Museum of American Finance

Opens on Wall Street

The Museum of American Finance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, reopened to the public in its new home at 48 Wall Street.

Located in the historic former headquarters of the Bank of New York, the Museum occupies 30,000 square feet of space and features a majestic banking hall, state-of-the-art financial education center, auditorium, library and research facility.

Formerly located in modest space at 26 Broadway, the Museum has a 20-year lease on its much larger home on Wall Street. It has renovated and restored the landmarked space, as well as creating engaging and interactive permanent exhibitions on the subjects of the financial markets, money, banking, entrepreneurship and Alexander Hamilton. The Museum’s new space also includes galleries for changing exhibits and a theater.

All much needed in this current economic climate.

According to President/CEO Lee Kjelleren, the move to 48 Wall Street enables the Museum to expand its reach significantly, giving New Yorkers, as well as national and international visitors, an increased awareness to make more effective financial decisions.

“As the only public and independent museum of finance, we are proud to be a guardian of America’s collective financial memory, while also serving as an interpreter of current financial issues,” Kjelleren said. “We look forward to taking our place among the major destinations on Wall Street.”

Located one block east of the New York Stock Exchange, the Museum will be the Exchange’s de facto visitors center.

Jersey Boys
at August Wilson Theatre

starring

John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli : A relative unknown before this role, Young makes his Tony-winning Broadway debut with Jersey Boys.

Christian Hoff as Tommy DeVito: Before Jersey Boys, Hoff was mostly known for his work in another musical directed by Des McAnuff: The Who's Tommy.

Daniel Reichard as Bob Gaudio: Though this is his Broadway debut, Reichard is known in the theater world for his roles in off-Broadway's Forbidden Broadway and The Thing About Men.

J. Robert Spencer as Nick Massi: A hard-working actor and comedian, Jersey Boys gives Spencer his first starring role on Broadway.

It follow the rags-to-rock-to-riches tale of four blue-collar kids working their way from the streets of Newark to the heights of stardom. Featuring such hits as "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Can Take My Eyes Off You, "Oh, What a Night" and more.

A cannot get a ticket for love or money either plan ahead or take a trip to the London opening in 2008.

Where?
August Wilson Theatre
245 West 52nd Street

When?
Tuesday - 7PM
Wednesday-Saturday - 8PM
Wednesday & Saturday - 2PM
Sunday - 3PM

How Long?
2 hours and 30 minutes, one intermission

September 23, 2007

Tropfest@Tribeca, which was seen at the 2006 TFF, is moving to a freestanding shorts film festival modeled on the original Tropfest from Australia.  The winning film, which must include the concept of “Slice” in the 7 minute or under film will take away the Target Filmmaker award of US$10, 000 plus two round trip airline tickets to Australia.

Tropfest@Tribeca, created by Tribeca Enterprises and John Polson, founder of Tropfest – the world’s largest short film festival – announced today that 16 finalists will be chosen to compete for the Target Filmmaker Award of an unrestricted cash prize of $10,000 and two round trip tickets on to Australia, home of the original Tropfest, from Qantas Airways and Tourism Australia.

Tropfest@Tribeca on Sunday, September 23, 2007 will premiere selected films at a free public outdoor festival, held at the World Financial Center Plaza, alongside the Hudson River. The films will be judged onsite by a jury of well-known actors and filmmakers to be announced at a later date.

In its inaugural year, Tropfest@Tribeca 2006 was hosted by The Daily Show’s Ed Helms along with seven judges: Famke Janssen, Naomi Watts, Matt Dillon, Caroline Baron, Charles Randolph, Anthony LaPaglia, and Darren Aronofsky. The winner received a cash award of $2,500 and editing software.

Tropfest@Tribeca, as well as Tropfest, is a distinct festival which each year challenges filmmakers to incorporate a new Tropfest Signature Item (TSI) into their submissions. Every year the item changes; this year when Target presents Tropfest@Tribeca the Signature Item will be “SLICE.” In addition to the inclusion of the TSI, films must be seven minutes or under in running time and be making their first public screening. With infinite interpretations, creativity is limitless.

Tropfest@Tribeca was created in the spirit of the original Australian Tropfest to recognize the critical role that short films play in the art of filmmaking and to offer a platform for emerging filmmakers to create and showcase their films to diverse audiences. Last year’s winner of the first Tropfest@Tribeca, Matthew Bonifacio, went on to premiere his first feature length film, Amexicano, at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Paul Sparks & Heather Goldenhersh in Essential Self-Defense

Playwrights Horizons will host an Off-Broadway Sidewalk Sale on August 4 in the theater's lobby on 42nd Street, joining forces with New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage Theatre and Signature Theatre Company to sell authentic memorabilia and merchandise from past shows.

This one-day sale gives theater fans the opportunity to purchase everything from autographed posters and scripts to costume pieces worn in past shows to opening night gifts, CDs, DVDs and more.

Items for sale include a dress worn by Kristine Nielsen in Crazy Mary, a wolfman mask and self-defense suit worn by Paul Sparks in Essential Self-Defense, an industrial Singer sewing machine and T-shirts from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Little Dog Laughed and A Soldier's Play.

