Monday, August 21, 2023
Mostly Cloudy. High 89 degrees.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events! Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
There will be a free jazz concert in Dante Park (64th and Broadway) on Wednesday, August 23, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Seven-string jazz guitarist Ron Jackson will perform with his acclaimed trio. Under-$5 refreshments available.
News
By Carol Tannenhauser
Controversy followed the release last week of the trailer for “Maestro,” the Netflix biopic about the legendary conductor and composer, Leonard Bernstein, who lived in the Dakota at West 72nd Street. The film will be presented on October 2nd at the New York Film Festival in Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, led by Bernstein from 1958-1969. According to the Associated Press, the trailer revealed that Bradley Cooper, who stars in and directed the film, wears a “prominent” prosthetic nose to portray Bernstein, who was Jewish. “To some, Cooper’s nose in the trailer seemed like the kind of outsized caricature that has been a regular feature of Jewish portrayals throughout film history,” the AP wrote. “The nonprofit group Stop Antisemitism called it ‘sickening.'” Bernstein’s three children released a statement in support of Cooper, saying, “Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.” “Maestro” is scheduled to arrive December 20 on Netflix and will be shown in select theaters starting November 22.
An alleged sexual predator was indicted last Tuesday for attempting to rape a woman in Riverside Park and sexually assaulting two others in June and July, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Jhonatan Cortes-Lopez, 21, was charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse, and assault. He has been remanded to Rikers Island, meaning he cannot post bail to be released at this time. Earlier this month, a suspect in another sexual assault in Riverside Park, Tachiem Noubissi Luc, 39, was indicted on charges including attempted rape, robbery, sexual abuse, and assault. A Manhattan District Attorney spokesperson told WSR that bail was set at $50,000 cash or $100,000 bond and surrender of his passport. He is currently being held on Rikers Island, according to the Department of Correction. WSR covered the attacks here.
“A mother of three who was critically injured when a massive tree fell on her in Central Park six years ago has reached a $5.5 million settlement with the city and companies that cared for the tree,” Gothamist reported. “Anne Monoky was walking through the park with her three young sons on Aug. 15, 2017 when a 75-foot-tall tree suddenly fell on them near Central Park West and West 62nd Street, leaving her ‘completely immobilized,’ according to her attorneys at the time….The kids, who were a month old, 2 and 4 at the time, also suffered multiple injuries, with the 2-year-old sustaining a brain hemorrhage and a concussion.” WSR covered the accident here.
Upper West Sider and founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa was arrested after blocking the road while protesting outside the new 1,000-bed Creedmoor Psychiatric Center migrant tent facility in Queens Village last Wednesday night, according to QNS. Creedmor is run by New York State, which Sliwa was quick to point out. “This is the New York state psychiatric facility for residents of New York, for American citizens who need to be healed,” he said. “Make use of Creedmoor for what it was built to do — to help people with mental health care issues, not house illegal aliens.” Formed by Sliwa and 12 volunteers in New York City in 1979, “the [Guardian Angels] rode the subways to conduct safety patrols,” according to its website. They are still active in over 130 cities.
Artificial Intelligence made its pronouncement about the best neighborhoods in which to live in New York City, according to Breaking Latest News, and guess what’s number one? AI figured out what we all know: “Located along the western edge of Central Park, the Upper West Side is a paradise for culture lovers. It offers renowned museums, cozy cafes, and tree-lined streets, making it a family-friendly oasis in the heart of Manhattan.”
Finally, August has been found! After some organizational difficulties, we have located Mildred Alpern’s poem for August. You may remember that Mildred was working on her “Calendar Project” for the Rag — a poem and photographs for every month — when she died unexpectedly in April at the age of 91. Her son discovered that she had completed the project in advance and sent us the remaining months, but August was missing. We feared it was gone forever when, lo and behold, it resurfaced!
August
By Mildred Alpern
August has some sweltering days
When temperatures run high
But then a sudden thunderclap
Brings raindrops from the sky
They run in rivulets so fierce
In streets, on windshields too
Umbrellas are a common sight
As passersby fly through
The drenching wet cools off the heat
And brings a brief respite
It freshens air and bathes the flowers
With dewdrops sparkly bright
Have a great week!
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I am glad that the two sexual assault suspects are in Rikers and not back out on the streets or in the park. Judges should be able to make such determinations in more kinds of cases, when the accused has a history of violent behavior.
If anything, this shows the problem with the bail system. Both of them are accused of offenses which very reasonably call for remand. But one of them could walk free if he posted a bond. If he’s dangerous enough to lock up, how does posting a bond make it safe for him to be out???
Actors wear wigs and make up and prosthetics all the time to portray characters. So ridiculous. Stop being so sensitive.
