Thursday, June 30, 2005
The cries for Stella still shock the audiences of A Streetcar Named Desire
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Our former neighbor the Roundabout Theatre, who once sort of embraced T&V Country, with the Union Square Theatre on 17th Street in the old Tammany Hall headquarters for many years, and the Gramercy Theatre on 23rd Street, and has since expanded to three Broadway locations, is probably the best repertory theatre extant. It has proven its value time and again, year after year, as this long-time subscriber can attest.
My current enthusiasm is the reprise of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’s second great play – it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948, after the success of Glass Menagerie in 1945. The play and particularly the subsequent movie was, electrifying, with the overwhelming sexuality of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, and the torn tee-shirt and the scream for Stella became iconic.
The play itself, the arrival of Blanche DuBois in the low-class French Quarter hovel of sister Stella and her Polish husband, disrupting their squalid but sexually gratifying life with her Southern gentility that conceals horrid secrets, was a shock. It is sadly valid in the 21st century, presenting vivid flashbacks to the current true life schoolteacher-seduces- teenager dramas, and the plots centering on fantasy life and denial of reality in much of today’s theater.
The stars of the stage drama were virtually re-cast in the 1951 movie, with Brando, sweet Kim Hunter as sister Stella and Karl Malden as the simple Harold “Mitch” who wants to marry Blanche until the secrets are revealed. Only Jessica Tandy was replaced by Vivian Leigh’s clinging Blanche (in later life the actress, bipolar herself, was sometimes unable to distinguish between her persona and the role of Blanche). Three of the actors won Oscars – only Brando was outscored, by Humphrey Bogart in African Queen - and there were eight more nominations. The movie plot, shortened from the 2-½ hour play by Oscar Saul and director Elia Kazan, was sharpened. My recollection of key phrases, “ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and “I don’t want reality, I want magic!” comes from the movie version, although the play also brings back to mind the poignant throwaway “Don’t bother to get up” and “are these grapes washed?” lines. The strength of the drama came from the author’s youth; Tennessee Williams had series of life experiences with his mother and sister, who was unsuccessfully and tragically lobotomized, to build the character of Blanche, as well as other tragic heroines, notably Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
The revival at the Roundabout has Natasha Richardson, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson, uttering the long outbursts of Blanche DuBois streams of consciousness , with sometimes only the emotion sensed rather than the words conveying the meaning. It is a difficult role, and Richardson has chosen to portray the forceful, insistent Blanche, who only collapses at the end, walking out on her way to the future in an asylum under the guise of a resort vacation, seduced by her own denial of reality and the kindness of the doctor who raises his hat and offers her his arm.
Altogether, the Roundabout revival can count as my most memorable theatrical experience in a long while. The play itself transcends the standards of drama, such as the works of Ibsen and Hauptman, in its timeliness, and the strong acting firms up the experience. Amy Ryan as Stella has earned the kudos of the critics and the Outer Circle Award, portraying the sympathetic and long-suffering sister with good restraint. The veteran John C. Reilly as Stanley shocks you, screaming the house down with his long drawn-out shouts for Stella, whom he has hurt and scared away in his drunkenness, and chokes you up with his embrace and kissing of her feet. The Mitch of Chris Bauer wins your sympathy, with his simplicity and deference (“you should not play cards in a house with women”)
.
The theatre itself is interesting. Formerly Studio 54, famed as the dance and drug palace of the 70s, it marks the beginning of Ian Schrager’s empire. The entrepreneur, who has made a career as the reviver of trendy boutique hotels in the US and England, is currently rebuilding the Gramercy Park Hotel. I remember the house after its rebirth as a Roundabout venture, set up as dinner theatre, with tables, when it was the venue for the musical Cabaret, also with Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles (winning a Tony in 1998). It has been since rebuilt, with rows of seats. The stage has an iron staircase and open steel mesh galley overhead, very effective for the street setting of the Streetcar’s Latin Quarter, with street people moving up and down and roaming the isles of the orchestra. The play is of the late 1940s, after World War Two, and the setting was familiar to the author, who had lived in New Orleans for some years, before moving to Key West, where he died in 1983, at 71, under strange circumstances.
The Roundabout revival, running since late March, is closing on July 3.
Our former neighbor the Roundabout Theatre, who once sort of embraced T&V Country, with the Union Square Theatre on 17th Street in the old Tammany Hall headquarters for many years, and the Gramercy Theatre on 23rd Street, and has since expanded to three Broadway locations, is probably the best repertory theatre extant. It has proven its value time and again, year after year, as this long-time subscriber can attest.
My current enthusiasm is the reprise of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’s second great play – it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948, after the success of Glass Menagerie in 1945. The play and particularly the subsequent movie was, electrifying, with the overwhelming sexuality of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, and the torn tee-shirt and the scream for Stella became iconic.
The play itself, the arrival of Blanche DuBois in the low-class French Quarter hovel of sister Stella and her Polish husband, disrupting their squalid but sexually gratifying life with her Southern gentility that conceals horrid secrets, was a shock. It is sadly valid in the 21st century, presenting vivid flashbacks to the current true life schoolteacher-seduces- teenager dramas, and the plots centering on fantasy life and denial of reality in much of today’s theater.
