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.”

A new reading room offers beanbag seats for the youngest patrons. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

The first floor of the three-story library, with its raised ceilings and giant mural spelling “Imagine” in pale green and yellow block letters, now houses the children’s section. One of the most prominent new features is a reading room with the words “Story Hour” printed on the glass wall, and an area of boldly colored beanbags offers seats for the youngest library patrons.

The latest titles populate the shelves with a brand new collection of books, but the library has also updated its technology.

“We’re going to have 39 public service computers and 15 laptops,” Soriano said.

She said that even though many people have home computers, they still rely on the library to point them toward the resources they need online—where to study for citizenship exams, how to search for jobs—and also to avoid the high cost of home printing.

“There’s something about St. Agnes that is just magical,” said Council Member Gale Brewer, who helped allocate public funding for the

Even though many people have home computers, they still rely on the library to help them find resources and to print. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

$9.5 million renovation. “To have a landmark preserved like this, you think that there’s going to be many more generations using it.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Borough President Scott Stringer also helped fund the project.

The restored library is now fully wheelchair accessible, from the ramp outside to the wide aisles and new elevator. It also features an updated adult literacy center and a 63-seat public program room.

Margaret Willis, manager of the St. Agnes branch, said programs designed to get teens into reading would also continue.

“We are going to start a book discussion with them and resume our gaming with the [Nintendo] Wii; we are going to try to start a Scrabble club,” she said.

Soriano said that the most important part of the library is the sense of community, and that comes from the librarians and the books.

“People still need that piece of paper or that book to hold in their hand, to feel that connection,” she said.

St. Agnes has scheduled a grand opening celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 11, featuring free entertainment and programs for kids and adults.

For more information, call 212-877-4380.

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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.

Principal Danielle Salzberg. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

“Either kids that already demonstrated skills in that area, or kids who want to improve their skills in those areas, those are the kinds of kids we’re looking for,” said incoming principal Danielle Salzberg.

In addition to being evaluated on grades and attendance, students interested in enrolling must take part in an interview, which screens for writing ability and collaborative skills. Part of the interview will include an on-demand writing test and a group task to gauge students’ interest in collaboration.

Brandeis is currently being phased out and replaced with other smaller schools. In addition to McCourt High School, those schools include the
Innovation Diploma Plus High School, a “transfer” high school for students who might not earn their credits elsewhere; the Global Learning Collective, which will focus on an international approach to learning; and the Urban Assembly School for Green Careers, whose mission is to give students the skills they need for both “green jobs” and college.

McCourt High School is aiming to accept 108 students for this September’s freshman class. Each year, a new grade will be added, and the school will eventually serve 432 students by the 2013-2014 school year.

High school-bound students must send in school preferences to the Department of Education by the end of February. The department will match McCourt High School with desired students who are interested in attending. There will be an opportunity for students to submit additional high school preferences in March and April. McCourt High School will be recruiting throughout the spring.

The department is hosting a “New High Schools Information Fair” Saturday, Feb. 6 and Sunday, Feb. 7 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Emigrant Savings Bank Hall, 51 Chambers St.

Feb. 11 there will be an open house for new high schools with 9th grade classes that will be occupying the Brandeis High School campus, including McCourt High School, Urban Assembly School for Green Careers and Global Learning Collaborative. The event begins at 6 p.m. at the Brandeis campus on West 84th Street.

For more information, parents can contact the office of Council Member Gale Brewer at 212-788-6975.

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In Albany, our legislators have become synonymous with dysfunction. Scandals have taken down a governor and comptroller, and a dramatic State Senate coup last summer brought government to a standstill for weeks. At the federal level, Congress has been divided into two gangs, the Dems vs. the GOP. It’s a divisive and corrosive mix that even a once-popular president has been unable to tame. In our great city, apathy, cynicism and a flawed voting system have resulted in primaries where less than 10 percent of the eligible populace votes, and general elections that merely rubber stamp the results of Democratic primaries (with the notable exception of mayoral elections, but that’s a story for another day).

