Feature

Rebecca Stead Goes Back in Time

By Charlotte Eichna

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Writer Rebecca Stead revisited her 1970s New York City childhood and wove it with a time travel twist for her second book, When You Reach Me (Wendy Lamb Books, $15.99). The young adult novel, which won the prestigious John Newbery Medal for children’s literature in January, follows latchkey kid Miranda as she tries to make sense of a frayed friendship and a prescient series of notes that suddenly start appearing.

We caught up with Stead, an Upper West Side mother of two, after a whirlwind book tour that brought her to Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston. [Read more]

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Politics

Split Over Maloney Primary

By Andrew J. Hawkins

February 25, 2010 · Comments 

Members of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, an influential women’s political empowerment group, are splitting over the primary race between Rep. Carolyn Maloney and her insurgent challenger, Reshma Saujani.
Cathy Lasry, the group’s president and wife to billionaire hedge funder Marc Lasry, is actively supporting Saujani, serving as co-finance chair for the first-time candidate’s campaign. Other members have also expressed vocal support for Saujani, a hedge fund lawyer and political fundraiser. [Read more]

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Education

McCourt High School Recruiting Students

By Dan Rivoli

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

With Frank McCourt High School slated to open in September, administrators are starting the recruiting and application phase to assemble the first class of freshmen.

The high school, housed on the Brandeis High School campus at 145 W. 84th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, will be open to students in all five boroughs. Named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author who spent 29 years as a teacher, the new school will focus on communications and civic engagement. [Read more]

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Film

Gangsta Epoch

Cynical hip-hop clichés abound in Antoine Fuqua’s ghetto epic

By Armond White

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Ever since President Obama gave a shout out to The Wire, it’s been impossible for popular culture to portray the African-American experience as anything other than ghetto crime stereotype. Obama’s validation of racist clichés explains the lousy new Antoine Fuqua movie Brooklyn’s Finest, which merges police corruption and African-American fatalism. We’re meant to enjoy this overlong exploration of how three cops interact in the urban chaos as if it were a grand explanation for all that’s gone wrong in big city life, that is, a big-screen version of HBO’s The Wire. [Read more]

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Dining

Stuck on Stecchino

An Italian take on French onion soup, silky pâté and a complex ragu

By Linnea Covington

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Stecchino is Italian for “toothpick,” and while nothing on the menu includes these little wooden sticks, you will definitely need one after your meal. Especially if the soup of the day is red onion ($6), a luscious, Italian version of French onion soup with a strong burst of oregano. Every day the homemade soup changes, so I can’t promise they will serve it next time. If whatever they serve is half as good as the red onion, though, you will be in for a treat. [Read more]

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Sports

One Year, Two Record-Breakers

Dalton hoops girls Lechich and Cecil both break the 1,000-point mark

By Adam Bloch

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Inside the main gym at The Dalton School’s athletics building, there is a large banner listing the 1,000-point scorers in the school’s basketball history. The list stretches back decades and includes roughly a dozen entries. But until this year, it featured only one girl, a 2006 graduate named Mia Gliedman. This season, within a month of each other, two girls added their names to the short honor roll.

Steph Lechich started playing basketball with a small, rubber ball when she was 5. She was too small to use a real basket, so her father would mimic a hoop by holding his arms in a circle and allowing her to shoot through it. She’s been draining buckets ever since. Jan. 25, she hit a 3-pointer to pass the 1,000-point mark. [Read more]

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Blog

No Gaga for East Side Man

By Dan Rivoli

January 22, 2010 · Comments 

One dedicated Lady Gaga fan missed out on her sold out, four-night concert at Radio City Music Hall after a scuffle with a scalper. Police say the 25-year-old Upper East Side man tried to score tickets off Craigslist.org to the Lady Gaga show. He met with the scalper Jan. 19 at 7:10 p.m. on the corner of Third Avenue and East 87th Street. The victim handed over $450 to the scalper, who gave him the tickets, police said. The Gaga fan, unsure if the tickets were real, followed the scalper for two blocks and confronted him. The scalper allegedly punched the fan in the face and ran off with the tickets and cash. The jilted fan sustained a minor injury, cops said, but refused medical attention.

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