Payment for all items is by cash only, and refreshments will be served.

Plan for a very New York experince!

Tribeca Drive-In Short Film Series at Top of the Rock

The Series will be open to visitors to Top of the Rock. 

During the four-day event - June 19 –22 you will be abel to see the following:

For All the Marbles - directed by Kris Booth, written by Brian Hartigan Heart of Whistler - directed by Ken Hegan, written by John Meadows and Hegan Piece by Piece - directed by Sachi Schuricht Sand Dancer - directed by Valerie Reid

Additionally, the three top selections from the Nintendo Short Cuts Showcase - short films containing a Nintendo® theme - were created by aspiring filmmakers and chosen as winners in contest by a panel of judges. Both the Tribeca Drive-In Short Film Series and the Nintendo Short Cuts Showcase will be presented in a continuous loop at the famous Weather Room at Top of the Rock during the four-day event from 8:30AM - midnight.

Ticket prices for Top of the Rock are $17.50 for adults, $16.00 for seniors and $11.25 for children six to 11 years old.

The Top of the Rock Series is partof the Tribeca Drive-In at Rockefeller Center - a unique outdoor film series, which brings summer drive-in movies to Rockefeller Center from June 19 – 22.

The outdoor screenings, sponsored by In Style, and Dodge, return to midtown Manhattan for its fourth year, partnering for the first time with Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival, to program the film series. This year's series will premiere three of the films to New York audiences and one Tribeca Film Festival ’07 crowd pleaser.

The free four night public event, hosted by Tishman Speyer, will feature an independent film screening each evening on a massive 30’ X 50’ screen erected in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Dodge Cars will line the Channel Gardens off 5th Avenue, and select visitors will be able to sit in the new model cars as they enjoy the films. The feature films are:

Tuesday, June 19th - Watching the Detectives directed and written by Paul Soter and preceded by the short film, Super Powers directed by J. Anderson Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker, which recently won the Tribeca Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short.

Wednesday, June 20th - Arctic Tale an epic adventure directed by Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson. Thursday, June 21st - MO directed and written by Brian Scott Lederman. Friday, June 22nd - Netherbeast Incorporated directed by Dean Ronalds, written by Bruce Dellis.

“This event will expose independent features and short films to a broad audience and we are excited to show the films that have been selected,” said Jon Patricof, COO of Tribeca Enterprises. “Partnering on this Drive-In event with Tishman Speyer allows us to continue to expand the audience for independent film and offer unique film experiences year round.”

Following are the feature film descriptions:

· Watching the Detectives, directed and written by Paul Soter and starring Lucy Liu, Cillian Murphy, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Panes, Callie Thorne, Michael Yurchak. (U.S.A). Neil (Cillian Murphy) is a quirky cinephile who wishes his life were more like his favorite film noirs. Enter Violet (Lucy Liu), a real-life femme fatale who really does turn life into the movies. Sometimes love is stranger than fiction, and Neil is about to discover just how strange it can be.

· Arctic Tale, directed by Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson. (U.S.A.) - NY Premiere. An epic adventure that explores the vast world of the Great North. The film follows the walrus, Seela and the polar bear, Nanu, on their journey from birth to adolescence to maturity and parenthood in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Once a perpetual winter wonderland of snow and ice, the walrus and the polar bear are losing their beautiful icebound world as it melts from underneath them. Story told by Queen Latifah. A Paramount Vantage Release

· MO, directed and written by Brian Scott Lederman and starring Erik Per Sullivan, Margo Martindale, and Adam Lefevre. (U.S.A.) - NY Premiere. Every kid wants to be cool and fit in – life’s a blast even when you’re different. When Mo’s reflection is revealed, he sees a body that doesn’t quite resemble any of his peers. Here, he tells the tale of his youth, growing up on the south shore of Long Island, New York- How his parents support him, how his wacky brother keeps him laughing, and how his friends help him to escape. After discovering that the reason behind all of his physical differences is a genetic mutation called “Marfan Syndrome”, Mo is forced to come to terms with a more serious reality: he will never be able to do many of the things that the people around him take for granted and he will have to prepare himself for a major heart surgery. As we venture away from our own realities, Mo takes us into his world of hanging out, discovering girls, dealing with school and the doctor’s office, going to parties, trying sports, getting stoned, and contemplating God.

· Netherbeast Incorporated, directed by Dean Ronalds, written by Bruce Dellis and starring Darrell Hammond, Judd Nelson, Dave Foley, Jason Mewes, Steve Burns, Amy Davidson and Robert Wagner. (U.S.A.) - NY Premiere. A quirky twist on the vampire tale, set in modern day corporate America. Employees of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. have kept the family secret for a long time. For years it has been business as usual, until the top vampire in charge contracts a dreaded disease and invites the first humans to work in the office in more than a century. Soon the new employees discover that some of their associates are not what they appear to be, especially the dead one in the cubicle with a wooden stake through his heart.