Is this the type of government our Founding Fathers shed blood for? Is this what was intended by our Constitution, a brilliantly crafted document of power sharing and checks and balances?

There are many things that need to be done to improve our democratic system, from reforming archaic voting systems to a comprehensive and equitable campaign finance system. This year, the mayor is likely to convene a charter reform commission to address the livewire topic of term limits, among other things. We’ll comment on those in upcoming editorials, but today we want to encourage the mayor to take one more pass at non-partisan elections, a referendum that lost in the polls in 2003, but today is needed more than ever.

Non-partisan elections would have candidates appear on the ballot without party titles. If no candidate captured a majority vote in an election, a run-off with the top two or three finishers would occur, ensuring that whoever won that race would more accurately reflect voters’ preferences. This system is already in place in several municipalities across the United States, including Los Angeles, Houston and Boston. Here are a number of reasons why non-partisan elections would improve our system:

• All registered voters—including Independents and other third-party members—would be enfranchised in every election, significantly expanding the electorate.

• Candidates would no longer be voted into office by winning less than 40 percent of the vote in a Democratic primary, and then cruising to an easy victory in the general election.

• By eliminating party primaries, non-partisan elections would create a more diverse public debate.

• Some people avoid running for office because they feel they could not win a Democratic primary (tantamount to winning office in New York City); non-
partisan elections would lead to a larger, more diverse field of candidates.

• By removing party labels from the ballot, candidates who hope to be competitive would no longer feel forced to register in the Democratic Party.

• Since incumbents almost always win re-election when they’re not term limited, non-partisan elections would force incumbents to broaden their appeal and encourage rivals to throw their hat in the ring.

• Non-partisan elections would probably entail a bigger expense when it comes to publicly financed campaigns, but the amount is nominal in the context of the city’s budget, and the end result of more competitive elections justifies this investment of public funds. Campaign finance law could also be written to ensure that only those candidates with a realistic chance of winning would be eligible to receive public funds.

Of course, for non-partisan elections to function properly, the state’s petitioning laws would have to be altered. We’d urge the mayor to work closely with the legislature and governor to ensure that any unforeseen—and undesired—consequences are avoided when making these changes. In the end, we’d like to see some scenario where any registered voter can sign any petition, regardless of party affiliation.

We strongly encourage the mayor and the upcoming charter revision commission to come up with a comprehensive plan for non-partisan elections, and to put the issue on the November 2010 ballot. The time is right. This will help reform our broken electoral system.

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I was in love. With everything here.

I remember telling my grandmother how I loved studying each different ethnic face on subways. My ardor was undiminished even when she worried from San Diego that I should move to a safer place.

These days, young people are still smitten with our city. But it’s almost impossible for recent college graduates to find gainful employment—even when they’re our best and brightest. Bottom line: They lack experience.

“Internships” (unpaid positions) are the new entry-level jobs. These kids are a frighteningly large segment of unemployed Americans.

How can we make room for this generation of talented people who are in love with the city? This is the second of two columns describing two amazing 2009 college graduates.

Amari Hammonds, the subject of this column, just left Manhattan—and me—and trust me, I’ve never had a better, more lovable part-time assistant.

Four years ago, she’d decided to attend Columbia on a visit from St. Louis because she too fell in love with Manhattan. She loved Columbia’s campus embedded in the great city filled with noises and interesting people in the streets and not hiding in cars. Besides working for me, until recently she sold tarts part-time at Balthazar Bakery.

Despite her summa cum laude graduation and her early Phi Beta Kappa, Amari couldn’t get a toehold here. Her resume is surreally impressive, but mostly internships. At New Line Cinema, she adroitly handled press screenings of new films and rubbed shoulders with cast members of movies such as Hairspray. For ID PR (despite her confidentiality agreement), we can reveal that without pay she effortlessly coordinated press screenings for Slumdog Millionaire. But those glamorous jobs didn’t put her on a career path that led to an actual salary at a film or PR company.

