LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Happy Holidays; better news are coming
This Holiday Season must be the most trying one for us
East Midtown New Yorkers, both domestically and offshore. We Americans are
painfully absorbing changes in the outside world, such as the UN’s membership
recognizing the Palestinian Authority as a government, the rising
of Hamas powers in Egypt, Israel’s threats to sabotage the two state concept,
and President Omaha’s warning of action if Syria uses chemical weapons against
the rebels.
Domestically, the horror of a murder of two dozen small
children and adults in bucolic Connecticut countryside by a young
recluse with a huge hidden mental deficiency, just 50plus miles
north, has destroyed the holiday peace of mind for millions of parents. That
came on top of the destruction wrought by the 14-foot Sandy waves on our own
territory, Manhattan’s East Side, and long Island/ New Jersey beach properties,
six weeks earlier.
But New Yorkers are resilient and can deal with
trouble. We note that a bus ride on strangely silent Second
Avenue M15 line, from Stuyvesant Town to the UN Tower, is now uncommonly fast,
without wheelchair traffic. Our proud Hospital Alley was brutally hurt by Sandy,
but now, at the suddenly empty loading stops of the large health centers, there
are signs of rebirth. Although broken electronics in the basement caverns of the
hospitals will take months and billions of dollars to repair, the
work is getting done. At the NYU Langone Medical Center, roped off for patients,
trucks full of replacement parts are unloading. The new Langone
building on East 38th Street came on line this summer, just on time
to absorb some transfers. As to the small stores catering to the hospital staff
and transient patient needs, not all are surviving the coming reconstruction
period, but many lights are up.
As for people, they could not be nicer. Young people do
not jump ahead to grab taxis where another person has been waiting. In super
markets, people wave each other ahead. Even the usual laggards who are taking
forever to bring out their credit cards and cash seem to have learned. An
occasional nudge of “I don’t have all that much time left in my life” with a
smile helps, but go gently, gently.
We had the good luck to be the recipients of an
incredibly kind action by a limousine driver. As we tried to stop at a hydrant
to unload the car (a borrowed one, ours died in Stuyvesant Town Garage No.5
flood), a young, impeccably dressed man knocked on the window, and, speaking
with a Mediterranean accent , told me he had a spot east of my illegal one, and
to drive around the lock and look for him. I thanked and took off, worried about
the traffic, but there he was, waving. Seeing me recognizing him, he jumped in
the black car and took off, not waiting for thank yous. It was a wonderful spot,
good for three days.
Good bless you, kind stranger; maybe there is reward for
years of pulling out of my space for strangers while waiting for the family to
assemble. And for tightening up spaces to make room for other street parkers, of
which I was one in my younger days (it is starting again). Driving and parking
gets the worst out in us, anger management courses notwithstanding. “Let me
share this with you” works better than reprimands. In a “gotcha” situation, let
the culprit be a co- discoverer of the solution, if you know what I mean. The
latter method should also work in foreign affairs. State Department, please
copy.
As for the US foreign affairs troubles, we see some
lightening up. In Egypt, President Mohammed Morsi has declared US to be a lover
of peace and a good ally. Unfortunately, the next day he decided to reform the
constitution, unilaterally. Bur the peace he agreed to has held, and as of
Sunday 12/16 the Hamas aerial attacks on Israel have not resumed. Russia has
found some interests in curing the Syria situation, which helps. The North
Korea/ Iran potential end-of-world scenario has to soften down
gradually.
I have some real good news, although not on a world
scale. The AXA-Equitable insurance people are donating the 1930 Thomas Hart
Benton’s 10-panel mural America Today to the Metropolitan Museum
collection. The foremost American Realist (with Grant Woods, who painted the
American Gothic), Benton gave impetus to the Work Progress Administration’s
mural programs. Benton’s mural series was commissioned by the New School for
Social Research, and the paintings decorated their classroom walls until 1982,
when the needy school had to sell them. Two years later the murals moved to the
lobby of AXA-Equitable Life building at 787 Seventh Avenue, and in 1996 traveled
again, to the insurer’s new space at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. In February
2012 the building’s owner, Vornado Realty, renovated the offices, and the murals
went into storage. Now donated to the Met, the art will move in another three
years to the landmarked Whitney Museum of American Art landmarked Marcel Breuer
building on Madison Avenue, to be taken over by the Met (the Whitney will travel
downtown, to the meatpacking district). If you would like to see the remarkable
art, there are a few copies of a 1985 catalog published by the Equitable and
Williams College Museum, available in the antiquarian bookstores
(also on internet via Abebooksit). Better yet, if you google AXA/Equitable &
Benton, then test a few links, you will find the entire series as an exhibit,
viewable one by one. The subjects of the 10 murals range from Instruments of
Power (e.g. steam engines), City Activities (dancers), then five regionals
(farmers, laborers), steel workers and coal miners, a powerful array. It is
truly a magnificent gift to the city.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V also wish
magnificent gifts, particularly of health and wellness, to our readers, and a
good holiday season, Christmas, Chanukah, Quanta, and a Happy New
Year.