Tribeca Drive-In at Rockefeller Center will open at 6:00PM daily with the movies beginning at 9:00PM. To complete the summertime movie experience, popcorn and drinks will be available for purchase. Screenings will take place rain or shine.

Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids

Pegasus carousel piece © Andrew Ressetti

May 26, 2007 – January 6, 2008

Dragon shadow puppet © AMNH / Denis Finnin

TRACK THE ORIGINS OF LEGENDARY CREATURES INCLUDING DRAGONS, UNICORNS, MERMAIDS, AND SEA SERPENTS

Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, an enchanting exhibition that traces the cultural and natural history roots of some of the world's most enduring mythological creatures for the first time, is scheduled to open on May 26, 2007. Legendary beasts of land, sea, and air such as dragons, griffins, mermaids, sea serpents, and unicorns are highlighted in this major exhibition scheduled to remain on view through January 6, 2008, after which it will travel to other venues.

For thousands of years, fantastical creatures have been a part of human experience through legends and fables, ancient and contemporary art, performance, and even in the accounts of early naturalists. Mythic Creatures will include spectacular sculptures, paintings, and textiles, along with a number of cultural objects from around the world ranging from shadow puppets to ceremonial masks and helmets that will bring to light surprising similarities­and differences­in the ways peoples around the world have envisioned and depicted these strange and wonderful creatures.

Mythic Creatures will also feature preserved specimens from the Museum's collections, and fossils of prehistoric animals to investigate how they could have, through misidentification, speculation, and imagination, inspired the development of these legendary beasts. For example, visitors will discover how narwhal tusks introduced by northern European traders lent credence to the centuries-old belief in the unicorn (a beast that was probably originally a misunderstanding of a rhinoceros), and how dinosaur fossils uncovered by Scythian nomads may have been mistaken as the remains of living, breathing griffins. And persistent tales of undersea monsters may simply have been sightings of real creatures that are just as fantastic as any imaginary beast, including the oarfish, great white shark, and giant squid.

Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with The Field Museum, Chicago; The Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau; Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney; and Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta.

Location:

Central Park West at 79th Street.

Hours

open daily, 10:00 a.m.–5:45 p.m.

The Rose Center remains open until 8:45 p.m. on the first Friday of every month.

The Museum is closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Space Show Hours:Every half-hour between 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.; First Friday of every month 10:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m.

The Museum Shop is open while the Museum is open, 10:00 a.m.–5:45 p.m. daily.

The New York Public Library Highlights Cause-Related Advertising

from the Last Sixty Years

Ads Matter: Celebrating Advertising & Social Impact

September 26 through November 30, 2006 

at NYPL's Science, Industry and Business Library

188 Madison Avenue New York

Exhibition at The New York Public Library Highlights Cause-Related Advertising from the Last Sixty Years

"Cause of Death" advertising campaign, Di Massimo Brand Advertising, 2001 Advertisements on Display include Well-Known PSAs from the Partnership For a Drug-Free America and the Ad Council

Who can forget the 1986 ad campaign featuring an egg in a frying pan and the accompanying voiceover "This is your brain on drugs"? How many generations have grown up with McGruff the Crime Dog telling them to "Take a bite out of crime"? Could anyone have foreseen the impact of Rosie the Riveter as she helped recruit two million women into the workforce during World War II with her bulging bicep and the slogan "We Can Do It!"? Opening September 26, 2006 at The New York Public Library's Science, Industry and Business Library, 188 Madison Avenue, the exhibition Ads Matter: Celebrating Advertising & Social Impact is a colorful and catchy reminder that the advertising industry has created endearing and beloved icons, catchy slogans, and eye-catching graphics to deliver serious messages to the public. The exhibition will be on view through November 30. Admission is free.

Sixteen large reproductions of advertisements are included in the exhibition, including eight from The Partnership for a Drug-Free America and five from The Ad Council. Ranging from 1942 to the present, the ads confront a wide variety of social causes including preventing forest fires, encouraging blood donation, and stopping online sexual exploitation. In one of the most well-known advertising campaigns in United States history, the "Crying Indian" dramatized how litter harms the environment, and he became the symbol for the environmental movement. A well-known advertising campaign from the Ad Council, "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" with the United Negro College Fund, has helped raise more than $2 billion for the organization and graduate more than 300,000 minority students. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America fights marijuana, heroin, ecstacy, and inhalants in various advertisements.

Science, Industry and Business Library 188 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

tel: +1 (212) 592-7000

The Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), the nation's largest public information center devoted solely to science and business, was created by merging The New York Public Library's extensive resources and services in these areas. Its circulating and noncirculating collections are enhanced by services and electronic resources geared to the needs of science and business users for quick, efficient access to accurate, up-to-date information.Reflecting advances in information and computer technology, SIBL houses multi-format collections.

An Electronic Information Center (EIC), with 73 workstations, connects users to the hundreds of internal and external electronic information resources. The EIC is supported by a 39-workstation Electronic Training Center (ETC). SIBL also offers a circulating library of approximately 4o,ooo titles, and a noncirculating research collection of 1.2 million volumes.