Thank you for your comment. There are two issues here. First, people throw around the term “anti-Semitic” far too cavalierly, and clearly don’t know what it means. It is not about an actor wearing a prosthetic – depending on the REASON for the prosthetic. Anti-Semitism implies actual hostility or prejudice against Jews. If Cooper were wearing the prosthetic to make fun of Bernstein, THAT would be anti-Semitic.
The second issue is related to this, and that is that “nuance” has gone the way of the dodo for all too many people. Knowledge of language and history have been dumbed down. So too many people hear about this prosthetic and automatically scream “ANTI-SEMITISM” when it is not even close.
Like Leon below, I am a Jewish man with a rather large proboscis and I am not bothered by this issue in the least. In fact, I wish I were famous enough to be played by an actor in a film, even if they chose to wear a prosthetic to enhance their resemblance to me.
This is not about makeup. He played an actual famous person – slapping on a “Jew nose” was not necessary & it did not make Cooper look more like Bernstein. It made him look like a caricature of Bernstein. Which is antisemitic.
Agreed. Cooper doesn’t have a “button” nose. He could have gotten by with his real nose.
Seems unnecessary, even unkind, particularly in a time of rising antisemitism.
Agreed. As a male Jew with a big nose, I have no problem with what they did.
People spend so much time looking for things to be upset about and offended by. There are so many real problems out there and they were about trivial matters.
It is situations like this that provide fodder for the Republicans who portray us as woke whiners who are completely out of touch. We are making it really easy for them.
I believe somewhere in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals there’s a section that instructs that even if there’s nothing to complain about, make something up so you can be in a never ending state of resistance.
Sounds a lot like the WSR comment pages lol
We are in dire need to address mental health crisis yet we host migrants at our psychiatric centers instead?!!!
The migrant center is in a tent set up in the parking lot. It’s not even in the actual psychiatric center, which has been largely empty for decades.
The point is we could apply the funds towards restoring and using the psychiatric center that our city badly needs, not convert it into yet another migrant shelter. We need to increase spending for our mentally ill, but per Adams we even have to reduce services for our legal residents to accommodate migrants.
So what do we do instead, send the migrants to sleep in the park?
Mind you, these are not illegal immigrants, they are asylum seekers. They are actually immigrating legally because they are crossing the border and immediately requesting asylum. They have been processed by ICE. An actual illegal immigrant crosses the border and avoids detection, the making their way elsewhere continuing to avoid detection. They couldn’t live in these migrant shelters because that would be the opposite of avoiding detection.
Do you love having the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor? What was that saying she ‘said?’
Does Emma Lazarus’ poem promise free housing, food, services to immigrants? Does her poem exempt all other municipalities from that burden, laying it solely on NYC?
If NYC is the only municipality dealing with this, why is DeSantis spending Florida taxpayer money to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard? I still haven’t figured out how this benefits Florida, though.
Yes, but just to be clear that we’re not spending money and space on migrants INSTEAD of people in need of psychiatric help. The psychiatric center was just sitting there being underused. It’s not like we were about to start using it and getting mentally ill people the services they need until the migrant crisis came along. One has nothing to do with the other.
The sheer amount of money spent on this facility for migrants could and should be spent on the actual facility for our mentally I’ll.
Agreed. Does anyone know the status of forcefully remanding people who are mentally ill and pose a danger to themselves and others to mental hospital for care?
This NYT article is from 2022. I don’t remember reading it previously, and I certainly haven’t seen any signs of the mentally ill on the streets/subways being ‘helped.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/nyregion/nyc-mentally-ill-involuntary-custody.html
Love the poem!
Not sure how the city can be held responsible for an act of god (tree falling). Time to post enter at your own risk in the park to decrease liability.
Tree management.
One example would be trimming the limbs of trees where the limbs are about to fall down.
If the tree limb hit your child, I think you might feel differently.
AI neglected to mention that the Upper West Side also offers the WSR.
I applaud Sliwa and others for protesting. The migrant situation is dire indeed, and now we have the Mayor and Hochul playing the blame game with each other.
Does Sliwa have any solutions to propose? I haven’t heard any. The migrants have to go somewhere.
What is his crime exactly?
I, for one, am glad Sliwa was arrested. It is my belief that he is a pot stirrer and has never really done any good in this city. I feel he is only out for self-promotion. In my opinion, he is the real criminal.
Sliwa has ever and always been a PR whore. He never saw a camera he could not jump in front of, or a microphone that he could not make a comment into. He and the GAs may have done some good at one point (even though they themselves got into trouble several times for overzealousness). But Sliwa has become a parody of himself, and will do anything to remain relevant. (Remind you of anyone?)
“ In my opinion, he is the real criminal.”
As opposed to all those imaginary criminals that have been assaulting women and elderly, shoplifting and pushing people in subway?
We have seriously mentally ill roaming the streets who are danger to themselves and others. A lot of them require hospitalization, a good number involuntary institutionalization.
