Summer Camp Savings
Tips for making your child’s camp experience more affordable
By Mary Squillace
Camp can be the experience of a lifetime, but in the here-and-now, budgeting for your child’s summer adventure may seem daunting. Fees range from $75 to more than $650 per week for accredited day and resident camps, according to the American Camp Association, with day camps being a little less expensive (weekly fees are about $182 on average) and resident camps being a bit pricier (with a median weekly cost of $390).
However, even as parents are pinching pennies, Adam Weinstein, executive director of the American Camp Association, says he hasn’t seen camp-goers cut back on their summer experience.
“Childhood only happens for a defined amount of time, and we’re finding that the last dollar parents cut is for their kids,” he said. Read more
No Gaga for East Side Man
By Dan Rivoli
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.
Voices From Haiti
The Haitian Times, a community newspaper based in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, has been on the ground covering the earthquake in Haiti for several days now.
As fellow members of the New York Press Association, Our Town and West Side Spirit are posting some of the work that Haitian Times publisher Garry Pierre-Pierre and colleagues have pulled together under incredible circumstances.
Michelle Rea, executive director of the New York Press Association, reports that the group flew into the Dominican Republic because air traffic into Haiti was restricted to rescue missions. Read more
The Earthquake Played a Cruel Joke on Haiti
By Garry Pierre-Pierre
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Whenever someone would ask me what will it take to turn Haiti around, I would always warn them that what I’m about to say can be seen as sardonic. I would prepare them slowly. “You know what it’s going to take is for a large natural disaster to hit Haiti,” I would say. “In the aftermath, more than 200,000 should die and misery should be parceled out to all, regardless of skin complexion or economic status.”
As expected, my friends would be offended because this is not a solution for any problem. I would eventually try to soften the shock by cracking some kind of joke. After all, such thoughts are Unamerican. But Haiti is Unamerican. Read more
People Didn’t Believe This Was the Big One
By Rachel Pratt and Garry Pierre-Pierre
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Marjorie Louis was sitting in her kitchen eating dinner when she felt the house shaking but she didn’t get up.
“I didn’t think it wasn’t going to be serious…and was waiting for it to stop. But I noticed it wasn’t stopping and finally tried to get up off the table but just couldn’t get up,” said Louis, a banker who lives in Delmas. “I looked outside the window and saw a large cloud of dust and started to hear my children screaming.”
Louis was considered among the lucky, having survived an earthquake that killed thousands of her countrymen. Read more
Krueger’s Primary Foe Drops Out
By Dan Rivoli
The primary challenge to State Sen. Liz Krueger was a brief affair: Michael Cohen, counsel to Donald Trump, began announcing his bid to unseat the eight-year incumbent in December and declared he would not run Jan. 21.
Cohen released a statement citing professional and personal reasons that prevented him from mounting a successful campaign.
“Giving the people of this district anything less than a fully committed alternative to the status quo would be wrong,” he wrote in an e-mail. Read more
How Low Will They Go?
Rents plummet as landlords get ready to negotiate leases
By Smriti Rao
We thought we would never say it, but Manhattan is getting a little cheaper. Not if you want to shop or go out, but if you want to move into an apartment. As unemployment in the city hit 10 percent, and Wall Street jobs vanished into thin air, rents across the borough dropped 9.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a report by broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate and appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Read more
Jeffrey Toobin
By Charlotte Eichna
New Yorker staff writer, CNN senior analyst and fantasy football fanatic Jeffrey Toobin is a Harvard Law School graduate who has written several books about various high profile court cases. His work includes The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson and his most recent book, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. At an upcoming talk at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, Toobin is slated to discuss the impact of Obama’s presidency on the Supreme Court.
Our Town recently sat down in Toobin’s Times Square office, decked with items including children’s artwork and a press pass from the 2006 World Cup, to talk about his writing, where he grew up and who he’d cast to play himself on screen. Read more
City Presents ‘Fast’ Bus Plan For East Side
By Dan Rivoli
The MTA and the city’s Department of Transportation revealed an early draft of a plan that would install an expedited bus system and protected bicycle lanes on First and Second avenues. The bus plan, alternately called “bus rapid transit” and “select bus service,” was presented by officials at a Jan. 14 Community Advisory Committee meeting at the Hunter College School of Social Work.
The proposal would dramatically change the landscape of two of the East Side’s—and the borough’s—main avenues. Transit officials estimate that the plans would increase bus travel speed by 20 to 25 percent. Read more
Run, Andrew, Run—Run, Harold, Run
Last time we checked, we live in a democracy. In fact, our country prides itself on being the progenitor and exporter of democratic ideals. But you wouldn’t suspect this based on how the national (and New York) Democratic Party has been behaving lately.
Democracy, by our definition, offers citizens strong choices and vibrant debates on ideas and policies, not uncontested primaries or people appointed to high office by one unelected leader. Read more