The stars of the stage drama were virtually re-cast in the 1951 movie, with Brando, sweet Kim Hunter as sister Stella and Karl Malden as the simple Harold “Mitch” who wants to marry Blanche until the secrets are revealed. Only Jessica Tandy was replaced by Vivian Leigh’s clinging Blanche (in later life the actress, bipolar herself, was sometimes unable to distinguish between her persona and the role of Blanche). Three of the actors won Oscars – only Brando was outscored, by Humphrey Bogart in African Queen - and there were eight more nominations. The movie plot, shortened from the 2-½ hour play by Oscar Saul and director Elia Kazan, was sharpened. My recollection of key phrases, “ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and “I don’t want reality, I want magic!” comes from the movie version, although the play also brings back to mind the poignant throwaway “Don’t bother to get up” and “are these grapes washed?” lines. The strength of the drama came from the author’s youth; Tennessee Williams had series of life experiences with his mother and sister, who was unsuccessfully and tragically lobotomized, to build the character of Blanche, as well as other tragic heroines, notably Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
The revival at the Roundabout has Natasha Richardson, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson, uttering the long outbursts of Blanche DuBois streams of consciousness , with sometimes only the emotion sensed rather than the words conveying the meaning. It is a difficult role, and Richardson has chosen to portray the forceful, insistent Blanche, who only collapses at the end, walking out on her way to the future in an asylum under the guise of a resort vacation, seduced by her own denial of reality and the kindness of the doctor who raises his hat and offers her his arm.
Altogether, the Roundabout revival can count as my most memorable theatrical experience in a long while. The play itself transcends the standards of drama, such as the works of Ibsen and Hauptman, in its timeliness, and the strong acting firms up the experience. Amy Ryan as Stella has earned the kudos of the critics and the Outer Circle Award, portraying the sympathetic and long-suffering sister with good restraint. The veteran John C. Reilly as Stanley shocks you, screaming the house down with his long drawn-out shouts for Stella, whom he has hurt and scared away in his drunkenness, and chokes you up with his embrace and kissing of her feet. The Mitch of Chris Bauer wins your sympathy, with his simplicity and deference (“you should not play cards in a house with women”)
.
The theatre itself is interesting. Formerly Studio 54, famed as the dance and drug palace of the 70s, it marks the beginning of Ian Schrager’s empire. The entrepreneur, who has made a career as the reviver of trendy boutique hotels in the US and England, is currently rebuilding the Gramercy Park Hotel. I remember the house after its rebirth as a Roundabout venture, set up as dinner theatre, with tables, when it was the venue for the musical Cabaret, also with Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles (winning a Tony in 1998). It has been since rebuilt, with rows of seats. The stage has an iron staircase and open steel mesh galley overhead, very effective for the street setting of the Streetcar’s Latin Quarter, with street people moving up and down and roaming the isles of the orchestra. The play is of the late 1940s, after World War Two, and the setting was familiar to the author, who had lived in New Orleans for some years, before moving to Key West, where he died in 1983, at 71, under strange circumstances.
The Roundabout revival, running since late March, is closing on July 3.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Association of Taghkanic Neighbors wants to participate in directing the town's future
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The southern edge of Columbia, a small agricultural county, is a hundred miles north of midtown Manhattan, straight up the Taconic Parkway. It is a small county, 600 sq. miless and 60,000 inhabitants, and Taghkanic is its smallest town, of some 2,000 souls, counting both residents and weekenders. It is part of the original Livingston Manor, a grant from the Crown to Lord Livingston who married the heiress of the Dutch Van Rensselaer Manor, and whose son Robert was one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. The list of the 125 graduating members of the Taconic Hills 2005 senior class is pure Anglo-Saxon, with a sprinkling of Dutch, German, Italian and Polish names, the old settlers. The weekend peoples' names are more diversified, and their numbers are growing, much to the consternation of the current crowd who enjoy and want to protect their privacy of idyllic rural surroundings.
The organizing meeting of the new Association of Taghkanic Neighbors (ATN) on Saturday June 18 at the Taconic Hills high school brought together some 90 –plus residents, part-timers, locals and officials, well beyond the expectation so the organizers.
The speaker for the group, Scott Stackpole, stated the principle that prompted a dozen or so newcomers and old-timers to band together. It is an interest in maintaining the rural atmosphere of our town in this era of rapid expansion, by participation in the land use planning, zoning and developing process.. He introduced the President of the organization, Ardith Truhan, and some members, Maureen and Peter Leggieri, Lucy and Peter Frank, Walter and Judith Flamenbaum, Marion and Irwin Kaplan, Erin Edwards, and our officials, Town Supervisor Elizabeth Young, Councilmembers Barbara Roemer and Tony LaSalvio, Town Clerk Cheryl Rogers. Some names escaped me, sorry, gang.
The meeting immediately swung into action when participants listed their interests. Lead-off was the persistent question of the ever-growing runaway tax load and what to do about it, followed by statements signifying need for controlled growth and tranquil life style, and the retention of the 2-3-5-7 acre zoning.
In answer to questions, Supervisor Young offered her concerns – overpopulation, loss of open spaces, farms dying, encroachment on woods. Slow but orderly growth need be developed. In that context Taghkanic in May 2005 declared a moratorium on zoning and planning changes, pending the development of a Comprehensive Plan, to carefully thought out by a group of six appointees, of which Tony LaSalvio is a member [the chair is Barbara Hermance]. The Comprehensive Plan will take time; meanwhile the 6-month moratorium can be renewed once, more if there are changes. The main effect will be to put a halt to subdivisions with more than four units until the Plan materializes. Professional help may be engaged, on a voluntary basis if available. Hint, hint…It may be noted that a Comprehensive Plan methodology is used in other local towns.
Regarding communications, an ATN newsletter was suggested. It turned out that nearly all participants had e-mail, with the potential of fast information flow. The Association itself right now has an address ATN, Box 92, Craryville, 12521, and interested parties should send their e-mail addresses there. A $10 voluntary contribution was suggested, to pay for postage and doughnuts in future meetings. A website, similar to www.taghkanicny.com, maintained by Assessor Thomas Herishko, was proposed.
More concerns; cable TV was named a necessity, and above all, a tower for cell phone service, unavailable nearly throughout the county [Verizon works in parts]. This will need a town referendum, a worrisome aspect, since there are holdouts concerned about unsightliness, and perceived dangers of emanations. Mrs. Young mentioned the benefits of communications for police and fire reporting, aspects that swung her over towards support for the tower. Another recommendation, a DSL line to speed communications, would cost $100K, although a member suggested using power lines. Let’s explore!