Yet we place migrants with bogus asylum claims in psychiatric facilities FREE OF
CHARGE while claiming we don’t have money for mental facilities!
Look at the bill that our fellow UWS-er Jerry Nadler is sponsoring. He is advocating for meaningless empty measures such as mobile health teams, etc., in order to reduce “unnecessary institutionalization” claiming it is expensive. That is complete lunacy. We don’t have money to help our very sick residents who can’t function without serious psychiatric intervention but we do have endless flow of funds for housing and services for infinite number of migrants!
Don’t forget about the state providing free health care for all migrants for as long as they are in NY.
According to the news, they’re…in a tent city. Not the facility itself. You can’t put psych patients sick enough to be committed into tents.
Why do you assume the asylum claims are bogus? If you hear the stories at intake centers, they do not seem so bogus.
Yes. They don’t care about crime, homelessness, rampant shoplifting etc. They care more about ‘migrants’ than US citizens.
I recently took a driving vacation through less populated areas of NJ, NY and PA. I saw a number of factories and other blue collar employers with big help wanted signs. Some of these communities had some form of public transit.
A number of the migrants are ready, willing and able to work. Move groups of them to places like these – not so many that it overwhelms the towns, but enough that they have a community. If housing is not available, it can be built much more cheaply there than in NYC. One hundred here, 125 there, etc. won’t solve the problem, but it sure will help.
Biden needs to appoint a “migrant czar” to think bigger picture about this and coordinate efforts. Hochul could be helping more. It really should not be this hard.
The solution is secure the border. Otherwise millions of people will arrive in NYC . What you’re suggesting doesn’t solve the problem. How about providing those opportunities to US citizens?
No one’s stopping US citizens from taking those jobs.
Everyone middle class and up in NYC is living on the backs of underpaid migrant labor. If they had to vanish tomorrow, you’d have an aneurysm over how much services would cost you.
As a Jew who takes pride in his nose I applaud the Bernstein children.
Thank you Mildred – May your memory be a blessing –
re: interesting accident story tree falling. original intent was to sue for 200 million but finally settled for 5.5 million which is a mere fraction.
The key words are leaving her ‘completely immobilized,’ according to her attorneys at the time which was 2017.
My hope is that in the 6 intervening years the woman, with rehabilitation, has made a complete recovery. 5 million dollar settlement suggests that she has made a full recovery. Otherwise the settlement would have been a larger amount.
Oh the crying! Always the crying! Bernstein was Jewish. He had a prominent nose. Where does the “outrage” come from? It’s a portrayal. The prosthesis is only to enhance the visual accuracy. My goodness.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I find an “ethnic” nose an endearing and very distinguishing quality.
I don’t much care if Bradley Cooper plays Bernstein at all with or without prosthetics.
What I do care about is a double standard. Other groups complain, and those complaints are given huge amounts of press, if the actor in a role is not in some manner what they believe the actor should be. Too this. Too that. Not actually a member of a community or not satisfied with their bona fides.
But when it comes to Jewish stereotyping the reaction is always the same. What are you complaining for? Why the whining? What’s your problem. That double standard is a manifestation of how taken for granted anti-semitism is in this country and in many places around the world.
Anything less than a level playing field is a rigged game.
This was originally Jake Gyllenhaal’s project. His mother is Jewish so that can’t be disputed, but he looks nothing like Bernstein, so wouldn’t he need prosthetics? And would anyone have objected to that? It never ends.
So you’re saying that because a Jew was once attached to a project, it’s Glatt Kosher in perpetuity?
Read the first line of my previous comment. I don’t care about the prosthetics. What I care about is a man who was raised in a one culture and tradition portraying a member of a wholly different culture and tradition.
This is not an uncommon complaint in today’s society. So I wonder why you are willing to overlook Cooper’s portrayal and if you would feel the same if it were a project about another group with it’s own very distinct cultural heritage?
Again, my point is not about fake noses, it’s about treating groups with the same respect and dignity they deserve.
If Jewish actors couldn’t play non-Jews there’d be a whole lot of unemployed Jewish actors.
So a non-Jew playing a Jewish character?
Really?
I actually saw Bradley Cooper shooting the film in Central Park last year. I noticed that he looked different, but I thought it was all about the eyes, darker, more dramatic. As far as the prosthetic nose ethics are concerned, I’m not going to venture my opinion as I’m not Jewish, not my place to say. All I can say he looked good and I was immensely proud of the fact that Bernstein lived in our neighborhood.
Minor correction: Bernstein led the Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, and was laureate conductor from 1969 to 1990.
Thanks, fixed.
I’m so glad you found the August poem. I hope it cheers her loved ones to see it posted here.
thank you, Mildred Alpert!!! what a wonderful poem, and photo.