Big Ticket | Upper East Side Penthouse for $22.7 Million |
A duplex penthouse on the Upper East Side, with five bedrooms and views of Central Park, was the sale of the week.
Deployed, but to the Streets
By Amina Labane
Dear Diary:
I sat stiffly at the edge of my seat with the scruffy-looking man who had limped toward me on 42nd and Seventh while I was walking toward the train. I had just paid for his pork fried rice and I was mentally slapping myself in the face for sitting with a complete stranger in this deserted Chinese restaurant in the city.
“Do you happen to have a couple of dollars on you?” he had grumbled out earlier, rubbing the bristles on the side of his face with his soiled hands. I could just see him taking my money greedily and going around the corner to buy some illegal substance from God knows whom to get off in some alleyway.
“I won’t give you my money. But if you’re hungry, I’ll buy you something to eat,” I had told him. I only had $30 on me but it was food; it wouldn’t hurt.
He uncovered the lid of his plate and set up his utensils on the proper sides of the plates.
“You know, I used to be able to come in here and buy food for people like you’re doing. But that was back when I would come home from deployment.” He sat back and stared down at the food in front of him while I began to eat mine.
Deployment …
I began to sink back in my chair as I let out a breath of relief.
“Are you … going to eat?” I smiled hopefully.
“Oh yes, of course. I just like to relish the sight before I eat. It’s such a blessing to just have a plate of food waiting for you to enjoy it,” He beamed at me before diving in.
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New York Today: Pictures of the Protests, and More
By Annie Correal and Andy NewmanGood morning on this cool and cloudy Friday.
The grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner this week was quickly followed by protests.
For two days now, the demonstrators have held signs.
They have stopped traffic.
And, as captured in an exemplary image from Wednesday’s protests, they lie on the ground at Grand Central Terminal.
The photograph was on the front page of The Times, and within a day, it was shared thousands of times online.
We asked The Times photographer Todd Heisler about that moment.
The protest took place at around 4:45.
“All of the sudden, people just dropped,” he said. “They didn’t say a word — it just happened.”
Mr. Heisler continued: “At first it was maybe 20-some people. It was off the center of the floor, 50 feet from the clock in the middle.”
The silent protest — which suggested the image of Mr. Garner’s slain body — grew to include dozens of people and lasted an hour.
Mr. Heisler said as commuters passed, they stopped and took in the protest, but he did not know the emotion would resonate beyond the terminal.
So, why did he think it stood out?
“I don’t want to inject anything into it,” he said, “but I think people felt disappointment.”
“People were let down. That was the mood at that moment.”
There is a slide show of the Week in Pictures.
And here’s what else you need to know. Read more…
A Hamsa in the Diamond District
By Arlene Kurtis
Dear Diary:
I am not a jewelry person. I wear very little jewelry, a watch maybe. But I decided I needed a hamsa, a hand-shaped charm believed in Middle Eastern lore to bring good luck.
What better place to look for one than the 47th Street diamond district? At the first counter, at 20 West 47th, I found Ronny, an energetic Israeli who took me in hand once I explained I had written a novel, “Lila’s Hamsa,” and had found that most people did not know the name of the amulet. “If I show them one I’m wearing, they’ll understand,” I said.
I didn’t want diamonds, I told him, just a pretty filigree hamsa. Off we went down the long aisle to a gray-haired man at the end counter. He took out a tray of trinkets and I found a pretty hamsa among them. “That’s $450,” he said. My eyes widened. “For you, $45,” he added, smiling.
The trouble was the hamsa had a glass “diamond” in the center, and in my story, the heroine has a turquoise there. “So, I give you a turquoise bead, no charge,” Ronny said. “I take you to a jeweler who will put in place for you, $10 for the jeweler, nothing for me.”
With the bead in place, I put the hamsa on my chain and fastened it around my neck. The gray-haired jeweler insisted on placing a bracelet on my wrist with still another hamsa, no charge. With handshakes all around, I departed wearing my sparkling hamsa. Such hospitality certainly deserves a copy of my book. No charge.
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New York Today: Dissent and Demonstrations
By Andy Newman
Good morning on this chilly Thursday.
The city is relatively calm this morning after a night of protests followed a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer for the July chokehold death of Eric Garner.
The protests, involving thousands of people, were largely peaceful.
A quick roundup:
• The police said this morning that 83 people were arrested, a vast majority for disorderly conduct and a few for obstruction. No one was charged with assaulting an officer.
• Protesters blocked traffic all over Midtown and at the Lincoln Tunnel, Brooklyn Bridge and R.F.K. Bridge, among other places.
• The marchers also tried to shut down the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting, but were kept away. “#myNypd is protecting that tree more than they ever protected #EricGarner,” mused one Twitter user.
• An officer’s private car was set on fire outside the 77th Precinct station house in Crown Heights, but no arrests were made.
• Mr. Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” were chanted by protesters all over the city and across the country.
• Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who could be seen choking Mr. Garner in a video and whose action the medical examiner said caused Mr. Garner’s death, stated that he never intended to harm Mr. Garner.