A story about the origin of the 1969 Beauty Award Road origin emerged. It seems in the 1960s Boise Cascade wanted to rip up the County 11/11a meadows and woods, and resourceful locals used the Lady Bird Johnson’s countryside beautification route to stop them. Ingenious! The Patten Corp bacon-strip subdivision was another attempt to cut up our tourist attraction, eventually resulting in the space turning into a community-service oriented high school site. Another winner for the people.
Environmental interests came next, concerns over noise pollution from motorcycles roaring on the Parkway (controlled at Lake George. How?) , and people running dirt tracks on their properties, on dirt roads and on top of the sand piles at the Taghkanic Highway Department location on County 27. Residents also complained about Columbia County turning its new space north of the Highway Department site into storage for culvert pipes, road materials and demolition thrash, and the garage encroaching into the Pumpkin Hollow traffic triangle and denuding the space behind it along Pumpkin Hollow Road, filling them with road sand and salt. Town leaders quoted a storage shed construction resolution forthcoming, three years away. It was not received favorably, despite the statement that a local architect (name coming) had offered free services to make the necessary structure neighborhood –compatible.
Garbage along roadsides and woods was mentioned, which was explained as coming from neighbors who cannot afford commercial pickup services. A tragic fact, requiring resolution, as much as the other poverty issues - junk on properties along the road, dilapidated cars, eyesores (someone offered a definition of two cars constituting a junkyard, therefore subject to regulations). Youth services came up, undefined, a Pandora’s box..
Hikers want access to trails, with maps. Guidebooks and “Come to NY” material were suggested, as were Independent articles (online?). Send your information to the ATN.
Concerns about grade level crossings were voiced, Closing County 10, for instance, something that the Taconic Parkway authorities might declare, as they did in Duchess, would be a disaster. How to fight? It was explained that a prominent woman killed in an accident, primping the legislation. We must be alert and develop defenses.
A recommendation of weekend town meetings came up, with a suggestion that Mondays are acceptable for the increasing Taghkanic weekend population, but Tuesdays are exclusionary. There was no locals vs. newcomers atmosphere, the officials, a mixed group themselves, were friendly and even leading-edge to some of the objectives, but a melding of ideas is needed. But these problems can be solved, unlike the world’s, we are Americans who understand democracy. The ATN meerings will continue, and more active participants are solicited.
The organization has a new e-mail address: taghkanicneighbors@yahoo.com.
The southern edge of Columbia, a small agricultural county, is a hundred miles north of midtown Manhattan, straight up the Taconic Parkway. It is a small county, 600 sq. miless and 60,000 inhabitants, and Taghkanic is its smallest town, of some 2,000 souls, counting both residents and weekenders. It is part of the original Livingston Manor, a grant from the Crown to Lord Livingston who married the heiress of the Dutch Van Rensselaer Manor, and whose son Robert was one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. The list of the 125 graduating members of the Taconic Hills 2005 senior class is pure Anglo-Saxon, with a sprinkling of Dutch, German, Italian and Polish names, the old settlers. The weekend peoples' names are more diversified, and their numbers are growing, much to the consternation of the current crowd who enjoy and want to protect their privacy of idyllic rural surroundings.
The organizing meeting of the new Association of Taghkanic Neighbors (ATN) on Saturday June 18 at the Taconic Hills high school brought together some 90 –plus residents, part-timers, locals and officials, well beyond the expectation so the organizers.
The speaker for the group, Scott Stackpole, stated the principle that prompted a dozen or so newcomers and old-timers to band together. It is an interest in maintaining the rural atmosphere of our town in this era of rapid expansion, by participation in the land use planning, zoning and developing process.. He introduced the President of the organization, Ardith Truhan, and some members, Maureen and Peter Leggieri, Lucy and Peter Frank, Walter and Judith Flamenbaum, Marion and Irwin Kaplan, Erin Edwards, and our officials, Town Supervisor Elizabeth Young, Councilmembers Barbara Roemer and Tony LaSalvio, Town Clerk Cheryl Rogers. Some names escaped me, sorry, gang.
The meeting immediately swung into action when participants listed their interests. Lead-off was the persistent question of the ever-growing runaway tax load and what to do about it, followed by statements signifying need for controlled growth and tranquil life style, and the retention of the 2-3-5-7 acre zoning.
In answer to questions, Supervisor Young offered her concerns – overpopulation, loss of open spaces, farms dying, encroachment on woods. Slow but orderly growth need be developed. In that context Taghkanic in May 2005 declared a moratorium on zoning and planning changes, pending the development of a Comprehensive Plan, to carefully thought out by a group of six appointees, of which Tony LaSalvio is a member [the chair is Barbara Hermance]. The Comprehensive Plan will take time; meanwhile the 6-month moratorium can be renewed once, more if there are changes. The main effect will be to put a halt to subdivisions with more than four units until the Plan materializes. Professional help may be engaged, on a voluntary basis if available. Hint, hint…It may be noted that a Comprehensive Plan methodology is used in other local towns.
Regarding communications, an ATN newsletter was suggested. It turned out that nearly all participants had e-mail, with the potential of fast information flow. The Association itself right now has an address ATN, Box 92, Craryville, 12521, and interested parties should send their e-mail addresses there. A $10 voluntary contribution was suggested, to pay for postage and doughnuts in future meetings. A website, similar to www.taghkanicny.com, maintained by Assessor Thomas Herishko, was proposed.
More concerns; cable TV was named a necessity, and above all, a tower for cell phone service, unavailable nearly throughout the county [Verizon works in parts]. This will need a town referendum, a worrisome aspect, since there are holdouts concerned about unsightliness, and perceived dangers of emanations. Mrs. Young mentioned the benefits of communications for police and fire reporting, aspects that swung her over towards support for the tower. Another recommendation, a DSL line to speed communications, would cost $100K, although a member suggested using power lines. Let’s explore!
