Today is Labor Day, a federal holiday honoring American workers’ contributions to the nation’s strength and prosperity. Though it is now celebrated on the first Monday of September, the original Labor Day celebration, organized by trade unions and held right here in New York City, was marked on September 5, 1882 — a Tuesday.
The forecast calls for a mostly sunny and pleasant week, with highs in the upper 70s. No rain in the forecast till Friday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
City Councilmember Gale Brewer is soliciting input on a proposed design for the $6.89 million renovation of River Run Playground in Riverside Park at West 83rd Street. Email comments to district6@council.nyc.gov, with the subject line: River Run. (Note: The proposal does not include renovating the playground bathroom, which will require separate funding.) Plans for the redesign can be found — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
For more than 75 years, artist Anna Walinska lived, painted and taught on the Upper West Side, producing large Modernist canvases and collages that were exhibited at major galleries and museums, including the Met, The Jewish Museum, and MOMA.
But after her death in 1997, she and her paintings gradually faded from popular memory — until now.
Thanks in part to the efforts of her niece, Rosina Rubin, also a lifelong UWSer, there has been a resurgence of interest in Walinska and her work, which is included in several current exhibitions, and was the subject of a recent profile in The Forward.
“It’s very heartwarming to me that now collectors are really starting to express interest in the work,” said Rubin, who oversees her aunt’s estate and has worked to place paintings in various museums.
Walinska was born in London but emigrated to Brooklyn with her parents when she was 3; the family moved to the Upper West Side around 1920. Even as a child, she knew she wanted to paint, and signed up for classes at the Art Students League when she was 12. (“She was very upset because they wouldn’t let her into life drawing class [saying] she was too young” to draw nudes, Rubin told the Rag, laughing.)
Although Walinska’s father wanted her to enroll in college,she instead talked his boss into giving her $2,000 so she could study in Paris with famed Cubist Andre Lhote; in exchange, she promised him a “great” painting upon her return, Rubin said. (She did bring back one of her paintings for him, but her father liked it so much he refused to give it to his boss, and instead raised the money to pay him back.)
Initially Walinska worked in The Master Building at 310 Riverside Drive, which at the time housed the Riverside Museum on the ground floor and studios for artists on the second; later, she worked out of her apartment at West 103rd Street and West End Avenue. Early subjects included colorful cityscapes and self-portraits, but later, she turned her attention to the Holocaust, producing the works for which she is best known: a series of about 100 somber-toned, mostly abstract paintings “about the victims and the survivors … and the earth bearing witness,” Rubin said. When Walinska first exhibited them, at St. John the Divine in 1979, she was criticized because she “had not been interred in the camps and so [critics asked] why was this an appropriate subject matter for her and her work,” Rubin said. “But if we are to remember what happened and to think deeply about what it means, then of course artists are going to be expressing the way that they feel.”
Currently, one of the paintings from that 1979 exhibition is back on display at the cathedral as part of an exhibition about women artists – “a beautiful bookend,” said Rubin.
In addition to the painting at the cathedral, several others are on display at the Hudson River Museum; Walinska’s works also are in the collection The Jewish Museum, the Art Students League, the Asia Society and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, as well as numerous museums nationally.
Read the full story — HERE. See examples of Walinska’s artwork — HERE, HERE, and HERE.
As we recently reported, the Furever Tree in Central Park is gone, the victim of what park officials described as “a combination of environmental stress and wear on the landscape.”
But the more than 3,300 mementos left near or hung on the branches of the 18-foot-tall tree over the years by people grieving their late pets have survived. Now, the tree’s unofficial keeper, Marianne Larsen, is making it her mission to return them to their rightful owners.
For years, Larsen has been collecting the mementos each January, cataloguing them and storing them in the basement of her apartment building. “A lot don’t have names on them but I’ve written down descriptions, you know… yellow lab with red bow in front of tree,” Larsen said in a story originally aired on WABC.