As part of the commemoration of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation today announced its first programming events for the Memorial Museum, “here: remembering 9/11 ,” an outdoor photography exhibition, and “9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman.” The exhibitions will engage visitors at the World Trade Center site from two different vantage points: at ground level at the perimeter fence for the “here:remembering 9/11" exhibition and from the 45th floor of 7 World Trade Center, where “9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman” will be exhibited. Both exhibitions will present photographs which document individuals, our city and our nation responding to a tragic event.

WTC Memorial Foundation Acting President Joseph Daniels, said “These exhibitions are another important step in engaging the public to build a permanent memorial at the World Trade Center site and are an early precursor to the work of the Memorial Museum which will be a world-class institution that will both inform and inspire. We thank Silverstein Properties for allowing the opportunity for the “9/11 and the American Landscape” exhibition to take place in such an extraordinary setting in 7 WTC. In addition to enjoying this moving exhibition, visitors will have an incredible view of the start of construction for the Memorial from the 45th floor of 7 WTC.”

“here: remembering 9/11” features a selection of photographs from the “here is new york: a democracy of photographs” exhibition, which formally opened to the public in New York City on September 25, 2001, as well as additional photographs commissioned for the 5th anniversary. The Foundation will unveil the exhibition later this summer.

“9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman,” feature a selection of 63 photographs of personal tributes and memorials created across the country in response to the attacks of 9/11.   Since September 11th, 2001, Jonathan Hyman has traveled the United States photographing the wide spectrum of American expression post-9/11 and has taken over 15,000 pictures of the personal tributes and memorials created in response to the attacks. From painted barnyards and firehouses to elaborate tattoos and neighborhood murals, the collection depicts a nation publicly coming to grips with a horrifying and shocking attack while at the same time trying to understand its new sense of vulnerability. The photographs present a unique chronicle of post-9/11 society as seen through the American vernacular.

A full color catalogue of the exhibition will be for sale, which includes an essay by acclaimed writer Pete Hamill. Mr. Hamill is a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has spanned over forty years. He has been a columnist for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He has served as editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News. Mr. Hamill witnessed the events of September 11, 2001, and its aftermath and wrote about them for the Daily News.

The exhibition was made possible with the partnership and support of Silverstein Properties. 7 WTC, a 52-story tower designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and developed by Silverstein Properties, is located just north of the World Trade Center site. 7 WTC was the last building to fall on September 11th, 2001 and was the first building rebuilt, opening on May 23, 2006.

ABOUT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL FOUNDATION

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, Inc. is the not-for-profit corporation founded in 2005 to realize the Memorial quadrant at the World Trade Center site. The Foundation will raise the funds, oversee the design, and operate the Memorial, the Memorial Museum, and a Visitor Orientation and Education Center located on 8 of the 16 acres of the site.

The Memorial will remember and honor the thousands of people who died in the horrific attacks of February 26th, 1993 and September 11th, 2001. The design, "Reflecting Absence," created by Michael Arad and Peter Walker consists of two voids that reside in the footprints of the original Twin Towers surrounded by a plaza of oak trees. The Arad/Walker design was selected from a design competition which included more than 5,000 entrants from 63 nations.

The Memorial Museum will include artifacts, interactive exhibitions, a resource center, contemplative areas, and educational programming which will convey individual and collective stories honoring the memory of the victims and recounting the experiences of survivors, responders, area residents, and witnesses. The Memorial Museum will help facilitate an encounter with both the enormity of the loss and the triumph of the human spirit that are at the heart of 9/11, as it affirms the courage, compassion, sacrifice and resilience - the best of humanity - demonstrated at a moment of cataclysmic tragedy.

The power of the written word to sustain life is a theme of Letters to Sala: A Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps, a compelling new exhibition of rare Holocaust-era letters and photographs at The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library. With a trove of documents saved by one young woman during her 5-year ordeal of internment, the exhibition provides a remarkable first-hand view of the human drama that unfolded among Jewish victims forced to work as slave laborers.

The items -- from handwritten postcards to photographs to official documents -- were saved by Sala Garncarz from the time she entered a labor camp in 1940 until her liberation in 1945. The exhibition, curated by Jill Vexler, is on view from March 7 through June 17, 2006 in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery on the Library's first floor. Admission is free. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Library will host two free public curatorial talks and will publish a companion book by Sala Garncarz's daughter, Ann Kirschner.

"How do I say goodbye?" Sala wrote in her diary the day she was sent to the labor camp. "I tried to keep a smile on my face . . . though my eyes were filled with tears. One must go on bravely, courageously, even if the heart is breaking." In addition to diary excerpts such as this, the exhibition presents approximately 100 postcards, letters, photographs, documents, and other artifacts drawn primarily from the Sala Garncarz Collection of the Library's Dorot Jewish Division. The total archive, which encompasses more than 300 items that Sala Garncarz collected and saved at great personal risk during her five years interned in Nazi labor camps, was donated to the Library in 2005 by Sala Garncarz Kirschner and her family.