A story about the origin of the 1969 Beauty Award Road origin emerged. It seems in the 1960s Boise Cascade wanted to rip up the County 11/11a meadows and woods, and resourceful locals used the Lady Bird Johnson’s countryside beautification route to stop them. Ingenious! The Patten Corp bacon-strip subdivision was another attempt to cut up our tourist attraction, eventually resulting in the space turning into a community-service oriented high school site. Another winner for the people.
Environmental interests came next, concerns over noise pollution from motorcycles roaring on the Parkway (controlled at Lake George. How?) , and people running dirt tracks on their properties, on dirt roads and on top of the sand piles at the Taghkanic Highway Department location on County 27. Residents also complained about Columbia County turning its new space north of the Highway Department site into storage for culvert pipes, road materials and demolition thrash, and the garage encroaching into the Pumpkin Hollow traffic triangle and denuding the space behind it along Pumpkin Hollow Road, filling them with road sand and salt. Town leaders quoted a storage shed construction resolution forthcoming, three years away. It was not received favorably, despite the statement that a local architect (name coming) had offered free services to make the necessary structure neighborhood –compatible.
Garbage along roadsides and woods was mentioned, which was explained as coming from neighbors who cannot afford commercial pickup services. A tragic fact, requiring resolution, as much as the other poverty issues - junk on properties along the road, dilapidated cars, eyesores (someone offered a definition of two cars constituting a junkyard, therefore subject to regulations). Youth services came up, undefined, a Pandora’s box..
Hikers want access to trails, with maps. Guidebooks and “Come to NY” material were suggested, as were Independent articles (online?). Send your information to the ATN.
Concerns about grade level crossings were voiced, Closing County 10, for instance, something that the Taconic Parkway authorities might declare, as they did in Duchess, would be a disaster. How to fight? It was explained that a prominent woman killed in an accident, primping the legislation. We must be alert and develop defenses.
A recommendation of weekend town meetings came up, with a suggestion that Mondays are acceptable for the increasing Taghkanic weekend population, but Tuesdays are exclusionary. There was no locals vs. newcomers atmosphere, the officials, a mixed group themselves, were friendly and even leading-edge to some of the objectives, but a melding of ideas is needed. But these problems can be solved, unlike the world’s, we are Americans who understand democracy. The ATN meerings will continue, and more active participants are solicited.
The organization has a new e-mail address: taghkanicneighbors@yahoo.com.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Private Accounts with a guarantee - a Social Security reform proposal
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
I have been confronted about the recent Social Security article in this column by several neighbors, favoring private accounts as a future way of assuring SS retirement benefits for their children. My crossover concept, of private accounts with a guarantee, may strike a familiar cord with the many insurance professionals of our neighborhood, present and retired employees of MetLife, New York Life and The Guardian. It might even be a suitable counterproposal for the Democratic opponents of the President’s ideas. Pass it along.
There is no doubt that the SS system is in trouble, long run. There is no doubt that people are living longer, that life expectancy has risen from 62 to 79 since 1935, cancer cures are on the threshold of success, early retirement is prevalent. It already takes 2.8 workers to support one retiree, and that’s not including the coming wave of Baby Boomers. A change that lightens the load of this “pay benefits from current income” SS system is needed, preferably by shifting the some of the burden to the world of private accounts, particularly through investments in equities (stocks), which historically have had an upward growth in excess of GDP, recessions notwithstanding. It should be noted that this is a bi-partisan solution, that President Clinton already in 1998 looked toward “harnessing the returns from private markets to help SS.” But the risk aspect, fear of a March 2000-type collapse, has turned the public negative towards the President’s plan of transferring over 25% of their SS income to the vagaries of the marketplace
There is a solution. The experience of the insurance business may provide an answer. .
The traditional life insurance and annuity companies, investing its reserves in rock-solid bonds, in the past decades had seen a shift in public attitudes towards the right-risk and high-return mutual funds. To counter it, their actuaries invented an equity based line of products, Variable Life and Annuity, that experienced a burst in the high-flying years, with even traditional Ordinary or Whole Life shifting into equity investments and generating a “vanishing premium” experience, where growth of policy and annuity reserves invested in the upward market generated enough revenue to make premium payments unnecessary. But that reversed after March 2000, the high growth yield disappeared, the policies and annuities lost value, the premiums returned, the surrender value of annuities dropped below the original investment, and the public turned sour.
In response, the actuaries offered a family of “secondary guarantee” riders, in principle guaranteeing that the original investment would never be reduced. Thus, no loss. The actuaries, trained to mathematically assess the mortality and morbidity risks, now bravely entered the unknown market risk area, confident that the premiums charged for the extra market exposure would be backed up by the company surpluses and the reserves guaranteeing their conventional life insurance portfolios. To date the experience has been acceptable.
Can this experience be applied to SS, to allay the recipients’ fears of market risk, the concern that the investments,, instead of producing extra retirement income, will whittle down their savings? Some form of “secondary guarantee” should be developed, assuring the SS recipients that their investment will be guaranteed and will produce no less income and benefits than it had remained fully within the traditional SS fold.
Can this be done?
Well, various economic research organizations offer the analysis that within the limited number of probable mixes to be offered to fund private portfolios – straight bonds only, bonds and stocks, low-risk stocks only - the returns over the long pull will be anywhere from 1% to 5% above those guaranteed by the SS system. Let’s assume that the President’s proposed private accounts are funded by 4% of income, or over 25% of the 15.6% of income contributed to SS. Given today’s technology, the value of each participant’s private account can be tracked, over each participants’ years of unemployment and employment at various rates, and, most importantly, mirrored to what it would be under the SS system. Depending on the mix chosen for the private portfolio and its risk, a variable insurance premium could then be deducted from the account, to cover the contingency that the value of the portfolio should drop below the mirrored image. Add to the deduction another premium, for the 25% of disability and death benefits no longer provided by SS.
