Friday, December 29, 2006
Step outside and into adventure: Christmas in NYC
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Having written this in anticipation of a short subway strike, I was not disappointed, although my Bangladeshi cabbie, son of a wily Southeast Asian village politico, warned me that the resumption of service might be a ruse. Clever Mayor Bloomberg may have engineered a truce, to save the Christmas business and tourism; the real thing may come afterwards, when the mediation fails. Nothing daunted, let's be positive.
This is the multi-holiday city, bar none, particularly musically. Just step into the subway: at Union Square, and you may find two plastic-pail drum artists, concurrently, at the IRT and BMT ends, with a Vietnamese duo mid-station playing keyboard and an amplified lute, western tunes with an eastern cast. They alternate with Andean flutists and a doo-wop quartet, In Tune, of four middle-aged men, singing with obvious pleasure and cracking jokes between numbers. Their "oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender" tenor has world-class voice and style, or am I letting the spirit of the season carry me away?
In my rush to get photographically set, I subwayed to Herald Square, then west to B&H photo for SmartMedia magnetic cards, the only source in town. At 34th the BMT features a Caribbean steel drum artist, with an amplifier and tape accompaniment background, quite a step beyond the traditional form. And, surprise, he has a twin in the Times Square BMT station, battling the established Drumaniac, who dominates the large IRT/BMT crossing, surrounded by an octet of like-minded musicians, alternating with squads of hip-hop athletes, Scientologists and Lyndon LaRouche fanatics. Drumaniac was the originator of the current subway drum style, of massacring large white plastic pails.
My real favorite is an Asian operatic baritone, who sings operatic arias while accompanying himself on a keyboard. He was last seen in the 79th Street station of the #6 local, the exit point of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum. We were there to see the Fra Angelioco exhibit, the best loan collection of his works. On the way, we stopped to admire Ferdinando Botero's wicked fat attack cat sculpture in the entranceway of 79th and Park Avenue By the way, note the modern white marble torso with a hole in its stomach, on corner 20th Street and Irving Place, a generous owner's gift for the enjoyment of Gramercy Park denizens and visitors. If you happen to know of the sculptor and the theme, let me know (wally@ix.netcom.com), the building does not return phone calls. And do not forget to visit the local parks, Stuyvesant Square, Union Square, Madison Square, as well as Gramercy and Stuy Town Oval, to enjoy their Christmas and Hanukkah displays. Madison Square was the first to put up a municipal tree with lights, in 1911, a custom that spread through municipalities all over the country in short order (wish I could find my Jane Crotty-inspired article of 1996 on that topic).
On to the Met pleasures. To begin, the long row of parkside art peddlers, 79th to the museum entrance. You can enjoy imitation modern styles, nearly all high quality lithographs (the best is the expensive giclee process). Another picture row, mostly photographs of city view and framed reduced size New Yorker covers, is found parkside at Columbus Circle. Art goods are also in the Holiday Markets, Union Square and Columbus Circle. Noted a seller of autographed literary photos, probably reproductions (the best can be found at the venerable Argosy Books, on 59th west of Lex. but if you want a genuine Oscar Wilde signature, in a limited signed fist edition of The Portrait of Dorian Gray, do a search in Abebooks, which lists 60 million books for sale by 12,000 dealers).
To get to the Fra Angelico, finally, you must pass the Met's own Christmas Tree, a venerable institution with its Baroque Neapolitan crèche, decorated with miniature sculpture (until Jan. 8, 20006). The Fra Angelico exhibit (till Jan. 29) is memorable, not just as an assemblage of lifelike portraits of pious virgins (note that the true artist caught the tinge of boredom in the faces of his patient models), fierce bearded martyrs and saints and adult-faced babies, in the midst of which, amazingly, St. Thomas Aquinas looks senatorial, ca. 20th Century. It also exemplifies the transition from the two-dimensional Byzantine art tradition to modern Renaissance, with perspective. The prolific Fra (1395-1455, beatified 1984) had few challengers, except for the short-lived genius Massacio (1401-28), who invented foreshortening (his ground-breaking portrayal of a dead soldier tapers toward the feet) and worked on perspective. One sees how the older Fra, hampered by tradition that made him paint figures in sizes according to rank (note the small angels in front of the large madonnas), bravely struggled to join the movement, sometimes successfully. His best three-dimensionals are of people of equal rank (haloed saints, or mortals struggling upwards to heaven, or in court or at funerals or executions), but buildings other than long hallways receding to a point remained a puzzle. It took a Leonardo, a few years later, to originate chiaroscuro, putting distant objects in a realistic haze.
