KELLNER SEEKS ANIMAL SHELTER DONATIONS
East Side Assembly Member Micah Kellner, in conjunction with Animal Care & Control of New York City, is collecting much-needed items for the municipal shelter system at his district office and delivering them to the city’s shelters.
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Dance Distortions
Ballet may be in pop culture for the moment—but it deserves more respect
Director Darren Aronofsky may be bold and indie, but in his latest film Black Swan, which has been heaped with critical praise, he opportunistically and rather heartlessly recycles one cliché after another about ballet and ballet dancers. Overall, it seems Hollywood may be in worse trouble, artistically, than ballet itself at the moment.
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LAPPIN SPAY AND NEUTER BILL
A bill championed by East Side Council Member Jessica Lappin, which increases the costs for those who choose not to have their pets spayed and neutered, passed City Council Jan. 18.
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The Woodmans
By Armond White
While watching the matter-of-fact family documentary The Woodmans, Ken Russell’s Dante’s Inferno kept coming to mind. Russell’s 1967 TV movie about the fevered cultural life of British painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who started the Pre-Raphaelite movement) and his artistic family, which included sisters Christina and Francesca, satisfied one’s innate curiosity about eccentric artists. Documentary director C. Scott Willis doesn’t permit himself Russell’s extravagant dramatic identification with the mysterious ways of the artistic ego, even though The Woodmans deals with essentially similar material. Instead, he observes painter and ceramicist George and Betty Woodman very simply, as normal American strivers—except that American art-world strivers remain a peculiarly privileged, rarely examined breed.
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Kaboom
By Armond White
Using the sound-word title Kaboom, director Gregg Araki puts his new film in the genre of sarcastic graphic novels. Its cartoon-like narrative takes a sci-fi, apocalyptic slant on Smith (Thomas Dekker), a sexually undeclared college kid who is fatalistic about his future. But Kaboom is much funnier than any previous graphic novel-derived movie (with the exception of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) because its tone is genuinely anarchic, genuine Araki. Read more
Business Owners in the Rubble
‘Our Town’ recently went to talk to several Second Avenue business owners to see how they have been impacted by the massive construction project, as well as to gauge their feelings about their future.
By Laura Shin
Ernie Raftopoulos, 63, 3 Decker Restaurant & Café
Shortly after arriving in the U.S. from Greece and not speaking a word of English, Raftopoulos started as a dishwasher at 3 Decker in the 1960s. He has been there ever since and now owns the restaurant and the 12 apartments above it.
Help for 2nd Avenue Merchants Stuck in Station
Downtown got dollars while Uptown is still waiting for help
Second Avenue businesses are continuing to struggle under the impact of construction in the new year as the end date for the Second Avenue Subway line now stretches into 2018.
Elected reps from the area are once again attempting to come up with plans to alleviate the financial burden felt by the stores and restaurants that line Second Avenue, and are now looking towards lower Manhattan—where small business owners have gotten millions to help them make it through long-term construction projects like the Fulton Transit Center—as a model. Read more
Secondhand Smoke
Environmental tobacco smoke greatly increases the risk of cancer in non-smokers
By Fred Cicetti
Q. I live with my 40-year-old son and he smokes like the proverbial chimney around the house. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to his health. What can I do to get him to quit?
A. Tell him he may be killing you with his secondhand smoke.
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Battle of the Brains
East vs. West Side in homecoming showdown
Chants of “Lets go Hunter” and “Lets go Anderson” competed with each other Jan. 21 as the Upper East Side and Upper West Side rivals duked it out in girls and boys middle school basketball at a homecoming match at Anderson School.
The rivalry started years ago between the two gifted and talented schools.
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Crime Check
Weekly, monthly and year-to-date crime stats from the 19th Precinct, on the East Side from 59th to 96th streets.
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