With this approach, no one should be worried about losing the investment in a private account due to market risks. The income from the proposed annuity purchased with the private fund at retirement would always equal the amount guaranteed by SS, and most probably exceed it. Any COLAs, increases in benefits due to inflation, would have to be configured in, and the retirement date prefigured, to avoid arush to early retirement in bad years.
This is really an exposure draft, to open the discussion about a SS reform that is socially less worrisome than the President’s approach. There will be more on my blog, accessible through the website, www.dobelis.net.
I have been confronted about the recent Social Security article in this column by several neighbors, favoring private accounts as a future way of assuring SS retirement benefits for their children. My crossover concept, of private accounts with a guarantee, may strike a familiar cord with the many insurance professionals of our neighborhood, present and retired employees of MetLife, New York Life and The Guardian. It might even be a suitable counterproposal for the Democratic opponents of the President’s ideas. Pass it along.
There is no doubt that the SS system is in trouble, long run. There is no doubt that people are living longer, that life expectancy has risen from 62 to 79 since 1935, cancer cures are on the threshold of success, early retirement is prevalent. It already takes 2.8 workers to support one retiree, and that’s not including the coming wave of Baby Boomers. A change that lightens the load of this “pay benefits from current income” SS system is needed, preferably by shifting the some of the burden to the world of private accounts, particularly through investments in equities (stocks), which historically have had an upward growth in excess of GDP, recessions notwithstanding. It should be noted that this is a bi-partisan solution, that President Clinton already in 1998 looked toward “harnessing the returns from private markets to help SS.” But the risk aspect, fear of a March 2000-type collapse, has turned the public negative towards the President’s plan of transferring over 25% of their SS income to the vagaries of the marketplace
There is a solution. The experience of the insurance business may provide an answer. .
The traditional life insurance and annuity companies, investing its reserves in rock-solid bonds, in the past decades had seen a shift in public attitudes towards the right-risk and high-return mutual funds. To counter it, their actuaries invented an equity based line of products, Variable Life and Annuity, that experienced a burst in the high-flying years, with even traditional Ordinary or Whole Life shifting into equity investments and generating a “vanishing premium” experience, where growth of policy and annuity reserves invested in the upward market generated enough revenue to make premium payments unnecessary. But that reversed after March 2000, the high growth yield disappeared, the policies and annuities lost value, the premiums returned, the surrender value of annuities dropped below the original investment, and the public turned sour.
In response, the actuaries offered a family of “secondary guarantee” riders, in principle guaranteeing that the original investment would never be reduced. Thus, no loss. The actuaries, trained to mathematically assess the mortality and morbidity risks, now bravely entered the unknown market risk area, confident that the premiums charged for the extra market exposure would be backed up by the company surpluses and the reserves guaranteeing their conventional life insurance portfolios. To date the experience has been acceptable.
Can this experience be applied to SS, to allay the recipients’ fears of market risk, the concern that the investments,, instead of producing extra retirement income, will whittle down their savings? Some form of “secondary guarantee” should be developed, assuring the SS recipients that their investment will be guaranteed and will produce no less income and benefits than it had remained fully within the traditional SS fold.
Can this be done?
Well, various economic research organizations offer the analysis that within the limited number of probable mixes to be offered to fund private portfolios – straight bonds only, bonds and stocks, low-risk stocks only - the returns over the long pull will be anywhere from 1% to 5% above those guaranteed by the SS system. Let’s assume that the President’s proposed private accounts are funded by 4% of income, or over 25% of the 15.6% of income contributed to SS. Given today’s technology, the value of each participant’s private account can be tracked, over each participants’ years of unemployment and employment at various rates, and, most importantly, mirrored to what it would be under the SS system. Depending on the mix chosen for the private portfolio and its risk, a variable insurance premium could then be deducted from the account, to cover the contingency that the value of the portfolio should drop below the mirrored image. Add to the deduction another premium, for the 25% of disability and death benefits no longer provided by SS.
With this approach, no one should be worried about losing the investment in a private account due to market risks. The income from the proposed annuity purchased with the private fund at retirement would always equal the amount guaranteed by SS, and most probably exceed it. Any COLAs, increases in benefits due to inflation, would have to be configured in, and the retirement date prefigured, to avoid arush to early retirement in bad years.
This is really an exposure draft, to open the discussion about a SS reform that is socially less worrisome than the President’s approach. There will be more on my blog, accessible through the website, www.dobelis.net.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Good local people; the passing of Jeanne Tregre
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In recent weeks I have been beset with global scale pessimistic thoughts about the future of the city, state, nation and beyond, nothing minor, you know. While in this depressed state, worthy of Dr Paranoia, I unearthed some overlooked mail, including an invitation to the 24th Annual Dinner of Concerned Citizens Speak, a/k/a CCS, a mysterious organization that surfaces once a year, to hold a dinner, recognize worthy community leaders for what they are doing, hold a raffle where every ticket-holder – well, nearly every – wins a dinner, free business cards and other worthwhile prizes donated by neighborhood merchants. The money raised goes into local charities, and holiday season gifts for children in hospitals and shelters.
Noting the event, the thought struck that in my description the words “community” and “local” keep recurring with some frequency. We are a really together neighborhood, despite our personal differences. A group like CCS proves it. Organized to give a forum to the opinions of a group of friends who felt that non-partisan views and recommendations deserved an outlet, it has done so for the past 25 years, by newsletter and honoring the worthy community leaders, writers and activists (I admit my bias, having been honored a decade ago, along with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver), no big deal, just telling people that their good deeds have been recognized. and letting the public know of their good deeds. Local merchants support CCS by donating good prizes, we the residents support it, and the recipients of awards are glad to be appreciated in a world that often recognizes activity by criticizing the leaders. And speaking of our community activists, my short list here barely makes a dent. More is to come in future months.