Holiday greetings to all, go see the Fra.
Having written this in anticipation of a short subway strike, I was not disappointed, although my Bangladeshi cabbie, son of a wily Southeast Asian village politico, warned me that the resumption of service might be a ruse. Clever Mayor Bloomberg may have engineered a truce, to save the Christmas business and tourism; the real thing may come afterwards, when the mediation fails. Nothing daunted, let's be positive.
This is the multi-holiday city, bar none, particularly musically. Just step into the subway: at Union Square, and you may find two plastic-pail drum artists, concurrently, at the IRT and BMT ends, with a Vietnamese duo mid-station playing keyboard and an amplified lute, western tunes with an eastern cast. They alternate with Andean flutists and a doo-wop quartet, In Tune, of four middle-aged men, singing with obvious pleasure and cracking jokes between numbers. Their "oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender" tenor has world-class voice and style, or am I letting the spirit of the season carry me away?
In my rush to get photographically set, I subwayed to Herald Square, then west to B&H photo for SmartMedia magnetic cards, the only source in town. At 34th the BMT features a Caribbean steel drum artist, with an amplifier and tape accompaniment background, quite a step beyond the traditional form. And, surprise, he has a twin in the Times Square BMT station, battling the established Drumaniac, who dominates the large IRT/BMT crossing, surrounded by an octet of like-minded musicians, alternating with squads of hip-hop athletes, Scientologists and Lyndon LaRouche fanatics. Drumaniac was the originator of the current subway drum style, of massacring large white plastic pails.
My real favorite is an Asian operatic baritone, who sings operatic arias while accompanying himself on a keyboard. He was last seen in the 79th Street station of the #6 local, the exit point of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum. We were there to see the Fra Angelioco exhibit, the best loan collection of his works. On the way, we stopped to admire Ferdinando Botero's wicked fat attack cat sculpture in the entranceway of 79th and Park Avenue By the way, note the modern white marble torso with a hole in its stomach, on corner 20th Street and Irving Place, a generous owner's gift for the enjoyment of Gramercy Park denizens and visitors. If you happen to know of the sculptor and the theme, let me know (wally@ix.netcom.com), the building does not return phone calls. And do not forget to visit the local parks, Stuyvesant Square, Union Square, Madison Square, as well as Gramercy and Stuy Town Oval, to enjoy their Christmas and Hanukkah displays. Madison Square was the first to put up a municipal tree with lights, in 1911, a custom that spread through municipalities all over the country in short order (wish I could find my Jane Crotty-inspired article of 1996 on that topic).
On to the Met pleasures. To begin, the long row of parkside art peddlers, 79th to the museum entrance. You can enjoy imitation modern styles, nearly all high quality lithographs (the best is the expensive giclee process). Another picture row, mostly photographs of city view and framed reduced size New Yorker covers, is found parkside at Columbus Circle. Art goods are also in the Holiday Markets, Union Square and Columbus Circle. Noted a seller of autographed literary photos, probably reproductions (the best can be found at the venerable Argosy Books, on 59th west of Lex. but if you want a genuine Oscar Wilde signature, in a limited signed fist edition of The Portrait of Dorian Gray, do a search in Abebooks, which lists 60 million books for sale by 12,000 dealers).
