This Is Your Brain on Music
The power of a playlist can affect productivity and happiness
By Aspen Matis
Columbia University psychiatry professor Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, studies neuron connections and how such brain links can be strengthened by listening to the right music. Her new book, Your Playlist Can Change Your Life (co-authored by Joseph Cardillo and Don DuRousseau), distills her brain-training findings into playlists for the mood you want to be in. Read more
Q&A with Robert Jackson, Author of Highway Under the Hudson
Q&A with Robert Jackson, Author of Highway Under the Hudson
Texas native Robert Jackson spent three and a half years compiling a complete history on a structure far from his home, something 33 million East Coasters pass through every year: the Holland Tunnel. Built in 1927, this daily part of New Yorkers’ lives was at the time the longest and largest of the vehicular tunnels in the entire world, and the first to utilize a ventilation system. Read more
The Fall and Rise of Gimbels, Macy’s Rival
With so much press surrounding the possibility of the arrival of Wal-Mart in Manhattan, it’s hard to believe there was a time when the department store was king of the New York City shopping world. But, as writer Michael Lisicky details in his latest book, Gimbels Has It!, Macy’s wasn’t always the undisputed champion of the New York City department store, as anyone who has ever seen holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street will remember. Just across the street from Macy’s Herald Square flagship was Gimbels, a fierce competitor that eventually fell from favor as the times changed.
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The Death and Life of New York City
By Mark Peikert
Roberta Brandes Gratz’ new book The Battle for Gotham examines how Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs impacted the look of Downtown Manhattan
No rivalry will ever serve as a better representation of New York City itself than that of the ruthlessly ambitious Robert Moses and the community-minded Jane Jacobs. Moses, the mercurial, all-powerful “master builder” responsible for everything from the Cross Bronx Expressway to Jones Beach, found his near-absolute power overthrown by urban activist Jacobs, whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities and successful protest of Moses’ planned elevated thruway in Soho almost single-handedly destroyed the vision of cities as characterless, efficiency-driven monoliths that Moses had successfully propagated.
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Of Golightly and Mazursky
By Mark Peikert
Film writer Sam Wasson has made a name for himself with books that shed new light on familiar subjects. After chronicling the films of director Blake Edwards in A Splurch in the Kisser, Wasson narrowed his sights to a single Edwards film: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The result was last summer’s buzziest book, the New York Times bestselling Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman.
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Teaching by the Book
Some local students are learning the story behind the books.
Behind the Book, based on the Upper West Side, is a nonprofit that brings local authors and illustrators to underserved classrooms throughout the five boroughs. The eight-year-old organization’s goal is motivating kids, Pre-K to 12th grade, to read and write.
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The Summer of Cash
By Mark Peikert
Any discussion of Rosanne Cash these days must include some reference to her lively, busy Twitter page, which details everything from the new shoes she bought to the things she worries about at three in the morning. This being Cash, however, her 3 a.m. fears aren’t the usual insomniac’s. Instead of mortality, she wondered on Twitter “What if there’s a sprinkler & it goes off when I’m sleeping & my red hair color gets on the pillow & someone thinks it’s blood.” Cash saves her dark nights of the soul for her music.
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Favorite Neighborhood Reads
We asked the experts what their favorite Upper East Side reads were. Here was what they had to say.
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Wolitzer Finds Map for Novels in UES
Meg Wolitzer, Upper East Side mom and New York Times bestselling author, decided to draw inspiration from her experiences in the neighborhood when writing her 2008 novel The Ten-Year Nap. The popular book focuses on a group of young moms facing personal, vocational, and familial conflicts.
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Reading Upper East Side
For the sidebars, please go to:
Favorite Neighborhood Reads
Wolitzer Finds Map for Novels in UES
Why the neighborhood continues to inspire authors, and some of the great reads (old and new) that are set just outside your door
By Beth Mellow
Hundreds of dead butterflies fell onto party attendees at the most highly anticipated fête of the year. At the stroke of midnight, in the ballroom of a grand Fifth Avenue penthouse, Chilean butterflies danced underneath luminous spotlights to the delight of the partiers. However, the light proved too strong for the insects and the electricity blew out, resulting in darkness, pandemonium and a rainfall of butterfly carcasses. Guests sustained broken bones and bruises as they rushed for the exits.
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