• Officer Pantaleo said in a statement that he hoped Mr. Garner’s family members “will accept my personal condolences for their loss.” They did not.
• More protests are expected today, including one at Foley Square downtown at 5:30 p.m. and another on 125th Street and Park Avenue at 6 p.m.
• The Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders hold an 11 a.m. news conference on their plans to deal with what they call a “national crisis” of police violence against minorities.
• Mayor de Blasio, who said Wednesday night, “Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel called to action right now,” does not have any events scheduled yet. A taped interview with him will air on HOT-97 FM radio at 8:15 a.m. Listen.
• The city said that it was speeding up a program to equip officers with body cameras and that some might begin wearing them as soon as Friday.
• Some critics of the police were not impressed by the camera measure. “What good is a body camera?” asked Representative Gregory Meeks of Queens. “In effect we had a body camera here. We’ve seen it all.”
Here’s what else you need to know. Read more…
Reaction to Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision
By The New York Times
Protesters gathered in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday night after a Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner. See related article.
Chanting “I can’t breathe” — Mr. Garner’s dying words — and carrying signs, they blocked traffic in Times Square, pushed against police barricades near the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, and lay down en masse at Columbus Circle.
At least 30 protesters were arrested, the police said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he understood the protesters’ anger but urged them to remain peaceful.
“Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel called to action right now,” the mayor said.
Mr. Garner, 43, died in July after officers tried to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes. The medical examiner concluded that Mr. Garner died from a chokehold applied by Officer Daniel Pantaleo and the compression of his chest by police officers.
The decision was awaited across the country as tension lingered from a Missouri grand jury’s refusal last month to indict an officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson. Mr. Garner was also black and unarmed. His fatal encounter with the police was captured on video.
These updates are done for the day. The Times’s coverage of the aftermath of the Garner grand jury decision will resume in the morning.
Read more…
An Usher at the Roxy
By Morton Lebow
Years ago when there was still the Roxy Theater, the palace at 50th Street and Seventh Avenue, I took a brief summer job as an usher.
One day during a matinee performance, a short man in an overcoat came walking down the aisle. In my most professional manner, I approached him and asked, “May I help you, sir?”
He drew himself up to all of his 5-foot 2-inch height and replied indignantly, “They give you a uniform; you think you’re a big shot!”
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New York Today: The Year in Crime
By Annie Correal
Good morning on this wet Wednesday.
The city awaits the grand jury’s decision in the Eric Garner case.
Mayor de Blasio on Tuesday announced a citywide decline in nearly every category of major crime under his watch.
There were 290 homicides in the first 11 months of 2014, putting the city on track to beat last year’s record low, 335.
Robberies, considered a reliable indicator of street crime, dropped by 14 percent.
We talked with The Times police reporter, J. David Goodman, about the decline.
He pointed out some areas that bucked the generally positive trend.
Not all crimes have declined; shootings, which surged early in the year, are not counted among major crimes.
Grand theft auto also made a comeback, likely because of a legal loophole that allows old cars to be sold as junk with barely a question asked.
And Mr. Goodman pointed out that crime has gone up in some places.
“We’ve seen a 100 percent increase in murder” in the 47th Precinct, which covers part of the northern Bronx, he said.
Certain public housing projects, like the Bushwick Houses in Brooklyn, also saw more violent crime.
“These are good numbers for the mayor and for giving him a response to critics that thought he was going to preside over a rise in crime,” he said.
“But for people who live in areas where there was an increase, it’s sort of cold comfort that crime has gone down elsewhere.”
The Police Department has a crime map of the city.
Here’s what else is happening. Read more…
A Change of Seasons
By Tom Furlong
Dear Diary:
A flock of blackbirds flying south
peppers the sky, then settles down
in rows on wires by the road
lined up like judges in their robes
or citizens crowding the city streets
for the season’s parade before the feast.
Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.
New York Today: City of (More) Trees
By Annie Correal
Good morning on this gloomy Tuesday.
It may snow after lunch.
Believe it or not, the city streets are greener than a hundred years ago.
Many blocks that appear barren in photographs from the early 20th century are now lushly shaded by trees, The Times reporter Andy Newman discovered.
The director of street tree planting for the parks department, Matthew Stephens, told him, “There’s hundreds of photos we’ve encountered in the course of our work — from the teens, 20s, 30s — and it’s rare that you see trees in them at all.”
The forces behind the change were various.
Robert Moses figures in, as usual. But a lot of the growth has been more recent; from 1995 to 2007, 120,000 trees were planted.
The transformation, however, is not entirely even.
The blogger behind I Quant New York, Ben Wellington, used city data to make a compelling “heat tree map” of the city.
He found some evidence of “street tree inequality” — wealthier neighborhoods had slightly more street trees.
Lately, the city has been trying to close the gap, planting trees in places like East Harlem, East New York in Brooklyn and Morrisania in the Bronx.
Since 2007, when the city started the Trees for Public Health program, 7,000 trees have been planted in East New York alone.
“The trees are only a few inches in diameter, but it’s already totally transformative,” Mr. Stephens said.
Here’s what else you need to know. Read more…