To get to the Fra Angelico, finally, you must pass the Met's own Christmas Tree, a venerable institution with its Baroque Neapolitan crèche, decorated with miniature sculpture (until Jan. 8, 20006). The Fra Angelico exhibit (till Jan. 29) is memorable, not just as an assemblage of lifelike portraits of pious virgins (note that the true artist caught the tinge of boredom in the faces of his patient models), fierce bearded martyrs and saints and adult-faced babies, in the midst of which, amazingly, St. Thomas Aquinas looks senatorial, ca. 20th Century. It also exemplifies the transition from the two-dimensional Byzantine art tradition to modern Renaissance, with perspective. The prolific Fra (1395-1455, beatified 1984) had few challengers, except for the short-lived genius Massacio (1401-28), who invented foreshortening (his ground-breaking portrayal of a dead soldier tapers toward the feet) and worked on perspective. One sees how the older Fra, hampered by tradition that made him paint figures in sizes according to rank (note the small angels in front of the large madonnas), bravely struggled to join the movement, sometimes successfully. His best three-dimensionals are of people of equal rank (haloed saints, or mortals struggling upwards to heaven, or in court or at funerals or executions), but buildings other than long hallways receding to a point remained a puzzle. It took a Leonardo, a few years later, to originate chiaroscuro, putting distant objects in a realistic haze.
Holiday greetings to all, go see the Fra.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Step out and into adventure- holiday trip to Roundabout
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On our way to the American Airlines Roundabout Theatre, on Times Square, we passed through the huge Union Square Holiday Market. The first booth at the East entrance had MTA Subway maps, on handbags, shirts, hats wrapping paper, caps, luggage tags, backpacks; t-shirts named for D, R, A and any other line, with terminal points identified. Wish I could tell; you how to order, but is only a fair and wholesale business, no card.
Nothing daunted, we moved on, to perfumed soaps, HeavenScent, baby wear and children's greeting and party cards, RubyZaar, a bazaar of exotic accessories in 100% natural fibers. If this lot does not keep you hot, WiredWarmer heat pads will, else get any of the thousands of ski caps, Scandinavian, Eskimo, with charming Heidi laces tied under your chin, Peruvian (how did they get into snow gear?), fur – real but mostly not so – cashmere, fuzzy angora, stocking style and peaked, soft-knit, I gave up counting. Luscious Paper had gorgeous bound note books, diaries, address books, appointment calendars, and, if you ask, they give you their card with a 2007 calendar that has all Buddhist holy days marked alongside the Fourth and Christmas. No real books, though – Pageant Print shop, the old Fourth Avenue expatriate that had wandered through 10th Street, Hudson and other venues to settle on East 4th, has discontinued them, selling prints and maps - good NYC ones are on hand.
This trip can be tiring, although the mournful brass band outside Whole food did their best to be cheering. I gave up stopping after seeing a hundred varieties of plastic figurines with tree hangers. The vendor looked suspiciously at me and had no business cards – a lot of that going around. Passing a vine accessories stand run by a cheery schoolteacher – the corks kept horizontal by sticking the bottles’ necks into C shaped harness - and turning north along the west side of the park, past squadrons of print and lithograph and political t-shirt vendors, we finally reached the BMT train station and thankfully submerged. The platform was full of young Asian women, eating bananas or drinking from Poland Spring water bottles. Some Mexican workers were squatting against the staircase wall – a position I could never copy – being entertained by a hyperactive coworker in fat pants and jacket, taking mock kicks against them. The train had more Asian girls, one of them offering me her seat, gratefully accepted.
The 42nd Street station, where all of us exited, was well guarded. Crossing Times Square, I spied a lit-up subway entrance sign with flashing middle letters. How advanced, I thought, then noticed that a middle letter was also missing. How New York!
We were early, to get a bite before the three-hour performance at the Roundabout’s American Airlines’ Theatre. There is a Pax Wholesome Foods right next door, where they offer premade sandwiches, and a salad bar, where you pick out a bowl of greens ($3) and have the server add ingredients (75 cents each), then toss them. Very hygienic.