Fortunately for her, three weeks ago Amari learned that she’d been selected for a distinguished position at the White House. She will intern there for four months.

Background on Amari: She’s African American and very wholesome in a Midwestern and yet sophisticated way. She attended Columbia University on a $50,000 grant from an ABC TV show called The Scholar (sort of like The Apprentice) and a hefty Columbia scholarship. Her out-of-pocket expenses were only plane tickets home to St. Louis, snacks and some books. She’s clearly the best of the best—totally competent—and seems to me to be spontaneously and thoroughly good-hearted. She knows just about everything about computers, including how to sell my stuff on eBay. Unlike me, what she doesn’t know she isn’t afraid to noodle around with until she finds it.

Alas, I’m losing Amari and so is Manhattan because she plans to live with her aunt in Washington and make a career in that city, not here. (She won’t be paid for the White House internship, but afterward I know Washington employers will get the point about how valuable her job skills are.) She’ll stay in Washington because her aunt works for the government and has lots of contacts—and Amari sees it’s time to try a new job market.

Says Amari in her upbeat way, “I get it and it’s okay. I’ll find my way in Washington even though the market’s saturated with people my age trying to find jobs.” 

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Susan Braudy is the author and journalist whose last book, Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, was nominated for a Pulitzer by publisher Alfred Knopf.

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In 1994, I was one of five female producers at Live with Regis & Kathie Lee. Regis would often come into our meeting and request a specific guest, always a sports star. I consistently volunteered to take the assignment because the other female producers had no idea who he was talking about. Fortunately, I had a secret source at my disposal: my precocious 7-year-old son, Brett, who knew everything about sports. I immediately dialed my son’s grade school and got him out of class and on the line.

“Brett, Regis wants me to book Jerry Rice. Who do I call to get him and why is he important?” I asked.

My son irreverently referred to me as “Rosie” rather than “mom” when he asked if I was living under a rock. “You didn’t watch the Super Bowl this weekend? Jerry Rice helped win the game for the San Francisco 49ers with 10 catches and three touchdowns. He’s a great wide receiver,” Brett said.

Rice was booked for the following Monday, and Regis told me his vision for the segment: sit-down interview followed by a football pass between Reege and Rice on Columbus Avenue. No problem.

On the day of Rice’s arrival, I went to the ABC guard and said, “I’m going to need you and a couple of other large guards to hold back the crowds when Regis and Rice come out for a football pass.” He looked at me with attitude as he proclaimed, “We are not authorized to go outside of this building.”

There wasn’t another staff person who was free to assist, so I sought out the largest cue cards I could find to use for barriers.

Rice was handsome, upbeat, well-
spoken and engaging—a producer’s dream. As the tête-à-tête was ending, I ran outside with my giant cue cards and started shouting at the crowds to move back. Regis threw the football. Rice ran to the opposite side of the street. All of a sudden, a giant construction dude jumped in front of my cue cards and knocked the football out of Rice’s hands. All I could think about was how upset my beloved Regis was going to be. I dropped the cue cards and started pummeling the guy as I screamed obscenities at him.

When I re-entered the studio, the audience started to applaud and cheer: My maniacal behavior had been caught on camera. My incredulous son, who had never heard me raise my voice in anger or even use a curse word, meekly asked, “Was that really you out there?”

Someone at the news desk apparently thought the incident was humorous and WABC aired the clip during the evening news sports report. Then Regis, who never missed an opportunity to milk a segment gone awry, decided to re-air that same clip—in slow motion—the next morning.

I’m sure there isn’t a soul today who remembers this incident, except for my now-grown son. Every year when the Super Bowl comes around, Brett loves to come back home to watch the game. He never fails to toss a football my way while quipping, “Here’s to a Jerry Rice catch.”

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Rosemary Kalikow was a talk show producer at ABC and Court TV Network for 25 years. She is currently working as a freelance writer in New York.