She said that many people made their pilgrimages to the tree during the holiday season, and since some may not yet know the tree has been cut down, she plans to stop by the site where it once stood as the holiday season approaches. She’ll bring a list in hopes of connecting items and owners. In the meantime, anyone who left a keepsake at the “Furever Tree” also can contact her at Mglarsen55@gmail.com.
Read/watch the full story — HERE.
Last week, we wrote about rats invading the area by the Broadway Malls storage building at West 96th Street. This week, rats are back in the spotlight — this time in Central Park, where the New York Post reports that they have become so brazen that they steal snacks out of toddlers’ strollers and romp among children near the jungle gym.
Parents who frequent the Tarr-Coyne Tots Playground at West 67th Street told the Post they had even heard of people finding rats still in their strollers as they were leaving the park.
“Every single day that I go to play with my son, there will be one, two, three [rats], scurrying around and even jumping up in an area where our kids are eating their snacks,” Amy Meyers, the UWS mother of a 3-year-old, told the Post. “They have no shame.”
Mayor Eric Adams has said fighting rats is a priority for his administration, and the city is pouring resources into “rat mitigation zones” in Harlem, the East Village and Chinatown, and parts of Grand Concourse in the Bronx and Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick in Brooklyn. But the Tarr-Coyne playground is nowhere near those areas, and parents say the city doesn’t seem to care.
“This being a kid-friendly zone, you’d think that would be a high priority to make sure they’re not in harm’s way,” a 37-year-old dad of two said. “But it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything about it.”
Read the full story — HERE.
Finally, in other Central Park news, a 27-year-old man was arrested and charged with punching and biting two passersby in separate early-morning attacks in last week.
David Luciano, whom police say they believe to be homeless, faces two counts each of assault and criminal obstruction of breathing, and one charge of petty larceny. He was taken to an area hospital for a psychiatric evaluation following his arrest.
The first attack occurred at about 1:20 a.m. last Monday near West Drive and West 62nd Street, when Luciano allegedly punched, kicked and choked an 18-year-old.
Shortly afterward, police said they were called to West 93rd Street and West Drive, where a 37-year-old man told them he had been bitten on the ear; a passerby who had tried to intervene in the attack had his bicycle stolen.
The attacks were apparently random, and the victims, who were not identified, did not know each other or their attacker. Both men were taken to Mount Sinai Morningside in stable condition.
Read the full story — HERE.
ICYMI
Here are a few stories from last week’s Rag that we think are worth a look if you missed them — or a second look if you saw them. (Note that our comments stay open for six days after publication, so you may not be able to comment on all of them.)
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Snacks = Rats
The technology exists to make rats infertile. Why isn’t the city buying it? Private citizens are using rat poison, which is illegal and causes an agonizing death in the rodents who are as smart as dogs. It’s also killing birds like the hawks and owls.
It seems like a humane solution to a problem.
And can’t we stop the pigeon feeders??? I recently spotted an older woman with a shopping cart filled with what looked like bird food, tossing it out with a huge scoop. She and others are roaming our neighborhoods, filling them with food, and both the pigeons and the rats are having a population boom. On top of that, my street corner now looks like the inside of a chicken coop. It’s disgusting and unhealthy and someone needs to stop these folks.
I saw something similar this weekend – an older woman with a shopping cart throw crumbs to a huge flock of pigeons. I debated saying something. These seemingly sweet, innocent old ladies are doing a lot of harm. I’m tempted to go to one of these locations with a dustbuster to scare away the animals and get rid of the food.
Yes!! Feeding pigeons only begets more pigeons begets more feedings begets rats. Common sense. Stop feeding pigeons!! There needs to be a law.
I know rats are very smart, but I’m wondering could water pistols be used to – at least – make them disperse (maybe tinged with jalapeno)? The older rats seem to have no fear of humans. If only we have more predatory birds in Central Park.
