Current News

Million-Dollar Makeover

After two years, the St. Agnes branch prepares to welcome the public

By Megan Finnegan

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

Light has come to the St. Agnes Library. After a two-year renovation, during which the branch was shuttered, St. Agnes is slated to reopen its doors Feb. 11 and welcome the neighborhood into a bright, airy new space.

Caryl Soriano, the network manager for 19 New York Public Library branches, including St. Agnes, said she is thrilled with the revamped building, at 444 Amsterdam Ave. between West 81st and 82nd streets. The pre-renovation building, which was originally funded by donations to the city from Andrew Carnegie, “was much darker, less open,” she said. Now, “the lighting is phenomenal.” [Read more]

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Feature

Riverside South: Shift from Commercial to Residential Space

By Rochana Rapkins

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

A proposal by Riverside South developer Extell Development Co. to increase square footage on the south end of the site came under fire during a Jan. 13 Community Board 7 meeting.

According to a statement released by the board’s Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, the proposed changes to the original 1992 agreement are substantive. In the original agreement, the area between West 59th and 61st streets was limited to 2.4 million square feet of developed space and 570 residential units; the developer is now proposing to increase the square footage to 3.1 million square feet and add almost five times the number of apartments: 2,750 units. [Read more]

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Politics

BREWER MOVES UP IN COUNCIL

By Dan Rivoli

January 28, 2010 · Comments 

Council Member Gale Brewer got a bump in status in this year’s Council class.

Brewer now chairs the Council’s Government Operations Committee, perhaps best known for holding two marathon meetings on the term limits extension in 2008. The committee heard 20 hours of testimony on the controversial matter over two days. [Read more]

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Education

McCourt High School Recruiting Students

By Dan Rivoli

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

With Frank McCourt High School slated to open in September, administrators are starting the recruiting and application phase to assemble the first class of freshmen.

The high school, housed on the Brandeis High School campus at 145 W. 84th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, will be open to students in all five boroughs. Named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author who spent 29 years as a teacher, the new school will focus on communications and civic engagement. [Read more]

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Film

Diplomatic Sense

Luc Besson and Pierre Morel revise the action movie genre and trump Tarantino in the process

By Armond White

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

Do you know how to read action movies or do you simply obey advertising hype? From Paris With Love delivers the minimal spills and thrills to those who like action movies for escapist release, yet beyond its hype, it is also politically aware filmmaking—without the sanctimoniousness of Syriana, United 93 or The Messenger. Those films pretend to address the post-9/11 crisis while From Paris With Love gets all up in the mess, making it personal and exciting. [Read more]

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Dining

Barrio Chic

By Nancy J. Brandwein

February 4, 2010 · Comments 

When I walked past El Museo del Barrio, I was wowed by the formerly gritty museum’s new bold yellow Plexiglass façade and, once inside, by the bright, airy modern café, with its huge arched windows overlooking the Central Park Conservatory garden. Part of El Museo’s $35 million renovation, El Café is
catered by Great Performances, the same company that brings you warming root vegetable soup at Wave Hill or artisanal cheese boards at BAM. [Read more]

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Sports

Ride ’Em, Cowboy

The Garden gets a little bit country at bull riding invitational

By Adam Bloch

January 28, 2010 · Comments 

Any time bulls come to Madison Square Garden, you usually know what to expect: A walking advertisement for big-and-tall clothing purveyors, some intense above-the-rim athleticism, a healthy dose of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah and, if the past decade is any indication, a loss for the Knicks.

The bulls came to the Garden the weekend of January 8, but they had nothing to do with basketball. And instead of seven-footers, the half-filled arenas got to see 1,600-pounders. The athletes weren’t the Chicago Bulls but rather the bucking bulls of Professional Bull Riding’s fifth annual New York Invitational. [Read more]

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Blog

Voices From Haiti

January 22, 2010 · Comments 

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]

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