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Living safely and peaceably depends more on responsible drinking than on fat in the diet or sitting too much. And more than smoking, because alcohol can so adversely, dangerously—even criminally—affect behavior. The mayor needs his consciousness raised about this, too. And Malachy McCourt should curse this darkness he knows so much about.

Light candles by stressing the importance of learning interpersonal communication skills, including the conflict resolution kind, from toddler age on out. Share the talk, and let it be between age groups, where it’s almost non-existent—even in families and in faith, civic and political groups. Dr. King might agree that age segregation is now the most destructive apartheid.

Perhaps providentially, I just now turned on NY1 to learn the awful news of a 71-year-old man who was murdered during the robbery of a jewelry store at East 76th Street and Madison Avenue, where he worked. In a truly just and non-violent society, any such heinous taking of an innocent life would get front page, prime time coverage, and be strongly assailed by editors and columnists. But today, these terrible crimes often don’t even make the back pages, especially in the New York Times. And the recent Daily News short piece, “Older New Yorkers Are Healthier,” noted briefly that the leading cause of death among 15- to 34-year-olds is homicide. But where is the protest and concern that members of this age group are also the foremost perpetrators? Incidentally, this column’s original logo was “For a Gentle City,” because times were becoming anything but.

And surely in our society where we (especially, but not only, women) are increasingly and inordinately judged by the tone of our skin and our physical makeup, Dr. King would find such flawed values something to overcome. He might well urge the women’s movement to revive its once adamant objection to women being judged by their outward appearance, especially woman as sex object. Yes, Virginia, those activists really held such now very un-cool views.

There are all kinds of injustices, and some co-op and condo dwellers feel nobody is looking out for their housing conditions. The East Side Housing Coalition has a new program just for them which aims to provide vertical homeowners “with a unified voice to address their concerns… with leadership and advocacy training to build skills that protect their rights” within their own buildings and in government policies. For information, call 212-734-8995 or contact e.sidehousingcoalition@gmail.com.

And here’s to all city dwellers adopting Marge Ternes’ safe walking program, in which corner apartment houses share the duty of clearing ice and snow from their respective crosswalk entrances. While Ternes is renowned for her tireless and inspired direction of the Park Avenue Mall plantings, including the Christmas time memorial trees, may her safe walking Rx become the rule for corner buildings citywide. And get those nearby buildings shoveling out the often-impassable bus stops!

dewingbetter@aol.com

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Chris A. Randolph
Barak Realty, East Side Office

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

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Larry Penner
Great Neck, Long Island

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

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That fall, he combined lessons from his travels with a budding interest in photography to co-found the Nuru Project, a non-profit that holds one-night photography exhibitions and auctions to benefit various organizations in developing countries. The project has previously held fundraisers benefiting the United Nations World Food Program and the non-profit Acumen Fund.

The Nuru Project’s latest event is “Stand with Haiti,” a Feb. 4 photo auction and fundraiser to benefit the organization Partners in Health, which has longstanding operations in Haiti.

The ruins of the presidential palace five days after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti Jan. 12. lvaro Ybarra Zavala/Reportage by Getty Images

“Partners in Health has been at work in Haiti for over 20 years,” said Bloch, 27. “Obviously, they’re doing great work now after the earthquake, but more importantly, they’ll be there long after.”

The auction will feature images of Haiti from photographers who shoot for the New York Times, National Geographic and other prominent publications.

“It’s always a tricky balance,” Bloch said. “On the one hand, you want to raise awareness and have powerful images, but on the other hand, you want to showcase the people and beauty of a particular place.”

For more information, visit nuruproject.org.

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Feb. 4, Gallery 25CPW, 25 Central Park West (at 63rd St.), nuruproject.org; 7 p.m., $20 to $100 suggested donation.