The play was George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, of his later Socialist years, after the Six Pleasant and Unpleasant series. It thrashes all concepts – women who are forced to marry rich men, idealists who try to save them, women who want to marry for money, capitalism, executives who serve capitalists, with a deus ex machine that serves justice, ok, perceived justice, at the end. Venality is exposed, life in fantasy world defended, useless husbands tolerated, pretense and social climbing jeered at, unfaithfulness in marriage accepted - the mind reels as subjects, one after another, are brought up, accelerated to conflict, then overlaid by the next eventuality. Shaw surely was not sparing with ideas – this play alone could be strung out to serve a season of comic soap operas, in today’s terms. Visualize, an old sea wolf, bearded Captain Shotower (Philip Bosco), somewhat addled and living in another world, yet capable of single phrases that pierce and bring the house down . He lives with his sharp-witted redhead daughter Hesione Hushabye (Swoosie Kurtz) and her wastrel chaser husband Hector (Byron Jennings), as strangers and relatives troop through the old hause – pompous British Colonialist daughter Ariadne Utterword (Laila Robins), her devoted slave, brother-in-law Randall (Gareth Saxe), a seemingly innocent virgin Ellie (Lily Rage) and her seemingly unworldly inventor father Mazzini Dunn (John Christopher Jones), with the capitalist tool, Boss Mangan (Bill Camp) providing accents. Add a gabby ancient retainer, Nurse Guinness (Jenny Sterlin), and you have a compote of irresistible characters with improbable names making politically and socially incorrect declarations.
Back on the subway, around midnight, we noted that the Korean cellist who plays Ave Maria had moved from platform level to the large concourse plaza usually occupied by a demented drummer and his band., who seem to have taken time off. No wonder the Asians are getting to rule the world of commerce.
On our way to the American Airlines Roundabout Theatre, on Times Square, we passed through the huge Union Square Holiday Market. The first booth at the East entrance had MTA Subway maps, on handbags, shirts, hats wrapping paper, caps, luggage tags, backpacks; t-shirts named for D, R, A and any other line, with terminal points identified. Wish I could tell; you how to order, but is only a fair and wholesale business, no card.
Nothing daunted, we moved on, to perfumed soaps, HeavenScent, baby wear and children's greeting and party cards, RubyZaar, a bazaar of exotic accessories in 100% natural fibers. If this lot does not keep you hot, WiredWarmer heat pads will, else get any of the thousands of ski caps, Scandinavian, Eskimo, with charming Heidi laces tied under your chin, Peruvian (how did they get into snow gear?), fur – real but mostly not so – cashmere, fuzzy angora, stocking style and peaked, soft-knit, I gave up counting. Luscious Paper had gorgeous bound note books, diaries, address books, appointment calendars, and, if you ask, they give you their card with a 2007 calendar that has all Buddhist holy days marked alongside the Fourth and Christmas. No real books, though – Pageant Print shop, the old Fourth Avenue expatriate that had wandered through 10th Street, Hudson and other venues to settle on East 4th, has discontinued them, selling prints and maps - good NYC ones are on hand.
This trip can be tiring, although the mournful brass band outside Whole food did their best to be cheering. I gave up stopping after seeing a hundred varieties of plastic figurines with tree hangers. The vendor looked suspiciously at me and had no business cards – a lot of that going around. Passing a vine accessories stand run by a cheery schoolteacher – the corks kept horizontal by sticking the bottles’ necks into C shaped harness - and turning north along the west side of the park, past squadrons of print and lithograph and political t-shirt vendors, we finally reached the BMT train station and thankfully submerged. The platform was full of young Asian women, eating bananas or drinking from Poland Spring water bottles. Some Mexican workers were squatting against the staircase wall – a position I could never copy – being entertained by a hyperactive coworker in fat pants and jacket, taking mock kicks against them. The train had more Asian girls, one of them offering me her seat, gratefully accepted.
The 42nd Street station, where all of us exited, was well guarded. Crossing Times Square, I spied a lit-up subway entrance sign with flashing middle letters. How advanced, I thought, then noticed that a middle letter was also missing. How New York!
We were early, to get a bite before the three-hour performance at the Roundabout’s American Airlines’ Theatre. There is a Pax Wholesome Foods right next door, where they offer premade sandwiches, and a salad bar, where you pick out a bowl of greens ($3) and have the server add ingredients (75 cents each), then toss them. Very hygienic.