So, more power to John F. Bringamann, one of the founders and the long-time Chairman of CCS, whom many of us know as a print-shop manager, retired secretary and key-keeper of the Gramercy Park Trustees, and an all-around helping hand in community affairs. Other members of his Board include Richard Jordan, an NGO executive at the UN, Gerard Schriffen, former Assistant District Attorney, schoolteacher, voice of the Manhattan Neighborhood Council and current candidate for the City Council vacancy, Alvin Doyle the head of ST/PCV Tenants Association, attorney Thomas R. Stevens, and community activists Lillian Tompkins and Pearl Messlin, who keep the CCS affairs going.
To recognize the honorees, Sharon Ullman, president of the 23rd Street Association, has been a neighborhood mover and shaker for the past decade, moving the agenda of the chief business street on the northern edge of T&V Country. The membership of 400 includes some business giants such as Met Life, NY Life, Home Depot and major banks. The 12M renovation project of the neglected Madison Square Park through the efforts of a new park advisory was the Association’s initiative, resulting in a full rebirth, reminiscent of that of Union Square Park two decades ago Her current effort is to create a BID to cover 23rd to 28th Streets, river to river. The Association maintains relationships with four community boards, the 10th and 13th Precincts, Congresswoman Maloney, assemblymembers, City Councilpeople and other representatives, to make sure that the needs of our area are looked after.
Another honoree, the Grace and Hope Mission on Third Avenue at 14th Street, has been looking after the down-and-out members of our communities since 1914, first in Baltimore, then spreading in East Coast cities from Norfolk to Boston, arriving in New York’s Times Square in 1930. Relocated to Park Row (nearer the Skid Row), they finally came to the current location in 1964. A predecessor of the both privately and city-supported Partnership for the Homeless programs, this very privately funded organization looks after the spiritual and bodily needs of their guests on a smaller scale, with food and shelter as well as the singing of hymns and spreading of a hopeful religious message.
We have also lost a local activist of many accomplishments who will be long remembered. Town &Village is sad to inform you of the death of Jeanne Tregre, 74, an early (1983) recipient of the Major Community Leader Award from CCS. She was a long-time President of the 13th Precinct Community Council, a director of the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association (est. 1975) and a major leader in the effort to restore the West Park’s historic cast-iron fence, along with Rosalee Isaly and the late Rex Wassermann of the Parks Department (the restoration of the East Park fence, one of Ms. Tregre’s favorite concerns, still needs a sponsor). Ms Tregre was also active in the support of the Mary Manning Walsh Home on the Upper East Side. A memorial service was held at the Church of Immaculate Conception on July 8. More family and memorial details are to follow.
Wally Dobelis regrets the omission of the thank you note to Louise Dankberg of the Tilden Democratic Club in the last issue. For more fully annotated copies of these articles please enter www.dobelis.net and click through to the blog containing current material
In recent weeks I have been beset with global scale pessimistic thoughts about the future of the city, state, nation and beyond, nothing minor, you know. While in this depressed state, worthy of Dr Paranoia, I unearthed some overlooked mail, including an invitation to the 24th Annual Dinner of Concerned Citizens Speak, a/k/a CCS, a mysterious organization that surfaces once a year, to hold a dinner, recognize worthy community leaders for what they are doing, hold a raffle where every ticket-holder – well, nearly every – wins a dinner, free business cards and other worthwhile prizes donated by neighborhood merchants. The money raised goes into local charities, and holiday season gifts for children in hospitals and shelters.
Noting the event, the thought struck that in my description the words “community” and “local” keep recurring with some frequency. We are a really together neighborhood, despite our personal differences. A group like CCS proves it. Organized to give a forum to the opinions of a group of friends who felt that non-partisan views and recommendations deserved an outlet, it has done so for the past 25 years, by newsletter and honoring the worthy community leaders, writers and activists (I admit my bias, having been honored a decade ago, along with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver), no big deal, just telling people that their good deeds have been recognized. and letting the public know of their good deeds. Local merchants support CCS by donating good prizes, we the residents support it, and the recipients of awards are glad to be appreciated in a world that often recognizes activity by criticizing the leaders. And speaking of our community activists, my short list here barely makes a dent. More is to come in future months.
So, more power to John F. Bringamann, one of the founders and the long-time Chairman of CCS, whom many of us know as a print-shop manager, retired secretary and key-keeper of the Gramercy Park Trustees, and an all-around helping hand in community affairs. Other members of his Board include Richard Jordan, an NGO executive at the UN, Gerard Schriffen, former Assistant District Attorney, schoolteacher, voice of the Manhattan Neighborhood Council and current candidate for the City Council vacancy, Alvin Doyle the head of ST/PCV Tenants Association, attorney Thomas R. Stevens, and community activists Lillian Tompkins and Pearl Messlin, who keep the CCS affairs going.
To recognize the honorees, Sharon Ullman, president of the 23rd Street Association, has been a neighborhood mover and shaker for the past decade, moving the agenda of the chief business street on the northern edge of T&V Country. The membership of 400 includes some business giants such as Met Life, NY Life, Home Depot and major banks. The 12M renovation project of the neglected Madison Square Park through the efforts of a new park advisory was the Association’s initiative, resulting in a full rebirth, reminiscent of that of Union Square Park two decades ago Her current effort is to create a BID to cover 23rd to 28th Streets, river to river. The Association maintains relationships with four community boards, the 10th and 13th Precincts, Congresswoman Maloney, assemblymembers, City Councilpeople and other representatives, to make sure that the needs of our area are looked after.