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James Reece (the elegantly drawn Jonathan Rhys Meyers, using a perfect American accent) is a Yank brainiac stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Paris and living

She’s the meat in the Travolta/Meyers sandwich.

with a fashion-forward French girlfriend. Secretly working for the CIA, Reece longs to move up the ranks until partnered with wild-man agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta), who shows him the violent, dangerous side of espionage.

Giddily succinct in ways literal-minded folk will not appreciate, From Paris With Love is an object lesson in the realities of what the Obama administration once euphemized as “man-made disaster.” The very words “war on terror” make Reece recoil, and the film virtually shudders with disorienting, overlapping dissolves: Reece gets awakened to the other side of diplomacy. If you’ve learned how to read action films (as in the way Westerns allegorize our moral and political history), the movie gains an enlightened purpose.

From Paris With Love engages both your social and visceral senses. Its title riffs on the second James Bond film From Russia With Love (1963), which romanticized Cold War tensions, but it also announces producer Luc Besson’s solidarity with the United States’ war on terror. Besson’s timely, sexy, funny action movies never distract from the contemporary view of moral and social complexities. From The Fifth Element to District B-13 and Angel-A, Besson’s Euro-trash sensibility mixes Continental high- and low-life and ethnic diversity to demonstrate first-hand (and in the imagination) how the contemporary West wrestles with post-Colonial problems of immigration, global crime and terrorism. Not lofty, Besson knows the threat—and the ideals—that are involved. His action aesthetic parallels the humanist art-studies of the Dardennes Brothers. Besson’s just got a faster engine.

John Travolta’s Charlie Wax performance is key to this film’s genre revision. Burly, bald and goateed, he plays the ugly (corrupted) American who saves Reece’s ass—and saves the day for all surrender monkeys. Travolta deliberately burlesques his Pulp Fiction role the way Brando parodied The Godfather in The Freshman. This jest reclaims the political significance that Quentin Tarantino has
extracted from genre movies. (Reece’s answer to Wax’s Star Trek quiz anticipates his ultimate character revelation.) The brainless vengeance that made Inglourious Basterds an appalling historical fantasy is corrected with Besson’s principled view of contemporary
attacks on freedom.

Wax’s vulgarity clarifies how political operatives act on their own self-interests. This point is less complicated than in the thanklessly received CIA melodrama The Good Shepherd. That’s where director Pierre Morel’s efficiency matters. A game-changing dinner revelation rivals the astonishing dinner scene in Morel’s Taken. It takes From Paris With Love closer to the heart of war-on-terror complications—the difficulty of personal trust and global idealism. It’s all allegorized in action motifs from six-on-one martial arts combat (“I just gave you a Shaw Brothers Kung Fu Show,” Wax tells Reece) to a bazooka-on-the-highway chase that outclasses Q.T.’s piddling Death Proof.

Besson and Morel raise the stakes above Q.T.’s yahoo quotient. From Paris With Love showcases the most disturbing blood-
splattered walls since Spielberg’s Munich. Besson, Morel and screenwriter Adi Hasak accept that responsibility, having Reece catch his own blood-smeared reflection in a mirror. It’s also a moment of audience reckoning. The wake-up shot. There’s a lot of character sketching, as when Reece briefly describes his New York projects background or Wax regrets his own wayward youth then laments France’s own housing projects: “In Paris, I thought the shitholes would be nicer.” Yet, their survival rampages through the city of lights accumulate undeniable details of conflicted men caught up in modern, undeclared urban warfare. “What if it never ends? What if we can’t beat these guys?” Reece says in a panic. Wax responds with the toughest macho/moral conundrum since Peckinpah.

Action movies are not made in a vacuum. Besson lets Hasak inflect this thriller with genuine ethical suspense—and that’s also how it should be read. Reece’s movement from politesse to self-interest disproves the old maxim “the personal is political.” Since 9/11, the new reality is that geopolitics is violence. Reece and Wax bond over chess and guns, strategy and violence—a more informed quintessence of war than The Hurt Locker.

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From Paris with Love
Directed by Pierre Morel
Runtime: 92 min.

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