The play was George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, of his later Socialist years, after the Six Pleasant and Unpleasant series. It thrashes all concepts – women who are forced to marry rich men, idealists who try to save them, women who want to marry for money, capitalism, executives who serve capitalists, with a deus ex machine that serves justice, ok, perceived justice, at the end. Venality is exposed, life in fantasy world defended, useless husbands tolerated, pretense and social climbing jeered at, unfaithfulness in marriage accepted - the mind reels as subjects, one after another, are brought up, accelerated to conflict, then overlaid by the next eventuality. Shaw surely was not sparing with ideas – this play alone could be strung out to serve a season of comic soap operas, in today’s terms. Visualize, an old sea wolf, bearded Captain Shotower (Philip Bosco), somewhat addled and living in another world, yet capable of single phrases that pierce and bring the house down . He lives with his sharp-witted redhead daughter Hesione Hushabye (Swoosie Kurtz) and her wastrel chaser husband Hector (Byron Jennings), as strangers and relatives troop through the old hause – pompous British Colonialist daughter Ariadne Utterword (Laila Robins), her devoted slave, brother-in-law Randall (Gareth Saxe), a seemingly innocent virgin Ellie (Lily Rage) and her seemingly unworldly inventor father Mazzini Dunn (John Christopher Jones), with the capitalist tool, Boss Mangan (Bill Camp) providing accents. Add a gabby ancient retainer, Nurse Guinness (Jenny Sterlin), and you have a compote of irresistible characters with improbable names making politically and socially incorrect declarations.
Back on the subway, around midnight, we noted that the Korean cellist who plays Ave Maria had moved from platform level to the large concourse plaza usually occupied by a demented drummer and his band., who seem to have taken time off. No wonder the Asians are getting to rule the world of commerce.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Holiday shopping the Ladies’ Mile, on Fifth Ave
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
A message to Jack Taylor, zealous guardian of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District, and of the beauties of its fin-de-siecle buildings on Fifth Avenue, designed by R. H. Robertson, McKim, Mead & White, but mostly by Robert Maynicke, where ladies shopped a hundred years ago; there is a rebirth, the fashion emporiums are back. No threat to his treasures, the Landmarks Preservation Commission protects the LMHD, 400 buildings on 28 blocks. Actually, today’s recastings of the storefronts on Fifth Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets, the middle of Ladies’ Mile, are quite tastefully done.
Our Fifth Avenue Holiday shopping adventure starts at 22nd Street, going south along the west side, where Zale’s, the jewelry chain, has a neat outpost. BCBG Max Azria, next, has the modish goods, with a crowd, in contrast with Eileen Fisher, a block south, where long robes, skirts and pants with black and red and white knit tops create a sense of instant languid aristocracy, with the potential of princess-dom in a white gown, sans tiara, of course. An Ann Taylor’s, across the avenue, completes the theme.
Off 21st Street, at Club Monaco, the music is a jazzy version of Les Sylphides, and the short fuzzy jackets, rolled up sleeves and tiny slit skirts do convey the Med. You also see spaghetti string tops that would not be out of place with Gabrielle Anwar, the exotic archeologist in the TNT cable movie, The Librarian, which NYTimes dubbed hum-hum but the ordinary Dick Wolfe/Jerry Bruckheimer fans who crowd that channel found a welcome excursion in fantasy and humor. Next, Searle, wide belts and knits, a gamine herringbone jockey cap conveys an Audrey Hepburn vision.
South of 20th , eastside, we ogle Sisley’s all black windows. A/E, aka Armani/Exchange, has more black, on the backs of preternaturally thin mannequins, and we can admire the cut that made Armani famous and preternaturally rich. Now we are in the cosmetics reign, with L’Oreal, Essentials, the ever-present Sephora, with Aveda and Body Shop on nearby corners, and Origin further north. The shoe emporium, Nine West, has taken an east corner on 19th, with Victoria’s Secret next door. Victoria’s metal detector in the door buzzes me, and I raise my hands, but the guards wave me off, the woman asking if I can be helped. My “I don’t think anything will fit me,” evokes a big laugh. The store window offers red thong underwear, for Christmas, and large photographs of longhaired trophy women in scanties advertise Supermodel perfume. Catching the rear view, the trained observer notes that the string panties must be unbearably torturous. Maybe that’s why Britney gave up wearing them?