"As primary documents of the Nazi labor camps, these letters are an invaluable resource for those who study the Holocaust and are among the most fascinating to have been given to the Library in many years," said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. "At the same time, as a collection of intensely personal letters, they bring the terrible human consequences of Nazi forced labor to vivid life, and show the effect of this experience on both the interned Jews and their torn families."

To make Sala's correspondence accessible in English, the exhibition includes an electronic touchscreen monitor featuring translations of many items on display.

The Letters as Sala's Lifeline
Sala Garncarz was 16 years old when, in 1940, she was sent from home to Geppersdorf, a German forced labor camp where Jewish men were building the autobahn (highway) and women worked in the laundry and kitchen. During her 5 years' internment, which brought her to seven different camps in Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, Garncarz received more than 300 letters that were mailed or smuggled to her by friends and family on the outside or in camps themselves. Remarkably, she preserved these letters during her internment and continued to hide them for nearly five decades following her liberation and subsequent marriage to an American G.I., Sidney Kirschner.

The letters on display impart details about Jewish life in occupied Poland, Nazi labor camps, and the human ability to reconstruct life. For Garncarz, the letters provided evidence that her world still existed outside the camps and that her existence within it still mattered. Some carefully handwritten in elegant prose, others hastily jotted down, highlighting the urgent circumstances of their composition, the letters were her lifeline to the friends and family waiting for her return. Saving the letters became inextricably linked with preserving her own life.

The letters portray a young woman through the eyes of those who loved her: her sister, Raizel Garncarz, who wrote on behalf of herself and the immediate family; a suitor, Harry Haubenstock, whom she met in a camp; and Ala Gertner, a campmate who looked after her and stayed in touch with her by mail after they were separated. The sixteen year old's own perspective is painfully laid bare in fragments of a diary written as she departed for the labor camp: "Still, I could not stop looking at you, mother, because I felt something inside of me tearing, hurting. One more kiss, one more hug. My mother does not want to let go of me. Let it end already, it is torture. I say goodbye to my sisters." ,

Garncarz Volunteers for Labor Camp

Sala Garncarz and her family were living in Sosnowiec, an industrial city near Krakow, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The youngest of 11 children born to an impoverished Hebrew teacher and his wife, Sala was one of three unmarried daughters who lived at home.

In 1940, her older sister Raizel was ordered to report to the Geppersdorf labor camp for what was said to be a six-week period. The camp was part of a growing network that relied on Jews as slave laborers in construction, textile manufacturing, and munitions factories, and was administered by Albrecht Schmelt, a high-level Nazi bureaucrat appointed by Heinrich Himmler. An estimated 50,000 Jews from the Upper Silesia region of Poland were eventually interned in these labor camps.

Sala volunteered to take Raizel's place at the camp, believing that her sheltered, intellectual sister would find it harder to adapt. Six weeks stretched to five years of slavery for Sala, and while conditions within the camps were deplorable, written exchanges such as Sala's were permitted because the camp's administrators believed it boosted productivity and relieved the anxiety of those left at home. By the end of 1940, all correspondence had to be written in German and letters had to pass through Nazi censors - many of the papers bear Hitler's image and the "Z" stamp indicating that they had been cleared. The Nazis prohibited mail, however, for those interned in concentration camps.

Embracing a Friendship with Ala Gertner
Saying goodbye to her family at the train station in Sosnowiec, renamed Sosnowitz by the Germans, Sala unexpectedly began the most important friendship of her life, with Ala Gertner. Ala, an elegant, well-spoken woman in her thirties, assured Sala's mother that she would look after her daughter and a life-saving alliance was born. Gertner helped Sala survive inside the labor camp, physically protecting her from the camp's worst dangers while sharing confidences, frustrations, and dreams for the future. After leaving their camp, Ala beseeched her young friend to maintain hope: "Don't be afraid, I always think of your release, just be patient," and later, wrote with advice for a lovelorn young woman, "What's doing with Harry? Where is he? Why is he silent? Don't worry, girl, it'll be fine. Be brave, stay well. Kisses." Gertner was tragically punished for her bravery. She was one of four women hanged for their participation in an uprising at Auschwitz, four weeks before the camp's liberation in 1945.

Saving the Letters
Garncarz recognized that her letters were sustaining her; she risked her life to preserve them, hiding them in her clothing during line-ups, handing them off to friends, throwing them under a building, even burying them. She took them with her from camp to camp. "I have the pictures of our dear father and dear mother, together with all the mail I received from home, starting from the first minute that I left for camp. All along, I watched it and guarded it like the eyes in my head, since it was my greatest treasure," she wrote her sister after the war.

Once her Nazi captors prohibited new mail from reaching the internees in August 1943, Garncarz found comfort in the birthday greetings sent to her by other women in the same camp. Renewing each other's spirit, they kept one another's dreams alive. To Sala on her birthday, they wrote: "Oh, what a great holiday this would be if we celebrated your birthday in freedom, together with your loved ones ... Let good luck shine on you just like the bright sunshine that steals secretly through our camp windows."

