Bruyas, accompanied by his dog and a servant, opening his arms to greet the painter, who had been hiking. Now an icon of the era, the painting had been greeted with some snickers when exhibited, and became known by the popular title, much to Bruyas’s dismay. The provincial collector was fond of having his portrait painted, in fact, the talented realist Octave Tassaert (1800-74) not only pained him as an honored guest in the artist’s studio but also included him as in the magnificent large spread called Heaven and Hell, where nude maidens portraying sloth, drunkenness and, particularly, lust were trying to lure into their underworld some recently deceased souls on their way to Heaven, while angels were waving them on, upwards. The bearded Bruyas was of course one of the successful escapees from the pleasures of wickedness.

The exhibit has at least six portraits of the melancholy redbeard on show, including one by the romantic painter Delacroix (1798-1863), another favorite represented in the exhibition with seven canvasses, several of Algerian, women and scenes. Alexandre Cabanel had more, ten canvasses, including portraits of Italian men and women representing virtue, love and agriculture. These are the cheerful subjects, along with the seven works by Courbet and four by Jules Laurens, the balance of he exhibit consists of mostly dark academic pieces, with dreary themes and brown trees in dark landscapes, not much different from what Ruisdael and Hobbema painted in the 17th century. Bruyas’s chosen artists included such major names of the mid-19th century as Boulanger, Court, Delaroche, Isabey, Huet, and Guericault, Millet and Corot (one piece), most not well remembered, except for the last three. The School of Barbizon paintings (four pieces by Theodore Rousseau and more by others) are the perfect examples of the art that the Impressionists (hardly on the scene when Bruyas collected) revolted against. In fact, the elegant permanent collection of the Institute, collected by Sterling and Francine Clark in the 1920s, stands in complete contrast to the Bruyas exhibit. Here brilliant Pisarro and Renoir canvases dominate, the latter almost to an excess, with more ordinary Monet pieces in support. Most shining are the Sisley and Boudin Sea and beachscapes, and even a large Bouguereau nude, a Barbizon masterpiece, fits right well. There ate some good paintings by artists who well represented in the Montpelier collection by works of lesser quality. One feels sorry for Bruyas, who wanted to collect all that was good in contemporary painting in the mid-19th century, but could not afford too many masterpieces. The 70-odd pieces in the exhibit represent 29 painters of an era that was doomed by the arrival of the Impressionists who struck back at academic art with their Salon des Refusees exhibit in 1878. Had the enthusiastic Bruyas lived long enough, he might have assembled the Impressionist cache for the centuries.

The Montpelier exhibit was organized by the Musee Fabre, in conjunction with the Virginia Museum of fine Arts of Richmond, VA and the Clark Institute, The DALLAS Museum of Art and the Fine Arts museums of San Francisco. The Williamstown session will close on September 6.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

If you’d like a profound observation about the state of this season’s American theatre scene, I have one for you – always bring a sweater to the Summer theater. They freeze you to death, no matter where you go. That is as far as I will profound for you.

The founding group of our T&V area theatre fame is the Roundabout. Although they left 17th Street some years ago, many locals still subscribe. Roundabout has always brought great revivals, Shaw and Cabaret and Moliere with Bill Irwin, and some trendy stuff. With three theatres going, they can do a lot, and some of the stuff is head-spinning.

If what they currently show is the trend, I am counting. Their most recent play, Fiction, by Steven Dietz, is a tale of a smartass childless couple of writers, whose talk is a caricature of caricature figures. The pose is pierced by a young woman who had a long-remembered affair with the man and a plagiarism encounter with the woman. The action flitters back and forth over two decades, confusing the theatergoer, given that the characters do not age. The actors on the sparse stage – Tom Irwin, Julie White and Emily Bergl – are superb, but the flashback -oriented scenario that strains the imagination of a seasoned playgoer is off-putting. Flashback is a big seller in today’s drama. A time-line, just like in the newspaper stories, seems necessary.

Drama that rewrites recent history is another favorite modality. Assassins, a Roundabout revival of a 1970s musical by Sondheim at his darkest, appears singularly tasteless in the post-9/11 world. It features the several assassins, successful and not, of the nine Presidents that were attacked, with a final scene of the old-time brigands tempting Lee Harvey Oswald to abandon his useless life and make himself a historic figure. Ugh! And it received several awards. This war is transforming us, we must be losing our sense of propriety altogether.

Golda’s Balcony by William Gibson, with Tovah Feldschuh, is the story of a Zionist idealist who learns to play power politics for survival. This play presents an intriguing statement attributed to Kissinger that Golda Meir blackmailed the US into supporting Israel in the 1973 war by threatening atomic attacks on Arab capitals.Wow!

History decomposition is actively at work also at the Barrington Stage theatre in the Berkshires, where we frequently encounter T&V country vacationers. This year’s new play by Mark St. Germain was God’s Committee, which dissects the hospital people who have to decide how to apportion scarce heart transplants. Last year he had Ears on a Beatle, about two FBI agents who shadowed John Lennon and fled the assassination scene. A year earlier there was Castro’s Beard, by Brian Steward, a farce of an attempted assassination of Fidel by the CIA, foiled when he chose to stay at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem and fry chickens instead of luxuriating at the Sheraton.

The great joy in the Berkshires was Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmund Rostand’s 1897 romantic drama with noble heroes and villains transformed by calls on their honor. The heartbroken poet-swordsman with the huge nose still sacrifices his hopeless love for beautiful Roxanne by teaching her simpleton beloved the words that will make him worthy of her. The Cyrano character, Christopher Innvar, was an uncanny image of Jose Ferrer, whose portrait hangs in the reception hall of the Players Club on East 20th, across from the Edwin Booth statue in Gramercy Park. If you ask politely, the attendant may let you take a look at it. Ferrer, a former Players president, was the Cyrano for all ages, and amply earned the Oscar for his 1950 performance.
We also bade farewell to another former neighbor, Little Shop of Horrors, for many years a T&V country's local feature, residing at the Orpheum Theatre, near Second Ave Deli, for 2,200 performances starting in 1982. In its fourth incarnation it opened on Broadway a year or so ago. Since it has closed, I will not be speaking out of turn by telling that this viewer was put off by the huge hi-tech man-eating flower that swings out over the audience in the last scene, evoking shrieks. Combined with this version’s sudden, hard to fathom transmutation of Seymour the meek clerk into a numb serial murderer, it leaves an unpleasant taste of hokey drama, despite the outstanding music by the late Howard Ashman. The three doo-wop girl chorus, their sound outdoing the Supremes and Shirelles, remains an unremitting joy. If you are wondering about the two other versions, there was the original low-budget 1960 dramatic flick directed by Roger Corman the B-movie cult figure, starring a young Jack Nicholson in a featured role, and another, a pricey 1986 movie musical. .