Dismissing such trivialities, I approach an H&M store, oriented towards economic goods with European style. On the west side, White House Black Market has the b&w theme engraved in the marquee, this must be a serious trend – although pastel tones appear on the interior goods. Express, a chain store with a mission of middle priced style, has a major space.
South of 18th,we are now in Barnes & Noble territory, at the big textbook dispensary, medical, legal and art books galore on several floors (the 17th Street/Union Square multi-story flagship has a lot less emphasis on texts, concentrating on the non-college buyers.) The neighbors of B&N are less serious, Zara swings a lot of black leather. That clinches it, black is the color this season – unless it is grey, as in Club Monaco, or red , as in the Italian party shoes on display at Aldo's, next door. On the west side, GAP, occupying the entire block, with four separate stores flying the flag, does not seem to favor any particular colors, as long as they are wintry.
South of 17th, Kenneth Cole has gone well beyond shoes. Its neighbor, J. Crew, has the biggest crowds of shoppers for their preppy styles. Could not find out whether the clients are paying more or less than the catalog prices, until a knowledgeable associate assured me that they were exactly the same, with store buyers saving on shipping. Anthropology, ethnic goods interspersed with mod, is also there, as is a branch of Banana Republic, with the main store across on the west side, next to the fashionable Esprit .
At 16th east, Coach purses. One gets the feel of outlet country, without the saving grace of outlet prices. At 16th west, Paul Smith, rich in accessories. The Fifth Avenue outlet nirvana more or less ends with Peer 1 Imports. Next stop is a long block east, on 14th Street and University, with DSW and Filene’s Basement above Whole Foods, and Forever 21, and a Diesel for the bike crowd on Union Square West.
My outlet sense was right. A day later, while visiting the dentist near Bloomingdales, I found nine of the above emporiums cluttered around the big department store. NYNY, please don’t turn into a mall city.
Happy Holidays!
A message to Jack Taylor, zealous guardian of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District, and of the beauties of its fin-de-siecle buildings on Fifth Avenue, designed by R. H. Robertson, McKim, Mead & White, but mostly by Robert Maynicke, where ladies shopped a hundred years ago; there is a rebirth, the fashion emporiums are back. No threat to his treasures, the Landmarks Preservation Commission protects the LMHD, 400 buildings on 28 blocks. Actually, today’s recastings of the storefronts on Fifth Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets, the middle of Ladies’ Mile, are quite tastefully done.
Our Fifth Avenue Holiday shopping adventure starts at 22nd Street, going south along the west side, where Zale’s, the jewelry chain, has a neat outpost. BCBG Max Azria, next, has the modish goods, with a crowd, in contrast with Eileen Fisher, a block south, where long robes, skirts and pants with black and red and white knit tops create a sense of instant languid aristocracy, with the potential of princess-dom in a white gown, sans tiara, of course. An Ann Taylor’s, across the avenue, completes the theme.
Off 21st Street, at Club Monaco, the music is a jazzy version of Les Sylphides, and the short fuzzy jackets, rolled up sleeves and tiny slit skirts do convey the Med. You also see spaghetti string tops that would not be out of place with Gabrielle Anwar, the exotic archeologist in the TNT cable movie, The Librarian, which NYTimes dubbed hum-hum but the ordinary Dick Wolfe/Jerry Bruckheimer fans who crowd that channel found a welcome excursion in fantasy and humor. Next, Searle, wide belts and knits, a gamine herringbone jockey cap conveys an Audrey Hepburn vision.