Liberation
Upon liberation in 1945, Sala located two of her sisters, the only surviving members of her family. Resuming the life-affirming correspondence, her sister Raizel wrote, "I did not doubt that you were alive, but I could not figure out how you - the one of us who knew best how to survive - remained silent ... Once more, we live for your letters." Her love of years earlier, Harry Haubenstock, had married another, and less than a year after her camp was liberated, Garncarz married Sidney Kirschner, an American soldier, and moved to the United States. The letters were hidden away for decades following the war, until Garncarz revealed their existence to her daughter, Ann Kirschner, before undergoing cardiac surgery in 1992. Sala Kirschner currently lives in Monsey, New York and Pembroke Pines, Florida.

"My family and I are delighted that, through The New York Public Library's exhibition Letters to Sala, the public will have the opportunity to learn my mother's incredible story of survival and courage," said Ann Kirschner. "When the world seemed entirely hostile, a young girl found refuge and hope in these remarkable letters written by her family and friends. Their words will now be preserved and made accessible to the historians and artists whose insights will help future generations to understand the lessons of the past."

the editor, March 3, 2006

Special guest LaLa Brooks joins Robbie and Brian LaBlanc

Saturday, March 11^th, ‘06- 7:30pm at

The Cutting Room, 19 West 24^th Street

NYC,  tel- 212- 691-1900

showtime: 7:30pm- 9pm

The LaBlanc Brothers, featuring Robbie and Brian, will be performing with LaLa Brooks, original and lead singer for the 60's girl group,The Crystals. The Crystals placed six songs in the top twenty in 1962 and 1963 and helped to set the stage for other acts that would follow for their producer, Phil Spector. They helped Spector to establish his famous "Wall Of Sound."

The show will be approximately 90 minutes. It will feature both artists original tunes plus many other favorites...including hits performed by LaLa, "Uptown", "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Then He Kissed Me". Robbie and Brian will sing some of their original tunes off their European and Japanese release in July of '05.

TICKETS

$25.00  (please note tickets are non-refundable). 
Seating is first come, first served.

the editor, January 20, 2006

A Conversation with Director Hal Prince and a Shaw Festival with Appearances by Philip Bosco, Dana Ivey, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, and Eric Bentley at The Library for the Performing Arts

Hal Prince (center) directing Jack Gilford and Lotte Lenya in the original production of Cabaret, New York, 1966. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection (Friedman-Abeles).

September 15: Hal Prince

Legendary director-producer Hal Prince kicks off the Library's 2005-2006 free public program season. The innovative Mr. Prince has spearheaded such memorable stage productions as Cabaret, Candide, Company, Damn Yankees, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof, Follies, Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures , The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story and will discuss his career of more than 50 years in An Evening with Hal Prince, a conversation with the writer Foster Hirsch. Hal Prince has received 20 Tony Awards (more than anyone else in the theater), the National Medal of Arts, and has been a Kennedy Center Honoree. Foster Hirsch is the author of 16 books on theater and film and a professor of film at Brooklyn College. An expanded edition of his book Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre was published this past April.

September 17 - October 25: Man or Superman?:
The Art of George Bernard Shaw

The festival of play readings, lectures, panel discussions, film, and song marks the centennial of many Shavian events, including the writing and first performance of Major Barbara, the first performance of Man and Superman, and actor-producer Arnold Daly's successful, albeit scandalous Shavian season in New York. Daly produced a Shaw festival in New York in autumn 1905, presenting several plays including the New York premiere of Mrs. Warren's Profession. The play was closed after one performance, and Daly and the cast were arrested for disorderly conduct because of the play's depiction of prostitution.

Notable participants include such award-winning actors as Philip Bosco, who has performed in eight productions of plays by Shaw; Dana Ivey, who has appeared both on stage and on television in Shaw plays; Anne Jackson, who appeared in Shaw's Arms and the Man; and Eli Wallach, who appeared in Shaw's Major Barbara.

The Shaw Festival starts September 17, with an appearance by two writers on theater who have not shied from controversy themselves. The venerable critic Eric Bentley, who wrote Bernard Shaw (1947), and the New York Post theater columnist and television host Michael Riedel will look at the controversial Shaw in Shaw in Perspective. In subsequent programs, Shaw's plays will be performed and parsed by a number of Shavian experts. Lady Susana Walton, the widow of Sir William Walton, the great 20th century composer who wrote the film score for Shaw's Major Barbara, will talk about her husband's work and introduce a screening of the film, directed by Gabriel Pascal and starring Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, and Sybil Thorndike. Shaw scholar Leonard Conolly will give a lecture on Mrs. Warren's Profession , focusing on the play as well as the events surrounding the 1905 New York premiere and the court case. Why Shaw Still Matters? will be the subject of a panel discussion by Leonard Conolly, J. Ellen Gainor, Martin Meisel, Charlotte Moore, and Stanley Weintraub. Dr. Rhoda Nathan, President of the Bernard Shaw Society, will lecture on Arnold Daly, Shaw's Man in America . There will be a reading of Mrs. Warren's Profession with Dana Ivey as Mrs. Warren, directed by Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. The series will conclude with a program featuring songs from the musicals based on Shaw's plays, including My Fair Lady and The Chocolate Soldier, performed by members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.