Another honoree, the Grace and Hope Mission on Third Avenue at 14th Street, has been looking after the down-and-out members of our communities since 1914, first in Baltimore, then spreading in East Coast cities from Norfolk to Boston, arriving in New York’s Times Square in 1930. Relocated to Park Row (nearer the Skid Row), they finally came to the current location in 1964. A predecessor of the both privately and city-supported Partnership for the Homeless programs, this very privately funded organization looks after the spiritual and bodily needs of their guests on a smaller scale, with food and shelter as well as the singing of hymns and spreading of a hopeful religious message.
We have also lost a local activist of many accomplishments who will be long remembered. Town &Village is sad to inform you of the death of Jeanne Tregre, 74, an early (1983) recipient of the Major Community Leader Award from CCS. She was a long-time President of the 13th Precinct Community Council, a director of the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association (est. 1975) and a major leader in the effort to restore the West Park’s historic cast-iron fence, along with Rosalee Isaly and the late Rex Wassermann of the Parks Department (the restoration of the East Park fence, one of Ms. Tregre’s favorite concerns, still needs a sponsor). Ms Tregre was also active in the support of the Mary Manning Walsh Home on the Upper East Side. A memorial service was held at the Church of Immaculate Conception on July 8. More family and memorial details are to follow.
Wally Dobelis regrets the omission of the thank you note to Louise Dankberg of the Tilden Democratic Club in the last issue. For more fully annotated copies of these articles please enter www.dobelis.net and click through to the blog containing current material
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Sidewalk cafes and a pedestrian boulevard on 42nd Street - CB6 handles them all
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In the lifecycle of a Community Board, springtime in New York means passing on applications for street events, liquor licenses and sidewalk cafes. Thus it was at the CB6 April meeting, the minutes showing a concentration on the latter.
Parenthetically, sidewalk cafes are a very serious matter not only with restaurateurs but also with diners, particularly in this era of high real estate prices. Buyers of properties are raising the lease renewals, causing a number of closures, several noted on 3rd Avenue. A 17th Street restaurant faces a tripling of the lease costs come expiry date, with the prospect of closing, or greatly increasing the charges in this moderately priced family eatery, a lifesaver when two-income families do not have the time to cook. A sidewalk café seem a nuisance to passersby but it helps to keep the diners’ costs down.
Feltrim Restaurant on 34th Street (2/3 Aves), Barfly Inc on 3rd Avenue and 20th Street, 449 Restaurant Inc d/b/a MoonstruckEast on 3rd Ave and 31st Street, and Pulsar LLC d/b/a as Rice Restaurant and Take Out passed the muster, The main activity was further uptown, with approvals Afacan Corp. d/b/a Pescatore Restaurant, Joyce East 49th d/b/a Bliss, Les Brasseurs d/b/a La Mangerie, Pig and Whistle, M&M, Corner 51 formerly Nessa, Lasagna Restaurant, Aquamarine Asian Cuisine, Sip Sale, 28 Noodles, 52 Restaurant Corp d/b/a Opal, 2nd Ave Plaza Diner d/b/a Plaza Diner, and Alterations 44th d/b/a as Overlook Lounge, formerly Costello’s . . The music of the names is sheer magic, I simply cannot resist reciting them. Costello’s in particular, this was the great newspapermen’s bar, of James Thurber fame, depicted in The New Yorker in the halcyon days gone by.
Some applications failed - 660 Sweet Thing d/b/a Redemption Bar had numerous violations, and CB6 absolutely opposed their off-premises liquor license application, the strongest terms I have ever seen in their resolutions. CK Cage, formerly Chef T, cannot have a sidewalk café because of insufficient clearance, and Piramida Mayas d/b/a Mama Mexico failed the test for building an addition. But Graceful Services can join the 2nd floors of two buildings for a Physical Cultural Establishment, as not adversely impacting the neighborhood, and the Annenbeg Foundation may open a Center For Living, serving alcohol-abusing teenagers, on 52nd Street.
Pedestrian safety at the Gramercy Park hotel construction site, 20th Street and Lexington Ave, has been a concern, and CB6 urges the transportation Dept to take the traffic light on Lex and 22nd Street out of synchronization, to cause the speeding southbound traffic to stop, and to install a “no through traffic” signs on 22nd and 23rd Streets, and a large flashing arrow directing traffic to turn west.
Of particular interest to residents of Stuyvesant Park was the report that the Parks, Landmarks and Cultural Affairs Committee will actively pursue the East Park fence rehabilitation, a project that has been ongoing for over 20 years. They will seek some funding through the budget process [if memory serves, there have been major funds allocated in the Ruth Messinger borough presidency era (1990-98), but not enough to start the project, which does not lend itself to a piecemeal handling]
A strange project being considered in committee is Vision42, defined as a citizens’ initiative in reimagining and defining low-flow traffic on a car-free 42nd Street, river to river, by means of a light rail line within a landscaped pedestrian boulevard. The trains would be low, with 12 stops, at the avenues. The boulevard would be lined with trees in planters, curbs would be removed and automobile traffic redirected to adjoining side streets (I am not sure how South to North traffic will fare; it would appear to seriously interfere with the pedestrian tranquility and the trolleys, unless redirected to the FDR and West side Drives, with the prospect of incredible volume). It is seriously sponsored by the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, a NY-based not-for-profit, and chaired by architects Roxanne Warren and George Haikalis. They have signed up an Advisory Committee, made up of 40+ urbanists, architects, transportation thinkers, tourism officials, big realtors, futurists and dreamers, and include, in the order listed on the Vision42 website, Tony Hiss, Georges Jacquemart, Dr. Floyd Lapp, Mildred Schwartz, Jonathan Bowles, Carter Craft, Janine DiGioacchino, Alfred Fazio. Douglas Durst, Jessica Flagg, Ahok Gupta, Arthur Imperatore, John Johnston, Fred Kent, Charles Komanoff, Rocco Landesman, Pamela Lippe, Russell Menkes, Howard Millstein, Dick Netzer, Eliot Sander, Sam Schwartz, Michael Sorkin, Vukan Vuchic, Paul Steely White. One is inclined to suppress the chuckles and thoughts about this being a put-on after viewing the list of supporters.