South of 20th , eastside, we ogle Sisley’s all black windows. A/E, aka Armani/Exchange, has more black, on the backs of preternaturally thin mannequins, and we can admire the cut that made Armani famous and preternaturally rich. Now we are in the cosmetics reign, with L’Oreal, Essentials, the ever-present Sephora, with Aveda and Body Shop on nearby corners, and Origin further north. The shoe emporium, Nine West, has taken an east corner on 19th, with Victoria’s Secret next door. Victoria’s metal detector in the door buzzes me, and I raise my hands, but the guards wave me off, the woman asking if I can be helped. My “I don’t think anything will fit me,” evokes a big laugh. The store window offers red thong underwear, for Christmas, and large photographs of longhaired trophy women in scanties advertise Supermodel perfume. Catching the rear view, the trained observer notes that the string panties must be unbearably torturous. Maybe that’s why Britney gave up wearing them?
Dismissing such trivialities, I approach an H&M store, oriented towards economic goods with European style. On the west side, White House Black Market has the b&w theme engraved in the marquee, this must be a serious trend – although pastel tones appear on the interior goods. Express, a chain store with a mission of middle priced style, has a major space.
South of 18th,we are now in Barnes & Noble territory, at the big textbook dispensary, medical, legal and art books galore on several floors (the 17th Street/Union Square multi-story flagship has a lot less emphasis on texts, concentrating on the non-college buyers.) The neighbors of B&N are less serious, Zara swings a lot of black leather. That clinches it, black is the color this season – unless it is grey, as in Club Monaco, or red , as in the Italian party shoes on display at Aldo's, next door. On the west side, GAP, occupying the entire block, with four separate stores flying the flag, does not seem to favor any particular colors, as long as they are wintry.
South of 17th, Kenneth Cole has gone well beyond shoes. Its neighbor, J. Crew, has the biggest crowds of shoppers for their preppy styles. Could not find out whether the clients are paying more or less than the catalog prices, until a knowledgeable associate assured me that they were exactly the same, with store buyers saving on shipping. Anthropology, ethnic goods interspersed with mod, is also there, as is a branch of Banana Republic, with the main store across on the west side, next to the fashionable Esprit .
At 16th east, Coach purses. One gets the feel of outlet country, without the saving grace of outlet prices. At 16th west, Paul Smith, rich in accessories. The Fifth Avenue outlet nirvana more or less ends with Peer 1 Imports. Next stop is a long block east, on 14th Street and University, with DSW and Filene’s Basement above Whole Foods, and Forever 21, and a Diesel for the bike crowd on Union Square West.
My outlet sense was right. A day later, while visiting the dentist near Bloomingdales, I found nine of the above emporiums cluttered around the big department store. NYNY, please don’t turn into a mall city.
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 14, 2006
NY State Republicans
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the resuit of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a wrnning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik III, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would finance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to fmally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conrvative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place. With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Mafino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Marino, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a fmancial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until In 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine. New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern. Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway after WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas B. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rokefe11er and Malcolm Wilson,Followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer. Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Frell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the resuit of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a wrnning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik III, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would finance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to fmally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conrvative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place. With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Mafino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Marino, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a fmancial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until In 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine. New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern. Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway after WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas B. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rokefe11er and Malcolm Wilson,Followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer. Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Frell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Can NY's Republican Party remain alive?
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the result of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a winning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik Hi, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would frnance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to finally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conservative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place, With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Marino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Manno, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a financial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until in 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine.
New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woocirow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern.
Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway alter WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas E. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson, followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer.
Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Farrell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Can NY’s Republican Party remain alive?
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the result of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a winning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik Hi, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would frnance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to finally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conservative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place, With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Marino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Manno, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a financial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until in 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine.
New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woocirow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern.
Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway alter WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas E. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson, followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer.
Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Farrell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Can NY’s Republican Party remain alive?
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Be a shelter volunteer for the Homeless
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories.
This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Leah Glasser or Peggy Keilus 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying. I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 23 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
Wally Dobelis has been an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and for the past 23 years has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you a happy belated Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, a glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories.
This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Leah Glasser or Peggy Keilus 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying. I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 23 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
Wally Dobelis has been an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and for the past 23 years has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you a happy belated Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, a glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