The Schedule

Thursday, September 15, 6:00 p.m. An Evening with Hal Prince in Conversation with Foster Hirsch The renowned director of such musicals as Cabaret, Company, and Phantom of the Opera, discusses his work and career with author Foster Hirsch. The Library's collection of set models by designer Boris Aronson for Mr. Prince's productions will be on display the day of the program.

Saturday, September 17, 4:30 p.m. Shaw in Perspective: Eric Bentley in Conversation with Michael Riedel An interview with Eric Bentley by Michael Riedel inaugurates the George Bernard Shaw series of readings, interviews, lectures, panel discussions, and songs.

Monday, September 19, 6:00 p.m. Shavian Readings with Philip Bosco, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, and Others Among the plays and writings by and about Shaw, the program includes readings from Major Barbara and Man and Superman, which both premiered in 1905.

Wednesday, September 28, 3:00 p.m. An Afternoon with Lady Susana Walton William Walton wrote the music for the film of Shaw's Major Barbara (1941). Walton's widow will talk about her husband's work and introduce a screening of the film, which was directed by Gabriel Pascal and starred Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, and Sybil Thorndike. Shaw collaborated on the film script.

Thursday, September 29, 6:00 p.m. "A Superabundance of Foulness": Mrs. Warren's Profession, New York, 1905. A lecture by Leonard Conolly. (The quote is from The New York Herald.)

Friday, September 30, 3:00 p.m. Why Shaw Still Matters? A panel with Leonard Conolly, J. Ellen Gainor, Martin Meisel, Charlotte Moore, and Stanley Weintraub.

Saturday, October 15, 3:00 p.m. Shaw's Man in America: The Rise and Fall of Arnold Daly Lecture by Rhoda Nathan, President of the Bernard Shaw Society.

Monday, October 24, 6:00 p.m. Reading of Mrs. Warren's Profession with Dana Ivey, Directed by Charlotte Moore Dana Ivey as the title character in this reading of the play that was called "morally rotten" when it premiered in New York in October 1905. Cast members were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.

Tuesday, October 25, 3:00 p.m. Shavian Musicals with Constance Green, Ellen Lang, Irwin Reese, John Russell, and Pianist Robert Rogers Songs from musicals based on Shaw's plays, including Androcles and the Lion, The Chocolate Soldier, Her First Roman, and My Fair Lady will be performed by members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.

About George Bernard Shaw

A playwright and critic, George Bernard Shaw revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy prefaces to Shaw's plays reveal his mastery of English prose. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Born in Dublin in 1856, Shaw left school at 14. In 1876 he went to London and for nine years was largely supported by his parents. He wrote five novels, several of them published in small socialist magazines. Shaw was an ardent socialist, a member of the Fabian Society, and a popular public speaker on behalf of socialism.

Work as a journalist led to his becoming a music critic for the Star in 1888 and for the World in 1890. As drama critic for the Saturday Review after 1895, he won readers to Ibsen; he had already written The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891).

By 1898 his plays were beginning to be produced. Although Shaw's plays focus on ideas and issues, they are vital and absorbing, enlivened by memorable characterizations, a brilliant command of language, and dazzling wit. His early plays were published as Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (2 vol., 1898). The "unpleasant" plays were Widower's Houses (1892), on slum landlordism; The Philanderer (written 1893, produced 1905); and Mrs. Warren's Profession (written 1893, produced 1902), a jibe at the Victorian attitude toward prostitution. The "pleasant" plays were Arms and the Man (1894), satirizing romantic attitudes toward love and war; Candida (1893); and You Never Can Tell (written 1895).

In 1897 The Devil's Disciple, a play on the American Revolution, was produced with great success in New York City. It was published in the volume Three Plays for Puritans (1901) along with Caesar and Cleopatra (1899), notable for its realistic, humorous portraits of historical figures, and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900).

During the early 20th century, Shaw wrote his greatest and most popular plays: Man and Superman (1903), in which an idealistic, cerebral man succumbs to marriage (the play contains an explicit articulation of a major Shavian theme--that man is the spiritual creator, whereas woman is the biological "life force" that must always triumph over him); Major Barbara (1905), which postulates that poverty is the cause of all evil; Androcles and the Lion (1912), a charming satire of Christianity; and Pygmalion (1913), which satirizes the English class system through the story of a cockney girl's transformation into a lady at the hands of a speech professor. The latter has proved to be Shaw's most successful work--as a play, as a motion picture, and as the basis for the musical and film My Fair Lady (1956; 1964).

Of Shaw's later plays, Saint Joan (1923) is the most memorable; it argues that Joan of Arc, a harbinger of Protestantism and nationalism, had to be killed because the world was not yet ready for her. In 1920 Shaw, much criticized for his antiwar stance, wrote Heartbreak House, a play that exposed the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for World War I.

Among Shaw's other plays are John Bull's Other Island (1904), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Fanny's First Play (1911), Back to Methuselah (1922), The Apple Cart (1928), Too True to Be Good (1932), The Millionairess (1936), In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), and Buoyant Billions (1949). Perhaps his most popular nonfiction work is The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928).