But who is to be taken seriously in this era of the Governor and Mayor pushing for a West Side sports stadium, a $1B expense paid for a broke city and broker state, with the MTA giving away a property with a real estate value of $2B to a sports organization for a fraction of its value, when realizing the full worth of the property could postpone subway fare increases for a decade, or maybe pay down for the #7 line extension and the airport link? The urbanists might be better employed in arguing against the game day traffic jams, and speaking up in favor of using the rail yards land for residential and business developments, earning the city some real tax money. Sanity seems to have taken a leave of absence, locally as well as nationally and worldwide.
In the lifecycle of a Community Board, springtime in New York means passing on applications for street events, liquor licenses and sidewalk cafes. Thus it was at the CB6 April meeting, the minutes showing a concentration on the latter.
Parenthetically, sidewalk cafes are a very serious matter not only with restaurateurs but also with diners, particularly in this era of high real estate prices. Buyers of properties are raising the lease renewals, causing a number of closures, several noted on 3rd Avenue. A 17th Street restaurant faces a tripling of the lease costs come expiry date, with the prospect of closing, or greatly increasing the charges in this moderately priced family eatery, a lifesaver when two-income families do not have the time to cook. A sidewalk café seem a nuisance to passersby but it helps to keep the diners’ costs down.
Feltrim Restaurant on 34th Street (2/3 Aves), Barfly Inc on 3rd Avenue and 20th Street, 449 Restaurant Inc d/b/a MoonstruckEast on 3rd Ave and 31st Street, and Pulsar LLC d/b/a as Rice Restaurant and Take Out passed the muster, The main activity was further uptown, with approvals Afacan Corp. d/b/a Pescatore Restaurant, Joyce East 49th d/b/a Bliss, Les Brasseurs d/b/a La Mangerie, Pig and Whistle, M&M, Corner 51 formerly Nessa, Lasagna Restaurant, Aquamarine Asian Cuisine, Sip Sale, 28 Noodles, 52 Restaurant Corp d/b/a Opal, 2nd Ave Plaza Diner d/b/a Plaza Diner, and Alterations 44th d/b/a as Overlook Lounge, formerly Costello’s . . The music of the names is sheer magic, I simply cannot resist reciting them. Costello’s in particular, this was the great newspapermen’s bar, of James Thurber fame, depicted in The New Yorker in the halcyon days gone by.
Some applications failed - 660 Sweet Thing d/b/a Redemption Bar had numerous violations, and CB6 absolutely opposed their off-premises liquor license application, the strongest terms I have ever seen in their resolutions. CK Cage, formerly Chef T, cannot have a sidewalk café because of insufficient clearance, and Piramida Mayas d/b/a Mama Mexico failed the test for building an addition. But Graceful Services can join the 2nd floors of two buildings for a Physical Cultural Establishment, as not adversely impacting the neighborhood, and the Annenbeg Foundation may open a Center For Living, serving alcohol-abusing teenagers, on 52nd Street.
Pedestrian safety at the Gramercy Park hotel construction site, 20th Street and Lexington Ave, has been a concern, and CB6 urges the transportation Dept to take the traffic light on Lex and 22nd Street out of synchronization, to cause the speeding southbound traffic to stop, and to install a “no through traffic” signs on 22nd and 23rd Streets, and a large flashing arrow directing traffic to turn west.
Of particular interest to residents of Stuyvesant Park was the report that the Parks, Landmarks and Cultural Affairs Committee will actively pursue the East Park fence rehabilitation, a project that has been ongoing for over 20 years. They will seek some funding through the budget process [if memory serves, there have been major funds allocated in the Ruth Messinger borough presidency era (1990-98), but not enough to start the project, which does not lend itself to a piecemeal handling]
A strange project being considered in committee is Vision42, defined as a citizens’ initiative in reimagining and defining low-flow traffic on a car-free 42nd Street, river to river, by means of a light rail line within a landscaped pedestrian boulevard. The trains would be low, with 12 stops, at the avenues. The boulevard would be lined with trees in planters, curbs would be removed and automobile traffic redirected to adjoining side streets (I am not sure how South to North traffic will fare; it would appear to seriously interfere with the pedestrian tranquility and the trolleys, unless redirected to the FDR and West side Drives, with the prospect of incredible volume). It is seriously sponsored by the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, a NY-based not-for-profit, and chaired by architects Roxanne Warren and George Haikalis. They have signed up an Advisory Committee, made up of 40+ urbanists, architects, transportation thinkers, tourism officials, big realtors, futurists and dreamers, and include, in the order listed on the Vision42 website, Tony Hiss, Georges Jacquemart, Dr. Floyd Lapp, Mildred Schwartz, Jonathan Bowles, Carter Craft, Janine DiGioacchino, Alfred Fazio. Douglas Durst, Jessica Flagg, Ahok Gupta, Arthur Imperatore, John Johnston, Fred Kent, Charles Komanoff, Rocco Landesman, Pamela Lippe, Russell Menkes, Howard Millstein, Dick Netzer, Eliot Sander, Sam Schwartz, Michael Sorkin, Vukan Vuchic, Paul Steely White. One is inclined to suppress the chuckles and thoughts about this being a put-on after viewing the list of supporters.
But who is to be taken seriously in this era of the Governor and Mayor pushing for a West Side sports stadium, a $1B expense paid for a broke city and broker state, with the MTA giving away a property with a real estate value of $2B to a sports organization for a fraction of its value, when realizing the full worth of the property could postpone subway fare increases for a decade, or maybe pay down for the #7 line extension and the airport link? The urbanists might be better employed in arguing against the game day traffic jams, and speaking up in favor of using the rail yards land for residential and business developments, earning the city some real tax money. Sanity seems to have taken a leave of absence, locally as well as nationally and worldwide.