Talk to the folks who are putting down rat poison, which eventually kills the predatory birds.
Good
I think there would be fewer rats in the parks if people would take their trash home. That could be achieved if there were no trash receptacles in the park. Trash containers are an eyesore and even when they are not overflowing attract vermin. There is no good reason for people to create so much trash when we could carry food and drinks in reusable containers, take them home and wash them the way we did before the disposable culture was created.
It’s a good idea but I strongly doubt people are going to take home or ealk around with their trash. Perhaps Adams should consider those new trash recepacles but smaller and practical for parks.
I think a lot of people will just leave their trash on the ground if there are no trash cans.
me too. i think people would rather leave their trash behind—knowing that the rats will eat it—than take it home. the funny thing is, they then whine about the rats. perhaps whining is more enjoyable than carting their own trash.
it’s a bit like the gun problem—people who don’t have or want guns feel its okay for others to have them, and then whine about shootings, stray bullets and what have you.
it’s called the ‘American ehtos’, widely understood abroad, but not even recognized here.
1. Will they ever make the Dino playground useable again before renovating a playground that is fully functional. If you live above 96th street, you are treated like a second class citizen and calls to Abreu are not responded to.
2. Why do we continue to allow the mentally ill to roam or streets causing harm to citizens? Apparently decades later nothing was learned from Larry Hogue.
1. I agree. Four year ago, it rained, and the park has been partially closed ever since.
2. I agree. I think the rights of the mentally ill to refuse help (or maybe the bad conditions of the institutions) needs review.
He’s too busy focusing on turning every single residential block into a dumpster alleyway, LITERALLY. If he gets his way every block in the city will be covered in dumpsters in our streets.
Good point. It is sad what has happened to Dinosaur playground. Is there any explanation for why it is being ignored? I think there were some sink holes so it might be a bigger issue?
Regarding River Run, I have spent countless hours of my life there and had many wonderful memories. My kids have largely aged out. It could use a refresh, but I’m not sure if this is the best use of limited resources. I would like to request that they try to keep the “river” at least somewhat intact. Kids love playing in it and it was a fun way to teach them a bit of NY State geography.
Also, I am curious to know how the River Run project will be completed. Will the whole playground be taken out of commission? If so, for how long? Or will they be able to keep parts of it operational?
While acknowledging the sheer disgustingness of the rat situation, the caption for the picture of the rats in the park actually made me smile. “Rats frolic near benches…” There’s something about rats frolicking that adds a bit of lighthearted, storybook humor to the otherwise vile encounters with these critters.
This is exceptionally kind work by Marianne Larsen.
In defense of the Rats , some of these strollers must have some pretty amazing snacks.
Defending rats?
Well, at least you are consistent:)
The mayor and politicians need to do something about all the rats and homeless on the Upper UWS.
Am I reading the plans wrong or will the renovated River Run playground no longer have a river running through?
Thanks for the info about Anna Walinska! I was interested to see that she had a studio for a time in the Master Building, which is an amazing Art Deco structure on Riverside Drive which hosted studios and exhibitions of a number of well-known Modernist and Post-War artists. It was built to house Nicholas & Helena Roerich’s art academy…there is now a museum devoted to N. Roerich’s work on 107th Street as well.
It’s sad to see that New York City can figure out a way to waste $7 million making an incredibly special playground demonstrably worse in every single way. It removes the RIVER from the river run playground. That is the heart and namesake of the playground that all children love. It reduces the number of swings by three which will mean more unhappy children and longer wait times. It removes the incredibly popular monkey bars and seesaws as well as the really fun climbing structure. How was it not a prerequisite to keep the river in River run in the first place? I hope they just scrap the entire project and give the money to a different playground that needs to help much more. Maybe save 100,000 or so for some minor upgrades and maintenance. This is just ridiculous.
it seems to me that $6.89 million sounds like a lot money to renovate River Run Playground and do nothing with the bathrooms