He died in 1950 at age 94.

Free Admission on a first come, first seated basis, unless otherwise noted.

For more information call +1212.642.0142.

the editor, September 5, 2005

L’Occitane’s
Lavender Harvest Festival

To honor the history of L’Occitane and its annual Lavender Harvest, L’Occitane will transform Rockefeller Center, during a four day event, into the visually rich and culturally unique landscape of Provence. 

L’Occitane brings the spirit of a Provençal village and lavender fields to Rockefeller Center using over 5,000 lavender bouquets – filling the warm summer air with the intriguing scent so closely associated with Provence. Visitors to Rockefeller Center will stroll through a lavender field and learn about the traditions of Provence while experiencing its scents, sounds and colors.

A True Story…In Haute Provence, there are some villages where the lavender harvest is still a family business.  The lavender harvest is a tradition, handed down from father to son and from mother to daughter.  All year long, the villagers wait for those first summer days when they will gaze enraptured at the deep purple hue of flowering lavender, filling the landscape as far as the eye can see.  They then celebrate, in the middle of the summer, the new lavender harvest. 

traditional Provencal activities:

Ø     Traditional Alembic

o       A small table top working Alembic will be featured and will scent the air with the wonderful fragrance of lavender. Visitors will be taken through the distillation process and will be able to participate in distilling their very own essential oil to take home with them in small jars.

Ø     Essential Oil Provençal Marketplace Stand

o       Visitors will experience and smell rosemary, patchouli, and ylang ylang essential oils, scents found in Provence, like Olivier Baussan’s first stand in a Provençal marketplace.

Ø     Soap Cart

o       The history and techniques of soap making will be shared.

Ø     Olive Oil Cart

o       A selection of olives, olive oils and tapenades from L’Occitane’s sister company O&CO. will be tasted while learning about the history of the olive and its m

any medicinal benefits for the body and skin.

Ø     Pétanque Court

o       A Petanque court will be set-up and a professional Petanque player will be giving lessons and teaching visitors the special throwing technique and more about the game.  The rules of the game will be featured on a Provençal sign; the opposite side will allow the visitor to keep their score.

Ø     Traditional French bicycles with baskets of lavender circling around Manhattan distributing lavender bunches with information about the Lavender Harvest Event tied to the stems. 

Ø     An old-fashioned pickup truck will drive around Manhattan handing out lavender bunches.  The truck will also be loaded up and overflowing with lavender. 

Ø     Live French music.

Ø    Wine tasting and chocolate tasting and a French reading garden featuring a selection of books from Libraire de France.

August 11, 2005

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick

IN

The Odd Couple

PREVIEWING IN OCTOBER, 2005

Tony winners Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, who famously starred in The Producers together, are now set to reunite in a revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. The show, directed by Joe Mantello, is expected to begin previews on the Great White Way on October 4 in preparation for an official opening in late October.  Venue to be confirmed.

The Odd Couple centers on a pair of mismatched roommates, one neat and polite, Felix Unger (Broderick), and the other sloppy and crude, Oscar Madison (Lane).

The comedy was a big hit when it opened on Broadway in 1965. That production ran 966 performances before closing on July 2, 1967. Simon rewrote the play with female characters (naming them Florence Unger and Olive Madison), and the new version opened on the Great White Way in 1985 and ran over eight months. The original The Odd Couple was the source for a popular television series and film. In 2002 the Geffen Playhouse presented Oscar and Felix, A New Look at The Odd Couple, an updated take on the classic. There was talk that the production would transfer to New York, but it received mediocre reviews and never made it to the East Coast.

February 15, 2005

FINA Swimming World Cup

February 11-12, 2005
at Nassau County Aquatics Center
East Meadow, New York

The world’s best swimmers compete at the Nassau County Aquatics Center on February 11-12 in the seventh leg of the 2004/2005 FINA Swimming World Cup. This is the second-to-last meet in the series that makes eight stops worldwide. Other stops include Durban, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; Daejon, Korea; Stockholm, Sweden; Berlin, Germany; Moscow, Russia and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The total amount of prize money for the Series is over $1,000,000.

For the fifth-consecutive year, the overall winners of the series will be determined using a FINA Points Table in which performances are converted into points. The swimmers (men and women) who obtain the most points throughout the year will be declared winners of the FINA Swimming World Cup. Only swimmers participating at one meet in each zone (Asia/Oceania/Africa, Europe and Americas) will be eligible for this ranking.

February 8, 2005

62nd annual Golden Globe Awards'

Nominations

announced December 13, 2005

star-studded ceremony on

January 16, 2005 at 8.00pm EST

highlights

Alexander Payne's comedy "Sideways" receive 7 nominations and actor Jamie Foxx scored the most for an individual  with three nominations.
Other nomination leaders in the movie categories include "The Aviator" with 6, and "Closer", "Finding Neverland" and "Million Dollar Baby" received 5.
Highlights in the television categories include "Desperate Housewives" and the made-for-TV movie "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" - both of which receive 4 nominations.